Apples and oranges

It isn't the done thing to criticise other worthy toilers in the field, especially when they do a reasonably good job – although that hasn't stopped us in the past.

But, having written with Christopher Booker, way back, a book called The Mad Officials, we pride ourselves on knowing a thing or two about regulation and its enforcement. Thus, we could not let the latest offering by Open Europe go by without some sort of comment.

Reviewed by the redoubtable Bruno Waterfield in The Daily Telegraph today, we are told that "EU laws cost twice as much as British ones to enforce," an assertion based on a report by the said Open Europe.

Its study finds that Brussels legislation has cost the British economy £124 billion, accounting for 71 percent of the total cost of all red tape, both national and European, implemented in Britain since 1998. And all this comes from looking at thousands of official impact assessments, thus finding that EU regulation is 2.5 times less cost-effective than domestic laws.

On that basis, we are earnestly advised by Sarah Gaskell, author of the study, that: "Our research clearly shows that it's far more cost-effective to regulate domestically than is it is to legislate through the EU. This means that passing laws as close as possible to the citizen is not only more democratic, but also vastly cheaper."

So far so good, but while we are entirely happy with the idea that EU legislation does cost more than equivalent British law, Sarah Gaskell has a little difficulty proving this. The way she comes to her conclusion is by assessing the national cost-benefit ratios of EU-derived laws, compared with the same ratios derived from dissimilar British laws.

Since the notional cost-benefit of EU laws yields – according to estimate – a ratio of 1.02, while the UK law delivers 2.35, this allows the assertion that EU law is 2.5 less cost-effective. Unfortunately though, Ms Gaskell is not comparing like with like. She is comparing apples with oranges.

For instance, she cites the cost of EU environmental regulation coming into force since 1998, which she asserts is 18 percent of the entire cost of regulation over the same period, or £31.7 billion. But, to make a valid comparison, she would have to compare the cost of current regulations with what might have been our environmental legislation had we not been in the EU.

Here, a "what might have been" assessment is somewhat imponderable, as who knows what an independent British government might have done, given its propensity for making all sorts of draconian laws without EU intervention. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could have even worse legislation than we have how.

This is certainly feasible with our raft of food safety laws. Before even EU law was introduced, our "Mad Officials" were storming through the country, making insane and expensive demands which had nothing to do with EU requirements – or even the then current law of the land.

And the EU laws that were eventually introduced were based largely on a British initiative. But for the restraining effect of other member states, they could have been even more rigorous than they actually are.

Therein lies a central flaw in trying to assess the impact of our membership of the EU. Shortly, on 1 April, the British government is to introduce the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, stage two of the "cap and trade" programme brought in by the ETS. It is estimated that the first full year of operation will cost £1.4 billion, but the scheme is entirely home grown. It has nothing to do with the EU.

The problem, we concluded, when it comes to regulation, is not primarily with the EU. It is with our own government, which embraces EU laws, asks for more and then creates its own. Departure from the EU could bring us even more – notwithstanding that much of current EU law is actually of international law, implemented via the EU, that we would implement anyway, whether we were in or out of the EU.

If we had a government interested in good governance, a government that was capable of producing good law and enforcing it wisely, like as not it would find EU membership abhorrent. We would never have joined and, even now, we would be on our way out.

Thus, fashionable and entertaining though it is to mount a spurious case against "Brussels", the real enemy is in our own back yard - our own government and our own legislators. In tactical terms, what we need to do is work out what sort of government we want, and how we want to be governed. Demanding that model, one then hopes, would necessarily put us in the EU departure lounge.

But simply longing for our departure is also to countenance putting us in a situation where we are outside the EU, with not very much else changed. In which case, the question is: why bother?

Then, Open Europe is not in the business of seeking our withdrawal from the EU. Much of the report is devoted to improving EU law – a forlorn endeavour, not least when the British government is a major cheerleader in demanding more. Thus, mixing metaphors horribly, the cart is before the horse. Fill the cart with good old English apples, bugger the oranges and sort out where to put the horse.

COMMENT THREAD

Sly, dishonest gradualism

Picking up in the news story yesterday that the government was considering such a move, George Pitcher in The Daily Telegraph thinks that lowering the drink-drive limit is an "absurd" idea.

In December, however, the same newspaper found it "puzzling" that Lord Adonis wanted to re-open the debate on the issue.

But, as we remarked at the time, it wasn't puzzling at all. This is part and parcel of a covert attempt at harmonising traffic laws in the EU, which made an appearance in May 2004, based on an agenda set out in 2002. The drink-drive limit is part of it - random testing is another.

What we are seeing is a graphic example of the way the system works. Knowing that an overt "in-your-face" harmonising directive would be hugely unpopular – and underline quite how much power we have given away – the EU works in the shadows, getting member states, apparently voluntarily, to bring their own laws closer into line with the European "ideal".

Each time this is done, it comes out without reference to the EU – presented, as is the case here, as if it was a UK initiative. Then, in the fullness of time, when our laws are so close to the rest of the other member states that it makes no difference, the EU brings out a directive to "regularise" the position. By that time, the differences are so slight that the EU law is entirely uncontentious.

This dynamic counters the popular myth that member state governments are somehow unwillingly forced into line by the EU. This is a process of active collusion between governments against their own peoples. It is sly, dishonest gradualism which recognises that, if it was done openly, it would be opposed.

In avoiding any mention of the EU, as do the newspapers today (and yesterday), the media also collude in the process. And so do the opposition parties. You will not hear from Boy Dave's merry little men that this is an EU-inspired measure. If there is any criticism, it will be because it is a "Labour" measure. The fact that road safety became an EU competence in the Maastricht treaty, under John Major, is neither here nor there.

Thus are our liberties and national distinctiveness eroded, all in the name of European political integration, and we are not even allowed to know why it is happening.

COMMENT THREAD

The world we live in

"No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'", headlines The Mail on Sunday. Compare and contrast this with the headline: "Checks to see if foreign out-of-hours doctors can speak English 'go against EU rules'" - in The Daily Mail.

So, an English-speaking British worker can be refused a job in his own country because he does not speak a foreign language ... which is almost certainly against EU law, although it is not enforced. Yet a foreign doctor cannot be refused a job in England because he cannot speak English ... all because of EU rules, which are enforced.

And the reason we should not rise up and slaughter them all is?

COMMENT THREAD

The hidden hand

"Foreign lorry drivers should pay for road use say MPs", blares the headline in The Daily Telegraph.

Knowing the predilection of newspapers for getting even the simplest things wrong, it was necessary to check the Public Accounts Committee report to see if our gifted MPs had really said such a thing. And indeed they had, albeit in not such strident terms. What they actually said was:

We are concerned that foreign lorries use our roads and cause accidents here but, unlike British lorries, do not pay any tax. The Department [for Transport] should work with the Treasury to reduce this imbalance and find a way for foreign lorries to pay for their keep on our roads.

With that, one could not disagree, but – to put it mildly – the honourable members are being more than a little disingenuous. The report was actually about inspection standards for commercial vehicles and the MPs had inquired as to whether inspection charges could be imposed on foreign vehicles as a means of addressing the huge cost of policing the flood of foreign trucks entering this country every day.

They were in fact told that the Department had considered introducing a "European vignette scheme" under which foreign operators would be required to pay a fee for each vehicle entering the country. But the level of the fee would have been fixed by European law at a maximum of €11 and the Department's cost benefit analysis had shown that such a scheme would offer poor value for money.

The problem is that, for such a small sum, the costs of collection and administration exceed the income, so it is a non-starter. Thus, another attempt bites the dust, impaled on the altar of European integration.

A much better – and more accurate – headline, therefore, would have been: "EU blocks charges on foreign trucks," which could have been the case if the MPs had chosen to frame their report in terms of the evidence they had been given. But, as always, our representatives are never anxious to display to their adoring voters just how much power they have given away to the evil empire.

The only way, legally, the UK can impose worthwhile charges on foreign trucks is to have a non-discriminatory scheme which applies equally to domestic trucks as well, which is why the French and the Germans, with their road toll systems, can get away with it. But that would mean huge changes to the British system, which is not something the government is yet prepared to consider.

Thus, the voting public must be kept in that twilight world, a fog of incomprehension, buoyed by meaningless headlines which herald things that will never happen.

And, in the same territory, Cranmer picks up on an amendment to the law on performing rights, which is to remove the exemption currently enjoyed by charities and "non-profits" on paying license fees for performing musical works - in church halls and the like.

Set to cost these worthy enterprises some £20 million a year, no mention is made of the reason for making the change. A little investigation on behalf of Cranmer, however, reveals that the original UK rules were "non-compliant" with EU law and now, after a considerable elapse of time, the amendment is being passed through parliament to regularise the position.

Neither our gifted legislators nor the voting public are allowed to know this, of course, other than being told that the change is "a legal imperative."

Yet, in a matter of weeks now, we are to vote in a general election, supposedly to choose our next government. You can quite understand why so many people are entirely indifferent to this event. A few individuals in Westminster may swap sides in the House, but our rulers will stay the same.

COMMENT THREAD

"A serious injustice"

That is what The Daily Telegraph and others are reporting.

Lord Justice Moses said that he was powerless to block another court's decision to send Garry Mann to serve the sentence in a Portuguese jail because of fast-track extradition rules but suggested that the Government or European Court of Human Rights should step in.

That is the wonderful EU for you. What price sovereignty, when even a High Court judge cannot protect a British citizen.

COMMENT THREAD

Not puzzling at all

"Plans to review permitted alcohol levels for drivers would have no impact on criminally irresponsible individuals who routinely drive while well over the limit," says The Daily Telegraph leader. "It is therefore puzzling that Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, wants to reopen this debate," it then observes.

No it isn't puzzling – it isn't puzzling at all. This is an EU initiative. It goes right back to May 2004 when the EU decided it wanted common drink-driving limits. Only, instead of coming out in the open, it is pushing for each member state "voluntarily" to impose harmonised standards, and only then will it issue a Directive, claiming that this is simply to regularise a position that already exists.

The EU commission is well-aware that bringing out a harmonising Directive at this stage would trigger a huge wave of protest and anti-EU sentiment, so it is working behind the scenes, with a threat that, unless the member states comply "voluntarily" it will push for a new law.

The whole agenda was set out in 2002 (138 pages .pdf) - a project called "ESCAPE", which plans EU-wide traffic law harmonisation and common enforcement standards. The drink-drive limit is only one of the proposals. Standard speed limits, random breath-testing and uniform fines are all proposed.

As always, though, the papers cannot see what id in front of their very eyes – hence the leader writer finding the current government action "puzzling". These people are children when it comes to understanding how our government now works.

COMMENT THREAD

Supposi-Tory waffle

David Cameron has asked Lord Young, the Tory peer, to review "over-the-top health and safety laws" and scrap any legislation which does not fulfil a useful purpose.

The man claims that the European Union and Labour were "partly to blame" because of the volume of legislation they had created. But, he said, the biggest problem related to the way laws were interpreted. He complained about the "perception we have allowed to develop that in Britain today behind every accident there is someone who is personally culpable, someone who must pay."

Thus does he avoid the "elephant in the room". Health and safety at work is, of course, an exclusive EU competence. Thus, the EU is responsible for European directives concerning the protection of workers, of which this is a list:

1.1 Framework directive
1.2 Individual directives (within the meaning of Article 16 of Directive 89/391/EEC)
1.2.01 Workplaces
1.2.02 Use of work equipment
1.2.03 Use of personal protective equipment
1.2.04 Work with display screen equipment
1.2.05 Manual handling
1.2.06 Carcinogens
1.2.07 Biological agents
1.2.08 Safety signs
1.2.09 Pregnant workers
1.2.10 Mineral-extracting industries (drilling)
1.2.11 Mineral-extracting industries
1.2.12 Fishing vessels
1.2.13 Chemical agents
1.2.16 Temporary or mobile construction sites
1.2.14 Physical agents - vibration
1.2.15 Physical agents - noise
1.3 Temporary workers
1.4 Medical treatment on board vessels
1.5 Young people
1.7 Transport activities
1.8 Explosive atmospheres
1.9 Electrical equipment for use in potentially explosive atmospheres in mines susceptible to firedamp
1.10 Commission Communication on the practical implementation of the Framework Directive and first 5 daughter Directives, 05.02.2004
2. Protection of workers from risks related to exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents
2.1 Chemical agents
2.2 Individual directives
2.2.1 Metallic Lead
2.2.2 Asbestos
2.2.3 Noise
2.2.4 Banning
2.2.5 Indicative limit values
2.3 Vinyl chloride monomer
3. Working time
3.1 Working time
4. Equal treatment for men and women (employment, training and working conditions)
B. Internal market: approximation of laws
1. Machines, products and apparatus
1.1 CE marking 93/68
1.2 Machines
1.3 Lifts
1.4 Personal protective equipment
1.5 Equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres (ATEX)
1.6 Pressure vessels
1.7 Gas cylinders
1.8 Aerosol dispensers
1.9 Simple pressure vessels
1.10 Pressure equipment
1.11 Construction plant and equipment
1.11.1 General provisions
1.11.2 Noise emission of construction plant and equipment
1.11.2.1 Sound power level of welding generators
1.11.2.2 Sound power level of compressors
1.11.2.3 Sound power level of power generators
1.11.2.4 Sound power level of powered hand-held concrete-breakers and picks
1.11.2.5 Sound power level of tower cranes
1.11.2.6 Sound power level of lawnmowers
1.12 Limitation of noise emitted by hydraulic excavators, rope-operated excavators, dozers, loaders and excavator-loaders
1.13 Construction products
1.14 Product safety
1.15 Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)
1.16 Electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits
1.17 Appliances burning gaseous fuels
2. Dangerous substances and preparations
2.1 Framework directive
C. European directives concerning the protection of workers, consumers and population
1 Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances
1.1 Framework directive
2 Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations
3 Safety data sheet
4 Risk assessment of substances
4.1 Risk assessment of existing substances
4.2 Risk assessment of new substances
5 Liability for defective products
6 General Product Safety
7 Major hazards of certain industrial activities
8 Transport of dangerous goods by road
8.1 Transport of dangerous goods by road
8.2 Checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road
8.3 Safety adviser for the transport of dangerous goods
9 Transport of dangerous goods by rail
10 Biotechnology
10.1 Genetically modified micro-organisms
11 Pesticides
11.1 Pesticides – Agriculture
D. Euratom
1 Ionising radiation

Those are just the Directives. That does not include the seven-page list of regulations, and the thousands of EU standards. The betting is that the Boy plans to scrap none of these. This is the usual supposi-Tory waffle - sound-bites to sound good, but no substance.

COMMENT THREAD

A stunning victory?

"British banks win 'stunning' victory in landmark ruling on overdraft fees", says The Daily Telegraph, amongst the many media sources to comment on the ruling by our "Supreme" Court.

HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds are among seven lenders who had asked the Court to halt a challenge to their fees brought by the Office of Fair Trading, but there is more to the ruling than meets the eye.

According to the judgement handed down, the issue depended "on the correct interpretation (in its European context) and application of Regulation 6(2) of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 SI 1999/2083."

However, we then see that: "The 1999 Regulations were made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 in order to transpose into national law Council Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts."

The "victory” then, is one for EU law – which completely goes against the grain of expectations. As for the "Supreme" court, all it was doing was interpreting the diktats of our masters in Brussels. But, as always, in none of the MSM accounts does one see any reference to this.

The Times rails that the "decision is bad for consumers and competition" but it does not tell us why it was made. The invisible "elephant in the room", as always, is positively thriving.

Thus we get Money Mail assistant editor James Coney lamenting "If OFT can't decide bank charges are unfair, who can?" The answer, of course, is "the EU stoopid". But we are not allowed to know this.

COMMENT THREAD

Subject to some malfunction

The Daily Telegraph runs a lead item today (with a very similar piece in The Times), reporting that workers who fall ill during their holidays could now claim the time back from their employers.

Open Europe attributes the original story to People Management, but the Telegraph version says that this new situation follows "a landmark European Court of Justice judgement", although the report does not confirm that this is the case.

It is, we are told, an extrapolation from a judgement in favour of an employee who claimed that he should be able to shift his scheduled holiday because he had fallen ill just before he was due to go on leave, claiming sickness entitlement until he was fit enough to go on leave.

If the interpretation is correct, this means that the system can be abused, as the newspaper claims it can be. Someone actually on holiday, where self-certification is in force, can go down with a cold for a few days, or some such (or pretend to do so), and claim those days as sick leave, thus extending their holiday entitlement.

Experience, though, warns against taking anything a newspaper might say about an ECJ judgement at face value, without first reading the judgement on the court's website. Reference to the site, however, tells us that publication of case reports "... may be subject to some malfunction during the month of September." That prediction seems to have been accurate. There is no record of the case to which the newspaper refers.

But the ECJ is more accurate than it perhaps intended. If the Telegraph is even close to reporting the truth, there is indeed "some malfunction" ... in the whole system by which we are governed. On the face of it, the court is saying that sickness is a one-way bet. Leave entitlement only applies if you are healthy. If you are sick while on leave, the employer pays.

Maybe that is fair – maybe not. But it does add yet another burden on already hard-pressed employers. Such a decision, to impose yet more burdens, should be taken by our Parliament, after due consideration and debate. But these issues are no longer decided by our MPs. We have a supreme court in Luxembourg which tells us what we must do.

That is unacceptable. We all know it is unacceptable. But that is our system of government. And that is another reason why we must leave the EU.

COMMENT THREAD

Those light bulbs

Booker is hot on the case of the disappearing light bulbs in this week's column, the bulbs that supposedly become "illegal" on 1 September, when all we will be able to buy are the energy-saving compact fluorescents.

What Booker has done, by the simple expedient of asking Defra for details of the "legal base" on which authority the incandescent bulbs are banned, is discover a bizarre situation where, despite assertions to the contrary, there is actually no legal power in place to prevent these light bulbs being imported or sold.

The story starts with EU's 2005 directive on Eco-Design of Energy-Using Products directive, Directive 2005/32/EC which, for some unaccountable reason, the Defra official referenced as 2005/31.

This little gem sets up a system which requires member states to implement domestic law which prohibits the "placing on the market" of certain "energy-using products" (EuPs) unless they conform to specific technical specifications, as defined by current (and subsequent) EU regulations.

For this "framework" directive to become law, therefore, it must be transposed into UK law, which Defra tells us it has done, under the Eco-design for Energy Using Products Regulations (S.I. 2007 No.2037). Reference to these Regulations, however, is more than a little bit interesting.

Regulation 3 (Part 2) does prohibit the placing of a "listed product" on the market unless it complies with certain technical criteria. Reference to the definition of a "listed product" (Regulation 2), though, yields a list in paragraph 1 of Part 1 to Schedule 1. And there, one finds just three products: (a) a boiler or an appliance; (b) a refrigerator appliance; (c) a ballast for fluorescent lighting.

Perspicacious readers will immediately discern that there is a curious omission. There is no reference to lighting products – of any description. On the face of it – and certainly relying on Defra – there is no law in force which can be interpreted as banning the sale of incandescent lamps.

What gets even murkier, however, is Defra's insistence that the specific "Implementing Measure" banning the placing on the market of incandescent bulbs takes the form of a directly applicable Commission Regulation (EC) 244/2009.

Sure enough, this makes mandatory conformity with the ecodesign requirements set out in the regulations for any "non-directional household lamps", these being products which "are designed essentially for the full or partial illumination of a household room, by replacing or complementing natural light with artificial light, in order to enhance visibility within that space."

Being a Commission Regulation, this has "direct effect" which means it comes into force the moment it is "done in Brussels", without coming anywhere near our provincial parliament. BUT – and it is a very big "but" – as an EU law, it specifies neither enforcement provisions nor penalties. These must be set out in UK law and, so far, we have not been appraised of any such law which applies to the sale of these products.

On this basis, the response of any retailer to being told that the sale of such products contravenes EU law should be "so what?" Without enforcement powers or penalties, there is nothing any official can do.

Even if this hurdle was surmounted, there is another problem. The prohibition applies only to "household lamps", although the Regulation does extend the prohibition to include "when they are marketed for non-household use or when they are integrated into other products."

There is no prohibition, however, on selling any "special purpose lamp", which is defined as a lamp "not intended for household room illumination because of its technical parameters or because the related product information indicates that it is unsuitable for household room illumination." Thus it would seem that as long as incandescent lamps are marked with the labelling "unsuitable for household room illumination", it is perfectly legal to sell them.

Such is the mess in which we now find ourselves that, as Booker observes, in its desire to bend over backwards to meet the wishes of the EU, our government has made a total Horlicks of trying to understand the laws it is so eager to comply with.

COMMENT THREAD

A Letter from Limburg

More EU Interference

The Netherlands has always been proud of its drugs policy. Drug addicts are treated as being ill, and given medical treatment as such, not criminalized as in so many other countries, It's a strange situation based, like a lot of other Dutch law non-enforcement, on 'tolerance' (turning a blind eye or, as the Dutch call it, gedoogbeleid). You can buy and possess soft drugs up to a certain quantity "for personal use" - cross the limit and you are automatically classed as a dealer. Coffee shops are grudgingly permitted, though border towns regularly complain about the nuisance caused by "drugs tourists" from our not so enlightened neighbours.

Our liberal policy hasn't endeared us with some of those neighbours; it's been a constant source of conflict with France, who have often tried to use political leverage to change Dutch policy,and Germany (who in a quite shameful incident at one point prosecuted a Dutch citizen - Harm Dorst - for selling soft drugs to Germans in Arnhem, where it was actually quite legal).

The European Commission is starting to tread on sensitive ground with its announcement that it wants to force member countries to ban the popular party drug BZP (benzylpiperazine). Banned by the American EDA on a totally fraudulent report that it is 10 times more powerful than amphetamines (when in fact it's ten times weaker), the harmful effects and addiction levels are still unclear.

Nevertheless, the European Commission has decided to propose to the Council to make BZP subject to control measures and criminal procedures. In the words of Vice President Frattini "... This decision is an illustration of the European Union's risk assessment system at work. We have a responsibility to protect European citizens against dangerous psychoactive substances such as BZP".

Dutch EMP Sophie in 't Veld (D66) wants the effects of the drug to be investigated before a ban is imposed, but the Dutch (or the Irish, where it is also legal) might not get any say in the matter.

If the Commission decides to impose a ban - by qualified majority on the basis of Article 34 (2) (c) of the Treaty on European Union - the member countries must enact it as law within one year; they have no freedom and no choice.

I wonder how long it will be before they take our joints away ...

COMMENT THREAD

A sky black with chickens...

It was in 1976 when I and a handful of colleagues – all of us environmental health officers – woke up to the enormity of what the government had done in signing us up to the EEC.

We had only been in a couple of years and a programme was under way of integrating into UK law all the EEC directives that had been passed before we joined the community. One of those was the now infamous (to us) poultry meat marketing directive (Directive 71/118/EC) which the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was proposing to transpose as the Poultry Meat (Hygiene & Inspection) Regulations 1976.

From a strictly selfish point of view, we saw in the regulations a threat to our own profession. This stemmed from our own very history as a nation in that, in Europe, the institution of the environmental health officer (EHO) was unique to the UK. For historical reasons, our public health system had evolved within a framework of local authorities and Medical Officers of Health, with the EHOs doing the field work, including the all-important inspection of meat and poultry production and the control of imported food.

On continental Europe, by contrast, the system was invariably managed by central government , with the field work carried out by veterinary officers – usually qualified veterinary surgeons. And, because EHOs did not exist on the continent, we were being obliged to scrap our system and adopt the continental system.

As our campaign against the regulations developed and matured however, we needed to attract allies, so the scope of our attack widened, with the state of play being summed up in an article I wrote for News Scientist in July 1976, published, by coincidence, on my 28th birthday. (Click on each page facsimile to read the full paper).

For all of us closely involved in the campaign, which we called F.L.A.G (Food Law Action Group), the learning curve did not stop there. In what was our first substantive contact with EEC we found that this was more than just a technical directive. It sought to change fundamentally the whole nature of the food control system in the UK.

As far as imported food controls went, the philosophy was one of inspection according to a harmonised regime by national authorities at the point of production, with no further inspections when produce crossed any borders, as opposed to our system which relied largely on inspection at the point of entry.

The two different systems each have their own merits but the point of issue was that the "point of production" system was more attuned to continental trade, where border controls were difficult to enforce – as opposed to our system which worked because we live on an island. In other words, we were being forced to dismantle a system developed for an island economy, in favour of one developed for a continental land mass, all in the name of political integration.

Despite a spirited campaign, when we actually forced a "prayer" against the regulations and a debate in the House of Commons, we lost the vote when the Tory front bench, with the support of the NFU, changed sides and supported the then government, casting its vote in favour of the regulations. Without that betrayal, we might have won the vote.

With that, we have seen a slow but inexorable revolution in the way our public health system is managed, and in the way our border controls are applied, with the outcome which is now only too evident - as lamented at length in the The Daily Telegraph today.

Thus it is that we are told that even if the government was convinced of a link between Hungarian imports and the Suffolk bird flu outbreak, ministers say their hands are tied by European laws that prevent countries imposing unilateral food bans. In this particular instance, it is the EU Directive on Avian Flu lays which sets down the limits of our government's powers, but this Directive stems from the same wellspring as did 71/118/EEC – the Treaty of Rome.

So it is that next month, the Europhiles will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of that Treaty. And, when they do, then perhaps will be an appropriate time to remind people that it was that instrument, which the government signed up to in 1972, which robbed successive governments of the power to protect their citizens (and industries) from the risks of imported infectious diseases.

The worst of it is, though, that so few people understood how the old system worked, and even few have any idea how the EU system operates – and why it is fundamentally flawed – that the moment will be lost. Advocates of the EU will tell us that one of the benefits of our membership is "improved safety", when the reality is that it has created an open door and a welcome mat for potential killers.

But it was the same back in 1976, when it first dawned on us what our government had done. Ever since, I have been writing, speaking and doing all manner of campaigning, to get the central message across that we have given up important powers, to the detriment of our own society.

On seeing the "born again shock" of the likes of the Telegraph, as a new generation of journalists learns of the reality of the EU, one has this weary sense of déjà vu. We have seen it all before – nothing has changed in the 30 years of our membership. That was what our government signed up to. That's what our MPs agreed to and they continue to agree to this situation to this very day.

However, in a few days time – unless the unlikely does happen and there is a epidemic of human host-adapted H5N1 – all this will be forgotten … until the next time. Would that we could have a "Soylent Green" moment, when the whole population woke up to the enormity of what our governments have done. But it ain't going to happen - yet. It is going to take bodies in the streets, and it is unlikely that bird flu will put them there.

Needless to say, if you look up today, you will see the sky black with chickens … coming home to roost.

COMMENT THREAD

Failures galore

As poultry producers nervously watch the sales figures through the supermarkets this weekend, after Defra's admission that the current outbreak of avian flu could have been brought from Hungary in turkey meat, the betting is here that the one thing the media will not be doing is putting the blame where it properly belongs.

That blame, as readers might guess, properly belongs to the European Union, and in particular the EU commission, which has almost dictatorial powers when it comes to regulating inter-community trade in commodity products such as poultry meat.

EU poultry meat hygiene laws were in fact one of the very first sets of law to apply to our food trades, having been promulgated as Directive 71/118/EEC, now amended and updated by Directive 92/116/EEC. These laws have been augmented by others over the passage of time. To include such as Directives 2002/99/EC and 2003/99/EC, right up to and including the new Avian Influenza Directive 2005/94/EC.

It is fair to say that every aspect of poultry production is regulated to the most minute level by EU law, from the very food and housing of poultry flocks to the labelling and final packaging of the product on final sale in a retail store. Even the details of how the product is inspected, and by whom, is specified and so advanced is the system that the EU even has its own inspection authority in Food and Veterinary Office, which monitors national inspection programmes and control arrangements.

And, of course, all this law, this torrent of regulation, the billions in expenditure and the most draconian of restraints, are all designed to prevent the very thing that seems to have happened to Bernard Matthew’s bootiful Norfolk turkeys.

Furthermore, this is not just a question of the failure of EU laws and systems. The EU is a jealous god and does not permit other laws and controls to co-exist alongside the true religion.

Thus, even if our lamentably inadequate Defra officials had been aware of and concerned about shipments from Bernard Matthew's Hungarian firm to the UK, under the current EU law, there is absolutely nothing they could have done about them. As long as EU laws are complied with, officials cannot intervene on any consignment, whatever their concerns might be.

The irony is that the EU, so full of itself in advance, telling us what a wonderful job it is doing to protect our health, is always totally silent when it comes to its own failings after the event. As these emerge, its response will be to demand still more laws and more powers.

And so will the failures multiply.

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