Herr Van der Bellen, a former leader of the Green party, said he would be an “open-minded, liberal-minded and above all a pro-European president”. Herr Hofer might feel aggrieved at that. He was not exactly campaigning for an Austrian exit from the EU either.
THE ANTI-ELITE MOOD IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL
Austrians are said to be pro-European Union, but despite the sense of relief in Eurocrat corridors of power, we should not think the prevailing anti-elite mood has had an abrupt about-turn.
Crucially, mainstream politicians were not in the running. The Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) candidates came fourth and fifth in the April 2016 first round, behind Herr Hofer, who won, Herr Van der Bellen, second, and independent Irmgard Griss in third place . This allowed the Green Party’s avuncular Herr Van der Bellen to claim to be an ‘outsider’, just like Herr Hofer.
Norbert Hofer
The significance of the first round was that parties winning over 50% of the vote for the Parliament in 2003 (see below) were soundly rejected by the electorate.
So when Werner Kogler, a Green party politician, described the result as a “small global turning of the tide in these uncertain, not to say hysterical and even stupid times”, he missed the point, as well as casting voters in the UK and USA as stupid.
VOTING PATTERNS IN AUSTRIA
The Freedom party secretary, Herbert Kickl, was more astute. He acted as Hofer’s campaign manager and was well aware that the establishment had swung behind Herr Van Der Bellen, but quietly. He said: “In this case the establishment – which pitched in once again to block, to stonewall and to prevent renewal – has won.”
In the 2003 Austrian Parliamentary elections, the Greens polled 12.42% of the vote, winning 24 seats. Hofer’s Freedom Party, the FPÖ, polled 20.51% and won 40 seats. Between them, the SPÖ and ÖVP had over 50% of the vote and 99 seats. Clearly, many of their supporters voted for Herr Van der Bellen. But equally, a good number voted for Norbert Hofer, concerned about immigration and jobs.
An analysis ofthe voting patterns in May is highly revealing. Men voted considerably more for Hofer, women for Van der Bellen. The young were somewhat more inclined to go for Van der Bellen. The working class were overwhelmingly for Hofer. Cities voted for Van der Bellen, the countryside for Hofer. This time around is likely to have returned similar results.
ONE MAN’S REFUGEE …
Herr Hofer was castigated by some for apparent antipathy to “the weak, poor and vulnerable – who today particularly include refugees and foreigners”. The barb had significance in the country which gave birth to Adolf Hitler. Indeed, so well did the ‘far-right’ label stick (but was Hitler actually far-right or far-left?) that Herr Hofer’s posters were routinely defaced with little moustaches.
A Christian position may well remember the Holy Family were refugees in Egypt, but they did not go there to subvert the Egyptian government, start a wave of crime or begin a campaign of terror.
There is a theological balance to be struck between hospitality and security, as I show in this video:
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Europa on the Bull outside the Council of Ministers building in Brussels
The European Union faces a crisis this weekend, with a referendum in Italy and Austria re-running its presidential election. But is the entire EU project doomed? Is the heart of God against the EU just as he was against the antichrist Roman Empire? If so, have the Eurocrats been hiding their true intentions in plain sight?
ITALIAN REFERENDUM
A vote against the reforms proposed by Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, could dent confidence in Italy’s banking system and spell disaster for the Euro. At the very least, it could sweep the Five Star Movement’s anti-EU leader Beppe Grillo into power.
Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy, wants more power.
Signor Renzi wants more power for whoever forms the ruling party, and Italians fear he, or someone in the future, could act like Il Duce of old.
Meanwhile, a triumph for Nobert Hofer, of the Freedom Party, could result in a referendum on Austria’s membership of the European Union.
Norbert Hofer; the slogan roughly translates as ‘Austria, again and again.’
Hofer is described by the BBC as ‘far-right’, although his opponent, the Green Party’s Alexander Van der Bellen, may be equally far-left. If Herr Hofer wins, there would surely be demands for reform of the EU super-state.
But does the EU need mere reform, as Mr Cameron famously proposed (although I was never sure whether he thought he had already achieved reforms or whether he thought he was going to secure reforms after a Remain vote in the Brexit referendum), or is the purpose of God for it to be broken up?
EUROPA ON THE BULL
This spring, I went to Brussels to look for a mythological woman who has become a symbol of Europe. I found her outside the Justus Lipsius Building, which houses the EU council of Ministers (above). She is also the subject of a statue in Strasbourg (below) and her image is just about everywhere in the EU. By placing Europa on the Bull all over the European Union, were the Eurocrats secretly telling us something about the destination and purpose of the EU, but doing so right out in the open? And if I am right about what they propose for the people of Europe, wasn’t the result of the UK’s Brexit referendum a real token of the grace of God?
Europa on the Bull outside the rear entrance of the European Parliament Building in Strasbourg.
In the Greek myth, their top god Zeus became infatuated by Europa, a Phoenician princess. He changed himself into a bull and enticed her onto his back. Once she had sat upon him, he made off to Crete with her. In Crete he changed back into his human form, flung the bull into the heavens, where it became the Taurus constellation, and raped her. Like Europa, are the people of Europe being lied to about the purpose of the trip and the eventual destination?
EUROPA WRITING THE EU CONSTITUTION
The disturbing tale of the rape of Europa is all over the EU, not just in the statues outside the EU Parliament in Strasbourg and the Council of Ministers Building in Brussels.
Europa writing the EU Constitution on a commemorative Italian 2-Euro coin.
Europa on the Bull has been on an Greek and an Italian 2-Euro coin. On the latter, she was writing the EU’s failed constitution – how scary is that? Europa herself is on the ‘Europa’ series of banknotes and the Bull, with a bit of astrology thrown in, is on every EU residence permit.
Going deeper, is there a parallel between Europa on the Bull and the Woman on the Beast of Revelation chapter 17? The woman, the whore, sits on the beast just as Europa sits on the bull. She goes where the beast, or the bull, wants to go.
The woman in Revelation 17 appears to be an earthly power (she personifies the Roman Empire of the time) and the beast seems to be a demonic spirit empowering her. In the same way, Europa seems to personify Europe and its peoples, and the bull she is riding is the demonic spirit of Zeus, whose altar is referred to in Revelation 2:13 as Satan’s seat.
I could go on, but it’s all in this short video (less than 4 minutes). Click and see for yourself:
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Confused? Article 127 is the exit clause for the European Economic Area.
The so-called ‘Hard Brexit’ involves leaving the European Union’s Single Market and its Customs Union. A ‘Soft Brexit’ would stay in them, making the vote in June to ‘Leave’ the EU of no consequence.
So just where does the European Economic Area fit in?
OK. Let’s draw it all together.
CUTTING THROUGH THE JARGON
The EU’s own website says: ‘The Single Market refers to the EU as one territory without any internal borders or other regulatory obstacles to the free movement of goods and services. … The European Single Market is one of the EU’s greatest achievements. … The Single Market is at the heart of the European project …’ It also allows the free movement of people, but they are a bit coy about admitting that.
The BBC explains: ‘A customs union is a form of trade agreement between two or more countries. It means they decide not to impose tariffs (taxes on imports) on each other’s goods and agree to impose common external tariffs on goods from countries outside their customs union. Setting common external tariffs is what distinguishes a customs union from a free trade area.’
The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states: ‘The European Economic Area (EEA) unites the EU Member States and the three EEA EFTA States (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) into an Internal Market governed by the same basic rules. These rules aim to enable goods, services, capital, and persons to move freely about the EEA in an open and competitive environment, a concept referred to as the four freedoms.’
The UK Government confirms the EEA allows Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to be part of the EU’s Single Market. It goes on: ‘Switzerland is neither an EU nor EEA member but is part of the single market – this means Swiss nationals have the same rights to live and work in the UK as other EEA nationals.’
THE UK IS A CONTRACTING PARTY TO THE EEA AGREEMENT
The UK signed the EEA Agreement in Porto on 2nd May 1992 and ratified it on 15th November 1993. It came into force on 1st January 1994. The UK is a ‘contracting party’ to the EEA Agreement.
Article 127 of the EEA Agreement says: ‘Each Contracting Party may withdraw from this Agreement provided it gives at least twelve months’ notice in writing to the other Contracting Parties.
‘Immediately after the notification of the intended withdrawal, the other Contracting Parties shall convene a diplomatic conference in order to envisage the necessary modifications to bring to the Agreement.’
In the face of the legal challenge about to be launched by a pro-single market think tank with no working website called ‘British Influence‘, the Government has maintained that EEA membership ends when the UK leaves the EU. But that is not what the Agreement says. So a bit like the Roundheads in the book ‘1066 and all that‘, the Remoaners in this case are ‘Right but Repulsive’. (The Cavaliers, you will remember, were ‘Wrong but Wromantic’.)
Where does this leave the UK Government? Quite simply, they must just get on with it and bring a short Bill before Parliament to leave the EU and trigger both Article 50 and Article 127. Or they can add all that to the bill they have promised, dubbed the ‘Great Repeal Bill’. which will repeal the European Communities Act 1972.
And if they lose the vote, they will be able to call a General Election and win it.
WE DO NOT NEED TRADE AGREEMENTS TO TRADE
The Bible reminds us that nations do not need trade agreements to trade. Ezekiel 27 is an important chapter which sets down in minute detail the extensive network of ocean-going international trade 2,600 years ago. It was centred around the wicked city of Tyre and included metals from the British Isles:
Ezekiel 27:12 Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.
All trade agreements do is reduce tariffs, which may or may not be of benefit. The EU exports more to the UK than it imports from us, and German car-makers will not want a trade war. The Bible also reminds us that leaders have to trust God and make decisions. First Moses then the Lord told Joshua:
Joshua 1:6 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
In particular, rulers have to take the initiative, set a standard and lead the people:
2Chronicles 20:3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
PRAY that Theresa May, David Davis, Boris Johnson and Dr Liam Fox will get on with it and take the UK properly out of the European Union with its pretensions to continue the antichrist project of Babel. View our video:
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The Bible tells us to pray for our leaders, but there is an urgent need to pray for Donald Trump, especially as he embarks on his ‘Thank You’ tour with all the security challenges that presents.
TRUMP IS NOT YET ‘PRESIDENT-ELECT’
Despite the generous words of President Obama, Donald Trump is not yet, at this time of writing, the ‘President-Elect’ of the United States.
He will only become President-Elect when the fifty US electoral colleges have met, in their own states, on 19th December 2016 and that when the President of the US Senate counts up the votes, 270 or more state electors have voted for him.
What would happen were Donald Trump to become President-Elect but be assassinated after 19th December and before his swearing in? His running mate, Mike Pence, having been elected Vice-President-Elect, would become President on 20th January.
Hillary Clinton
But what would happen were Donald Trump to be assassinated before 19th December? Then, as I understand it, the electors would be free to vote for whomsoever they wished. Mike Pence might be elected. But so might the runner-up, Hillary Clinton.
CHANCES OF ASSASSINATION
A Mrs Clinton Presidency would be a green light to the Neo-Conservatives, hawks and interventionists in the State Department and the Pentagon to bomb far-away places and increase NATO aggression against the Russian Federation. It would also be bad news for Israel, and great news for abortionists, gay rights groups and those who paint transsexual signs on toilets. Her judicial appointments to the Supreme Court would entrench the antichrist agenda, and the effects of all that would undoubtedly be felt this side of the Atlantic and across the world.
Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt in 1981
There is a lot of money and ideology at stake and we should be under no illusion about that. There are dark forces already at work trying to undermine Mr Trump. An assassination attempt on him is not beyond the bounds of reason. Joe Tex says the chances are:
‘about 1 in 4 that he will be killed, injured or narrowly escape an assassination attempt. There is a 90% chance that at least one attempt will be made, since one attempt has been made on 9 of the last 10 Presidents.’
By working with Russia, President Trump will also be the best hope for peace and for Christians and Christianity in the Middle East. It was President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair who were responsible for the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, which began in 2001. The same two took their countries into war on false pretences against Saddam Hussain in Iraq in 2003, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and sowing the seeds of Islamic State.
Even on President Obama’s watch, the US, the UK, under David Cameron, and France threw Libya into chaos in 2011 and the same year, with the help of funding from financier and agitator George Soros, destabilised Syria, bringing about today’s refugee crisis across Europe. The civil war in Syria saw jihadists Al Nusra Front and Islamic State finally become established. This BBC timeline video is helpful.
Mike Pence
Depending on who Mr Trump appoints as Secretary of State, there is hope we shall hear far less of the Soros-inspired ‘Responsibility to Protect’, which in practice means organised destablisation and fake news from establishment media followed by regime change, followed by anarchy.
We must pray especially against the appointment to that office of the war-monger John Bolton. Having said that, Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney are each of them anti-Russia insiders. The delay in the appointment must mean the Trump team are still looking for someone who shares his views.
(03/12/2016 Update: On his ‘Thank You’ tour, Mr Trump has said “We will destroy ISIS. At the same time, we will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks.”)
IT ALL HINGES ON THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
Clearly Mr Trump, his advisers and his running mate Mr Pence, who gives his testimony in this video, need wisdom from on high in their appointments.
But of course, much hinges on the electoral college on 19th December. If Donald Trump makes it that far, and if the electors stay faithful to their state vote, he will at that point become President Elect and the elite will have been denied the Clinton presidency they were counting on.
So we must pray urgently for safety and protection for Donald Trump and also of course for Mike Pence. In particular, may the Lord frustrate all attempts to assassinate Mr Trump.
Pray also that his appointments will be marked by wisdom and a desire for peace.
Psalm 140:4 Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings.
1Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
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So it’s President Trump heading for the White House as America does a Brexit.
Our prayers for the best candidate for peace in the world to be elected have been answered. Just as in the Brexit vote, the polls underestimated ordinary people and their votes.
Even right now, NATO is sabre-rattling against Russia. Hillary Clinton would have exacerbated that. We now call on President Trump to rein in the Pentagon and its assorted gung-ho generals, arms manufacturers and vested interests in war and make the world a safer place.
Hillary Clinton was solidly in the Neo-Con camp that gave us the War on Terror, incursions into Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, the ruin of Libya, the destabilisation of Syria and the rise of first Al-Qaeda then ISIS. Her old friend Madeleine Albright urged here to pick a ‘fight’ with President Putin. She would have continued the George Soros doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ – or ‘Excuse to Interfere’, as it should properly be called.
NATO troops on an muscle-flexing exercise in Poland earlier this year.
At this moment, according to the Daily Mail (well, OK, but they have quoted The Times) NATO chiefs are embarking on a 300,000 troop build-up in Europe and saying: ‘Relations between Russia and the West have plunged in the last year, with Moscow’s insistence on backing its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, at all costs leading to serious tension with the US, Britain and France.’
Yes, because those like Cameron, Hague, Hammond and Fallon went along with Soros and the US to agitate for regime change in Syria. By supporting and arming the jihadist rebels they have all but destroyed that country and caused thousands of deaths and displacement, the virtual eradication of Christians in areas where the rebels seized control and brought about the European migrant crisis.
If President Trump engages, as Sean O’Grady thinks he will, writing in the Independent, in ‘realpolitik’, de-escalation of tension is possible. Trump understands that Russia offers no threat to the United States (or its allies, for that matter). So if the Russians want a naval and an air base in the Med, or a presence on the Black Sea, they can have it.
Jonathan Powell, former chief of staff to Tony Blair, says his “biggest fear under Trump is the United States will become more isolationist, it will be less willing to intervene in the world than it has been.” Yes, exactly! It’s great news! Just maybe the world might now become a bit more stable.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK Labour Party, has issued a statement in which he called Trump’s victory a “global wake-up call”. Does he not understand that the spirit which saw him elected as Labour leader and delivered the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum is the same spirit that elected Donald Trump? It’s called, ‘rejection of the global elite and the status quo.’ He that sitteth in the heavens is laughing this morning (Psalm 2!).
Praise God today for answered prayer. And pray for protection and wisdom for President-elect Trump.
Psalm 120:7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
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President Obama has warned the fate of the world is at stake in the USA presidential election tomorrow.
He is surely right. Wherever we are in the world, we need to pray that Americans make the right choice.
Firstly, there has probably never been an American election where the choice was between two more unlikeable characters.
But looking beyond that, which candidate will be better for peace in the world?
If we ignore internal US matters and just look at US foreign policy, the way in which we need to pray becomes very clear.
Madeleine Albright wearing her ‘war’ badge
Hillary Clinton is solidly in the Neo-Con camp that gave us the War on Terror, incursions into Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, the ruin of Libya, the destabilisation of Syria and the rise of first Al-Qaeda then ISIS. Her old friend Madeleine Albright continues to urge a ‘fight’ with President Putin. She is totally sold out to the George Soros doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’ – or ‘Excuse to Interfere’, as it should properly be called.
In her determination to squeeze Russia out of Syria and the Mediterranean and her endorsement of Pentagon and NATO sabre-rattling in Europe, she could quite easily start world war three. Remember, had it not been for Oleg Gordievsky’s intelligence on the USSR, a provocative NATO exercise in 1983 could have provoked a Russian nuclear strike.
There are many in the US Pentagon who stand to benefit from increased spending on armaments and they are dreading the election of Donald Trump.
Why? Because, as Sean O’Grady put it the Independent, Donald Trump ‘get’s it’. He does ‘realpolitik’. He understands that Russia offers no threat to the United States (or its allies, for that matter). So if the Russians want a naval and an air base in the Med, or a presence on the Black Sea, they can have it.
Donald Trump, despite his aggressive persona and his bullish comments about walls and suchlike, is the candidate for peace.
That is why I shall be praying for a Trump victory to tomorrow, and why I invite you to join me.
Psalm 140:1 Deliver me, O LORD, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man; 2 Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.
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The paper set ‘Big Sam’ up in a meeting with reporters posing as what they described as ‘businessmen’. The men were so obviously crooked the alarm bells should have been ringing if not in the analytical Allardyce mind then in those of his agent Mark Curtis, and his financial adviser, Shane Moloney who were also at the meeting.
Instead, Sam Allardyce found himself carried away by the attention and the lure of money.
The England manager offered advice on how to get around Football Association rules on third-party ownership of players – for a very large fee. A man already being paid £3 million a year by the Football Association demanded £400,000 to advise characters he had only just met on how to invest in players. He also made unguarded comments about individuals.
West Ham United’s Trevor Brooking Stand
THIRD PARTY OWNERSHIP
In football terms the ‘first party’ is the player, and the ‘second party’ is his club. The involvement of a ‘third party’ to invest in that player and take a cut out of any transfer fee has been described as a form of ‘slavery’ by Michel Platini, the former president of European football’s governing body Uefa.
Sam Allardyce was recorded saying there were ‘ways round’ the ban. But underneath, it was greed and a loose mouth that did for the England manager, who had been only in his ‘dream job’ for 67 days.
Rev Joe Young appointed Sam Allardyce to manage Limerick FC
Twenty-five years ago, Joe Young was chairman of Limerick FC. It was he who sought out Allardyce and persuaded him to take on the job of player-manager for the Irish team. When the now 61-year-old was appointed as manager of England, Fr Young revealed he had been praying for his former associate.
On 5th April this year (2016), after his Sunderland side could only manage a goalless draw with West Bromwich Albion, Sam Allardyce spoke of the ‘Black Cats’ needing ‘divine intervention’ to avoid relegation. He told BBC Newcastle, ”I need to go back to church and start praying. I can’t ever imagine in my long career dominating a game for so long, creating so many chances and not winning it.’ His prayers, if he made them, were answered. In their final seven matches, Sunderland only lost to champions Leicester, went on to beat Norwich, Chelsea and Everton and stayed in the Premier League.
MORE BIBLICAL WARNINGS
Greg Dyke criticised Sam Allardyce for ‘greed’
But how much better it would have been for Sam Allardyce if instead of resorting to prayer when his back was against the wall, he had made seeking the Lord his way of life. He would have read in his Bible:
Exodus 23:8 And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. (KJV)
Former Football Association chairman Greg Dyke spoke on BBC news this morning of a man earning £3 million a year and ‘grubbing around’ for another £400,000. ‘He was just being greedy, wasn’t he?’, asked Dyke. It is no wonder that the Bible warns directly about that and gives a promise for the opposite attitude:
Proverbs 15:27 He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house; but he that hateth gifts shall live.
Ludwig Glötzle’s 1891 representation of St. Paul ordaining Timothy as Bishop of Ephesus.
The Bible carries so many warnings which Mr Allardyce could have heeded. Perhaps the most famous is the Apostle Paul’s advice to Timothy:
1Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
UNGUARDED WORDS
As for ‘perverting’ one’s words, the context of Exodus 23:8 is that of passing a legal judgment, but it can also be applied to any form of dialogue.
There were unguarded words in the Telegraph’s recordings from Sam Allardyce on his predecessor Roy Hodgson, coach Gary Neville and Prince William. He spoke disparagingly of Prince Harry. But the Bible says plainly:
Ecclesiastes 10:20 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
All of us need to heed the Bible’s teachings on guarding the tongue, as the Apostle James put it:
James 3:5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! … 10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
The Bible is the word of God. It speaks of salvation through Jesus Christ and warns against greed and loose talk.
GRACIOUS TALK RETAINS RICHES
As for loose talk, the warnings to speak well and carefully are all over the word of God. For example:
Eccl 10:12 The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
Perceptively, Sam Allardyce described himself as ‘a fool’ after the event. It is even written, in a proverbial parallelism, that being gracious in our talk brings financial advantages:
Proverbs 11:16 A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches.
We all know that the mindset which is necessary to drive successful men can also lead to their downfall. Sometimes we ask too much of our statesmen, artists, military heroes, even football managers. We set them on pedestals and put our ‘trust in princes’. Then we are shocked when they fall. But it does not have to be like that.
FAITH ‘EVEN MORE ESSENTIAL’ FOR THE MIGHTY
The spiritual strength brought by the Christian faith is there for all. Belief in Christ and the renewing of the mind which the Holy Spirit sets in motion will both bring salvation and change anyone for the better.
How the Daily Telegraph reported their scoop
The power of the Gospel is transformative for every individual and every society. The Bible’s warnings against wickedness and its encouragement to live according to the ways of God apply to every single one of us.
Those in positions of power and leadership may think they are above all that, that they are ‘self-made’ and resilient, but the Christian faith is if anything even more essential for them in equal measure as it may be more difficult for them to humble themselves, accept the Gospel and put their trust in Jesus.
The Lord God can even empower a sincere believer to resist the false witnesses employed in Daily-Telegraph-style entrapment:
1Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Will a leader prosper or a sportsman be more successful if he has faith in Christ? That’s what the Bible teaches! And above all that such a one will find rest and forgiveness of sins. Let each of us pray for just one soul in a position of power and responsibility to turn to the Lord today.
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British special forces pictured on the ground in Syria for the first timeBBC News
Both International Business Times and Russia Today have joined The Sun and Daily Mirror in reporting that British Special Forces are secretly training ‘New Syrian Army’ (NSA) rebels in Jordan. It was not a story which found a place in the BBC.
IBTimes says the aim of the Marine Commandos and SAS is to equip and empower the US-backed NSA to fight Islamic State or ‘Daesh’ (why do American officials pronounce it ‘Dash’? for that matter, why do they pronounce ‘Putin’ as ‘Putn’)?. Those who join the NSA are supposed to sign a pledge only to fight IS and not the Syrian Army. But don’t let us be surprised if they do turn their fire on Syrian regular forces.
Earlier this month, RT somewhat gleefully reported that US-trained jihadists chased their American special forces mentors out of the northern Syrian town of Al-Rai. It was claimed, very plausibly, the jihadists chanted ‘crusaders’, ‘dogs’, ‘infidels’ after them.
Does anyone in the Pentagon or Ministry of Defence seriously think current training operations will do any better? From all the talk of ‘lessons being learned’, it appears they do. Our money is going down the drain, or worse. If it ends up being used to attack President Assad’s forces, it will be simply prolonging the conflict.
WHY WESTERN MEDIA SAYS ASSAD CAN DO NOTHING RIGHT
Aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov has joined the Russian fleet in the Tartus naval base in Syria.
There is one reason and one reason only why the United States wants ‘regime change’ in Syria. It is because President Bashar al Assad is an ally of Russia’s President Putin. Russia has both air bases and a sea port (Tartus) in Syria. The US and its NATO allies, including France and the UK, seek to weaken Russia. Replacing Assad with a puppet regime drawn from Syrian ‘exiles’ would do the job nicely.
If we view the news which comes out from Western media about alleged atrocities committed by ‘the Syrian regime’, ‘Assad’ or ‘Russia’ with this ‘regime-change’ purpose in mind, every negative story will make sense.
Do we believe the Americans or the British are above ‘false-flag’ operations designed to discredit the Syrian Government? Sadly, no, we don’t. Do we believe they would happily blame atrocities committed by their jihadist allies on President Assad? Sadly, yes we do.
BORIS JOHNSON ‘GOES NATIVE’
Our hopes were high (well not that high) that the appointment of Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP as Foreign Secretary in July might bring with it a change of attitude towards Russia and Syria. From the backbenches, Mr Johsnon had publicly advocated that the UK should work with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad against ISIS, which as Tim Eaton pointed out on the Chatham House website was at odds with current government policy.
Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald welcoming Boris Johnson to the Foreign Office.
Sadly, it did not take long for the ‘Sir Humphreys*’ (led by the PUS, Simon McDonald) at the Foreign Office to put the new Secretary of State in his place. Two months later Boris was hosting exiled Syrian opposition figures, those described to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee as ‘a busted flush’. Asked on BBC news if the meeting would have any positive effect, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen almost laughed before saying the leaders and their demands were irrelevant.
Among those demands is that President Assad step down within six months as part of any settlement. Not even the US Secretary of State John Kerry says that any more. But that did not stop Boris repeating it a day or so ago. Now he is blaming Russia for everything from running a ‘proxy war’ (as if they are the only ones) to destroying aid convoys (as if the rebels would never do that) to bombing hospitals (ibid) to protracting the violence.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SYRIAN CRISIS?
If anyone is responsible for what Boris Johnson now describes as “a cynical and barbaric protraction of violence and it is tragic,” it is the US and the UK. The reality is President Assad is the only guarantor of stability in Syria. It’s Assad or the deluge. He is the only one who will defend the rights of religious minorities including Christians. (The UK’s jihadist clients have destroyed churches). Russia will not let him fall and nor should they.
Those perpetuating the violence in Syria are the US and the UK, namely Boris Johnson, his understudy Alan Duncan MP, his predecessors Philip Hammond and William Lord Hague and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. By encouraging, training and funding the armed insurgency Her Majesty’s ministers and their civil servants can take full responsibility for the destruction of Syrian infrastructure, the deaths of civilians, loss of property and businesses, persecution of Christians in rebel areas and the waves of Syrian migrants flooding across Europe, with IS sleepers among them. (View my video, ‘Syria Sense and Compassion‘.)
And the UK is doing it just in the vain hope that Russia might lose its bases in Mediterranean. It is a scandal.
PLEASE PRAY that the UK Government will support or at least get out of the way of the Syrian Government as it tries to regain control and establish peace. Pray for the remaining Christians in Syria as they try to hold their communities together and rebuild their lives. Pray for the time when bricks will take the place of bombs.
Please leave other prayer points as comments below.
In the TV comedy ‘Yes Minister‘ the character of Permanent Under-Secretary (he’s the top civil servant in the department) Sir Humphrey Appleby (played by Nigel Hawthorne) was constantly ensuring the new minister Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) kept to the department’s official line.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
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Philip Hammond caused terrible loss of life in Syria by supporting Jihadists as Foreign Secretary and is now reportedly working against the British People by opposing Brexit as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr Hammond was a disaster as Foreign Secretary, funding Jihadist groups in Syria and encouraging them with his ‘Assad must go’ mantra.
President Assad was and is the only guarantor of stability in Syria. He protects the religious minorities such as Christians, Alawites and Druze targeted by the Jihadis.
Philip Hammond and his predecessor, William, Lord Hague, have blood on their hands. They bear huge responsibility for the carnage in Syria, the displacement of millions of people from the region and the spread of Islamic State terrorists across Europe.
Now, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Hammond, who campaigned for ‘Remain’ is actively working against the will of the British, the stated aim of his Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the purpose of Almighty God. It was the Lord who exercised mercy by pulling the UK out of the EU’s Revived Roman Empire.
Please pray that Mr Hammond will repent or that the Lord will replace him with a man after his own heart.
Psalm 75:6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. 7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.
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Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald welcomed Boris Johnson to the Foreign Office last night.
Last night, new Prime Minister Theresa May made six senior appointments, covering the three great offices of state (Chancellor, Home Office, Foreign Office), and created two new post-Brexit positions. Continue to pray for her appointments today.
BORIS JOHNSON
The most astonishing appointment last night was that of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Mr Johnson is said to have had wide experience dealing with foreign governments promoting the capital city as Mayor of London. He is much better disposed to Russia than his predecessor and apparently speaks five languages fluently, including German and Russian.
The latter will be especially useful as he pursues what we pray will be a more positive engagement with Russia than that taken by his predecessor. (Although never under-estimate the power of the PUS – see the picture. Sir Simon Fraser, Mr McDonald’s predecessor, has already said “highly professional people” will surround Mr Johnson as he takes on the role. Sir Humphrey?
Mr Johnson, like Theresa May, is pro-Israel. The BBC reports: ‘In 2015, Mr Johnson had to cancel planned public events in the West Bank because of security fears after he criticised backers of a boycott on Israeli goods, and he has previously described Hilary Clinton – US presidential hopeful – as having “a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.”‘
British sanctions against trade with Russia must be ended and Russian efforts to bring stability to Syria supported. We can pray that Boris, with a great-grand-father from Moscow, will have nothing to do with the posturing of the world elite which needs to see Russia as the big enemy and President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor and a threat.
A more positive engagement will help as Mr Johnson tries, as we hope he will, to find the reasons behind Russia’s new anti-evangelism law and argue against it from an informed and friendly position.
Write to your MP. Ask him/her to congratulate the new Foreign Secretary on your behalf and to ask him to pursue a positive engagement with Russia, lift sanctions and let you know what discussions he has with Russian officials about Russia’s new anti-evangelism law, which, of course, concerns you.
PHILIP HAMMOND
I prayed yesterday and I am still praying that Philip Hammond would leave the government completely, because of his stance on Syria and Russia (see below). Mr Johnson taking his place at the Foreign Office was a spectacular and unexpected part-answer to that prayer.
Mr Hammond, with his ‘Assad must go’ rhetoric, showed himself both ignorant of reality in Syria, and in thrall to the US-driven elites of this world. I made a video on this topic last October with an emphasis on Syrian Christians: Syria – Sense and Compassion. Do take a look – it’s less than 4 minutes.
Mr Hammond was also part of ‘Project Fear’ with his view that it would take longer than World War II to leave the European Union.
In the event, he has been made Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is a promotion. Pray for him to have the great wisdom and vision that job needs at any time, but especially at this time. I still pray that the Lord will intervene and that he will not be there long.
MICHAEL FALLON
Mr Fallon retains the post of Secretary of State for Defence. He was part of the ‘Assad must go’ triumverate (with Mr Cameron and Mr Hammond) and the same arguments apply to him as apply to Mr Hammond. It was a spectacularly ignorant and stupid line originated by William, Lord, Hague, totally driven by the desire of the US to destablise that country for financial and strategic reasons – Russia has bases in Syria.
It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and drove the migration disaster of last summer, in which thousands of Islamic State activists were able to infiltrate European Union nations.
The United Kingdom needs a Defence Secretary able to stand up to the US in NATO and end the current policy of military build-ups and sabre-rattling at the Russian border. Make no mistake, such things are planned by the elite for their benefit, not ours. A top insider, Craig Breedlove, former head of NATO, was at the Bilderberg meeting in Dresden last month. And a series of leaked emails published in RT show how keen he has been to push the Obama administration into agitating in Ukraine and aggression against Russia.
I am praying that Mr Fallon has a change of heart and becomes a man of peace, whose strength is in the Lord. His voting record is good on the issues that matter. He voted against ‘gay marriage’ and against doctor-assisted dying, for instance. But he voted for military intervention against President Assad’s forces in Syria. if the Lord will not change his heart, will the Lord replace Mr Fallon as well.
Write to your MP (a separate letter with a different date will be best) and ask him/her to ask the Secretary of State for Defence to pull British forces out of NATO’s aggressive current confrontation with Russia.
AMBER RUDD
The new Home Secretary was, like Mr Hammond and Mr Fallon, a ‘Remainer’ who voted against having a referendum at all. She also voted for ‘gay marriage’ and, like Mr Fallon, for military action in Syria. That vote, mercifully, was lost. She abstained on doctor-assisted dying. Her voting record goes back no further than 2010, because that was when she first became MP for Hastings and Rye.
Amber Rudd stands in need of our prayer as she takes charge of this vital office of state. We should especially pray against the introduction of intrusive surveillance measures and the use of real or imagined threats to curtail civil liberties.
DAVID DAVIS
Thank the Lord that the veteran parliamentarian has become the new Secretary of State for Brexit, or whatever it will be called. This is an inspired appointment, as apart from a lapse when he voted for Masstrict, Mr Davis has been constantly opposed to the EU, as he has to measures like ‘gay marriage’.
So Mr Davis will need much prayer as he negotiates the UK’s exit with the European Unions’s Commission and/or Council of Ministers (they are currently fighting a turf war over which will handle the talks). He will need to invoke Article 50 quickly and be unafraid to pull out of the Single Market completely if that requires accepting freedom of movement.
Freedom of movement was perhaps the biggest factor persuading people to leave the EU, because of the problems it brings. It is not a matter of hospitality, it is a matter of social cohesion and security, as I showed in this video.
Mr Davis should remember the four reasons why the Germans will back down: Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagon and BMW. Other countries trade with the EU without being in the Single Market, the USA and India, to name just two.
Write to your MP (separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for Brexit on his appointment and wish him well. Ask your MP to ask him to invoke Article 50 immediately and to be ready to leave the Single Market completely if freedom of movement is demanded as a condition of remaining in it.
Dr Fox will be responding to nations across the world who are now queuing up to do trade deals with the UK. He reputedly knows the United States very well, but Commonwealth countries are obvious new trading partners. It was encouraging to see Ghana preparing a trade delegation. The European Union has caused much hardship across Africa and developing countries in other parts of the world by dumping food aid, knowingly depressing prices and impoverishing local farmers.
There is an opportunity here for us to do more for fair trade than just buying tea and coffee. We should also pray that overseas aid becomes much smarter. I’m anxious to be in touch with those who know best how fair trade principles could form the bedrock of Dr Fox’s approach, and let us pray that he will have great success. Let us pray that Brexit re-establishes Britain as a newly-free, global, outward-looking trading nation, one built this time on fairness and justice, not on deception and exploitation.
Write to your MP (yet another separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for International Trade on his appointment and wish him well in it. Ask your MP to ask the Secretary of State how fair trade principles will inform his dealings with developing nations.
LASTLY
Lastly, look out for chattering classes and the Twitter-sphere expressing ‘alarm’ and ‘concern’ over the elevation of Boris, David Davis and Dr Fox. Such will mean they are good appointments! We should never put our trust in princes, but Theresa May (be sure to put an ‘h’ in her name) has shown she was true when she said ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Those of our readers who supported Remain should also be praying the Lord uses the Brexit vote and this new administration for his glory and to advance his Kingdom on earth.
Mrs May will be familiar with these two prayers from the Anglican Morning Prayer service in the Book of Common Prayer. They can apply to an individual or a nation and they spoke to me vividly this morning:
A Collect for Peace.
O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A Collect for Grace.
O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day; Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings, being ordered by thy governance, may be righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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The Labour Party’s National Executive Committee meets today to decide whether Jeremy Corbyn, the incumbent leader, may go forward to a leadership ballot without being nominated by MPs.
Those Labour MPs who wanted to oust Corbyn were hoping they could keep him off the ballot paper in a leadership contest.
If he failed to get enough nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party, then he would not be on the ballot paper, party members would not be able to vote for him and normal service could be resumed.
Yes, party democracy would be sidelined, but, hey, who cares?
LEGAL ADVICE
Unfortunately for the plotters, the party’s own advice from barristers at Doughty Street Chambers makes clear that only Mr Corbyn’s challengers need to secure nominations from 20% of fellow MPs, not Mr Corbyn himself.
They say: ‘In a year where a contested election is triggered by a challenger under B(ii), the incumbent does not require to be nominated to appear on the ballot paper. The incumbent is therefore automatically on the ballot paper unless s/he resigns (or otherwise becomes permanently unavailable)’.
The advice goes on to point out that ‘In this case’ in clause 4.I.2.B(ii) refers back to the first sentence, ‘where there is no vacancy’, which is the current position. If Mr Corbyn were to resign only to stand again, every candidate including him would be required to secure the nomination of 12.5% of MPs, which is about 29. But if a rebel MP pops up to challenge the leader, they need 20%, or 46 of the party’s 230 MPs. Having said all that, the NEC, meeting today, can vary the rules under rule 1.A, but not to the extent, it would be argued, as to overturn them.
LABOUR PARTY RULE BOOK
You won’t read this in the mainstream media, as they prefer to entertain rather than inform, but here is the relevant section of the Labour Party Rule Book:
‘Chapter 4
‘Elections of national officers of the party and national committees
‘Clause I.
‘General principles
‘1. Internal party elections for officer posts and the membership of national committees shall be conducted in a fair, open and transparent manner, in accordance with the constitutional rules of the party and any appropriate NEC guidelines.
‘Clause II.
‘Procedural rules for elections for national officers of the party
‘1. General
‘A. The following procedures provide a rules framework which, unless varied by the consent of the NEC, shall be followed when conducting elections for party officers. The NEC will also issue procedural guidelines on nominations, timetable, codes of conduct for candidates and other matters relating to the conduct of these elections.
‘2. Election of leader and deputy leader
‘A. The leader and deputy leader shall be elected separately in accordance with rule C below, unless rule E below applies.
‘B. Nomination
‘i. In the case of a vacancy for leader or deputy leader, each nomination must be supported by 12.5 per cent of the Commons members of the PLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
‘ii. Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 per cent of the Commons members of the PLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.’
THE CANDIDATES’ VOTING RECORDS
It is worth remembering that given that we cannot expect a Labour politician to be pro-life, pro-family or anti-sodomy, their are important differences between Jeremy Corbyn’s voting record and that of Angela Eagle..
Jeremy Corbynvoted against Sunday trading and against Maastrict. Angela Eagle didn’t. He has voted against euthanasia. She is for it. Mr Corbyn is for freedom of speech. Miss Eagle wants to shut people up who disagree with her and her lifestyle. He voted against Tony Blair’s Gambling Bill and Identity Cards . She towed the Blairite line.
Jeremy Corbyn voted for a referendum on the EU. Angela Eagle voted against one. Mr Corbyn voted against war in Iraq. Miss Eagle was for it and the Blair / Straw axis which lied to get it. The only positive note is that when the proposal to help the Syrian rebels with military action and further destabilise that country came from a Conservative leader (David Cameron) in 2013, Angela Eagle at last managed to join Jeremy Corbyn and vote against it.
In her press conference yesterday, Miss Eagle said, ‘I’m not a Blairite, I’m not a Brownite, I’m not a Corbynista.’ Then raising her voice in high drama: ‘I am my own woman.’ Applause. No, you aren’t. You voted with Tony Blair on everything. You are the establishment candidate.
PRAY FOR OUR LEADERS
2Samuel 23:3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
Pray that the Lord Almighty will place the fear of God in Jeremy Corbyn’s heart.
The reasons Andrea Leadsom MP has given for pulling out of the Conservative leadership race seem perfectly plausible but do not totally convince.
Eighty-four colleagues supported her, but she said, “Nevertheless, this is less than 25% of the parliamentary party and after careful consideration I do not believe this is sufficient support to lead a strong and stable government should I win the leadership election.”
WHAT IS THE LORD SAYING?
She went on: “There is no greater privilege than to lead the Conservative Party in government and I would have been deeply honoured to do it.
“I have however concluded that the interests of our country are best served by the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported prime minister.
“I am therefore withdrawing from the leadership election, and I wish Mrs May the very greatest success.”
Those of us who believe it was only of the Lord’s grace and mercy that Leave won in the #Brexit referendum and even that Mrs Leadsom reached the ‘final two’ at the expense of Michael ‘don’t talk about creation’ Gove will need to be seeking the Lord anew.
We were initially encouraged about her success in the ballot by news that Mrs Leadsom was attending a Christian meeting in Westminster. A day or so later it emerged that she scoffed at sexual purity and was offended that people might not vote Tory because of David Cameron’s gay marriage law. This was the talk to which she objected – but then again, three years are a long time on one’s Christian walk. Mrs Leadsom may have found a deeper faith than was exhibited on that night in 2013 and when in the same year she deliberately abstained by walking through both Aye and No lobbies on both Second and Third Reading of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill.
ABUSE TOO GREAT
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg said “the abuse has been too great” for Mrs Leadsom during the contest, especially following ill-judged comments in a weekend newspaper interview. Mrs Leadsom apologised to Theresa May earlier today after appearing to suggest in that interview that being a mother made her a better candidate for the PM job.
Even to appear to look askance at Mrs May because she has not born children could be seen as crass and cheap. It did display a lack of street-wise judgment. All the same, The Times journalist Rachel Sylvestor certainly made the most of it. The Conservative blogger Archbishop Cranmer was sympathetic to Mrs Leadsom.
All the same, such stuff happens. Any politician should expect it. The story could have been faced down and moved to the sidelines of debate over six weeks of hustings meetings in the Tory shires. A 60-40 reputed May advantage could have been overturned. The party faithful will feel cheated and some will claim Mrs May has a lack of democratic mandate.
BORIS LOST HIS NERVE
It has been going through my mind that you simply do not put yourself forward for the position of leader, get yourself short-listed down to the final two, only to pull out when the going gets tough. However badly you think the numbers are stacking up, you just don’t do it. It isn’t respectful, either of colleagues, the party or the nation. It isn’t dignified. It is neither thoughtful nor organised. Something else must have been brought to bear. What if the BBC’s Laura has it wrong? What if Mrs Leadsom was ‘got at’ in some other way. One would not be surprised.
Boris Johnson was backing Mrs Leadsom’s leadership bid. Had he not lost his nerve when Leave won, he could now be challenging Mrs May. He now says he has “no doubt” Mrs May will be an “excellent” leader and prime minister. He was “encouraged” by Mrs May’s statement that “Brexit means Brexit”, and added: “It is vital that we respect the will of the people and get on with exploiting new opportunities for this country.”
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
But will unfettered immigration, the major issue of the referendum, come to an end as the people have demanded? WIll Brexit mean Brexit-lite? If continued freedom of movement is demanded as the price of staying in the Single Market, the latter will have to go. It will be a bluff anyway. There are four main reasons why the Germans will back down: Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagon and BMW. Other countries actually manage to trade with the EU without being in the Single Market. The USA and India, to name just two. And other nations across the world are now queuing up to do trade deals with the UK.
UKIP MEP Julia Reid said today: ‘We would like to see the UK leave the EU completely. We don’t feel that we need to be part of the single market, because countries like New Zealand, Australia, China and the US export goods into the single market, but they are not part of the single market. There is no freedom of movement of peoples between those countries and the EU. We would like to be in a similar position.’
But will Mrs May’s negotiating team have the confidence, courage and commitment to call the EU bluff?
We are where we are. Mr Arron Banks, UKIP’s financial backer, said just this morning that he and UKIP will be holding Mrs May to account. It’s not over until it’s over. We should keep praying the Lord to remember mercy and keep ministering his prophetic word to our leaders. One obvious and immediate point of prayer could be a strong Leave and indeed Christian presence in Mrs May’s Cabinet and Ministerial appointments.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry expressing the will of the world's elite as usual
US Secretary of State John Kerry expressing the will of the world’s elite as usual
The United State’s top foreign policy official has said the British vote to leave the European Union could be ‘reversed’. Clearly, the United Kingdom’s dramatic #Brexit vote has upset the kings of the earth and Kerry has let the cat out the bag that they intend to prevent it.
Speaking at the Aspen Institute, a leading think-tank of the world’s elite, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke seriously of how Brexit could be ‘reversed’ or ‘walked back’.
He was not going to go into details. Kerry said: ‘I think there are a number of ways. I don’t, as secretary of state, want to throw them out (into the public domain) today. I think that would be a mistake. But there are a number of ways …’
David Coborn MEP
But UKIP MEP David Coburn told Russia Today: ‘Brexit is absolutely essential – it is the will of the British people. I don’t much care what Mr. Kerry says. If the Americans are going to start interfering in our affairs as they interfered in Vietnam and the Middle East, they are going to get a pretty robust response from the British people. … John Kerry, I don’t know what he is playing at – it is not the thing to do – to go around telling the British public, who voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, that Brexit (isn’t) going to happen. It is not up to the Americans and they should have nothing to do with it. They should mind their own affairs – they make quite enough mess running the world as they see it. They should just stick out of our affairs.’
Mr Blair goes on, ‘we have diminished our place in the world and we’ll have to fight to get it back’. That is just opinion, from the man who destablised the whole middle east and caused the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives by sacrificing truth in order to go to war in Iraq.
It could equally well be argued that the Brexit vote has enhanced the UK’s international status.
This ‘diminished place’ does not appear to have been noticed by the eleven countries even at this time of writing, just a week after the vote, which are now queuing up for trade deals with the UK.
New Zealand First party leader Winston Peters said “a trade deal with the UK is an absolute priority” and “New Zealand must be the first country in the queue for a trade deal with a liberated United Kingdom.”
Ghana Ghanaian foreign minister Hannah Tetteh said she was working up a delegation already. Africa has been impoverished by EU policies and Brexit is an opportunity for fair trade – something else for Christians to pray for!
New Zealand offered to help the UK with negotiators in the Brexit talks and Australia spoke of joint deal with their neighbours.
Those four were followed within days by the United States (‘back of the queue’ is now an uncomfortable memory), India, South Korea, Canada, Mexico and Switzerland. Even Germany are desperate to keep the UK trade doors open. That’s eleven countries and counting. The Lord is already blessing the United Kingdom for coming out.
You see, the #Remain prophets of doom forgot the spiritual side of this matter – if they ever thought there was one.
Freed from those pagan shackles, the United Kingdom has an opportunity to return to its constitution and seek the Lord anew. The word of God is clear. This was written to Israel, but the Bible is clear it applies to any and every nation. It is the UK’s portion:
Deuteronomy 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: 2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.
3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. 5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. 6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
Finally, the UK now has someone who campaigned for Remain as a Brexit-negotiating Prime Minister. The Parliamentary Conservative Party decided against Andrea Leadsom, Michael Gove and Sir Liam Fox, who were – and are – committed Brexiteers. If Theresa May dithers, or accepts continued freedom of movement, prepare to see the Conservatives trounced by UKIP in the following General Election.
But before we ask whether the Lord will have mercy on the Conservative Party, or bring judgment on them, let us remember that it is important for our United Kingdom not to halt between two opinions with ‘Brexit-Lite’, but to be whole-hearted about it right now. There isn’t time for them to get it wrong, be judged and UKIP to start all over again after the next General Election.
There are great opportunities right now for the UK to establish proper trading relationships with Commonwealth nations, after years of EU oppression of African countries in particular. Fair Trade could come to the fore. The Biblical injunction to pray for our leaders in 1Tim 2 is as clear as daylight. So we need to pray now for God’s wisdom in the appointments Mrs May makes to Her Majesty’s Government and then continue to pray for them and for all in the political process.
2Sam 23:3 The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
As for John Kerry and his fellow insiders, as Johnny Cash famously sang, ‘you can run on for a long time’, but ‘sooner or later God’ll cut you down’.
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Chaired by Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO of the giant AXA insurance group, it was the first time for a while that the men with the money were seriously worried.
Henry Kissinger speaking (of course) at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2008
Bilderberg, named after the Dutch hotel where the group first met in 1954, says it was ‘designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America’. Its website is a recent innovation. Up until ten years ago journalists had to find out the annual guest list from staff at the latest venue. Leading members have included Dennis Healey, Kenneth Clarke, Peter, Lord Carrington, the Irishman Peter Sutherland and Henry Kissinger.
The website says of its meetings: ‘There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written. Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.’
Bilderberg is the primary concentrated gathering of the world’s elite. The annual meetings take place under what is known as the ‘Chatham House rule’ which was invented by London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. This says ‘Participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.’
1 Current events, 2 China, 3 Europe: migration, growth, reform, vision, unity, 4 Middle East, 5 Russia, 6 US political landscape, economy: growth, debt, reform, 7 Cyber security, 8 Geo politics of energy and commodity prices, 9 Precariat and middle class, 10 Technological innovation.
WORRIES ABOUT BREXIT AND TRUMP
Jim Messina, advisor to the Democratic Party’s Hilary Clinton, attended Bilderberg last year.
Behind (3) were worries about the UK’s Brexit vote. All of a sudden, the elite had realised that the European Union needed reform, vision and unity. Were they concerned about migration? Or is flooding Europe with jihadists part of the plan for greater restrictions on freedom? As for ‘growth’, there you have it, from the horse’s mouth. The EU is an empire which must keep expanding.
Their other big worry is Donald Trump. He may not be a very nice man, but he is anti-establishment. He is not an insider, not ‘one of us’. Unlike Hilary Clinton (Bill was chosen as US President by Bilderberg and Hilary’s chief adviser Jim Messina was at the conference last year) Trump is not someone they can control. The ‘US political landscape’ has really put the wind up them. How can they stop Trump?
Russia was on the agenda, because presenting President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor and a threat is a key part of the game right now. But then, the disadvantaged ‘precariat’ and the middle class could spoil the whole globalist project.
Delegates came only from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and world bodies. There was no-one from Central or South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle or Far East, the Antipodes or Africa. Bilderberg is exclusively trans-Atlantic.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will tour the world telling the lesser beings what the elite expect.
After it has deliberated, US Secretary of State John Kerry will be sent around the world to tell the leaders of lesser nations what to do. After the 2002 meeting, his predecessor Colin Powell was despatched to India and Pakistan to tell them not to go to war over Kashmir. Both backed down immediately. The June 2002 Bilderberg meeting was the turning point. Welcome to the New World Order.
Present this year were Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, ex CIA chief David Petraeus, the King of the Netherlands, the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, Philip Breedlove (Former Supreme Commander of NATO), Benoît Coeuré of the European Central Bank and Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President of the European Commission, the EU’s foreign minister.
There were current or former ministers of finance from Canada, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden. Money is important to the group. There were prime ministers from Belgium and Holland and the deputy PM of Turkey. In total, perhaps a couple of dozen politicians, a handful of academics and half-a dozen journalists and editors came to hear what the bankers and industrialists want to happen.
British academic Guy Standing thinks ‘the precariat’ are ‘dangerous’. ‘To whom?’ one may ask.
GB CONTINGENT
The GB contingent illustrates the point. Present were Marcus Agius, Chairman of PA Consulting Group (formerly chairman of Barclays), Douglas Flint, Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk Telecom Group plc, Demis Hassabis, Co Founder and CEO of DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company, John, Lord Kerr, Deputy Chairman of Scottish Power, and John Sawers, former head of MI6, now Chairman and Partner of Macro Advisory (the ‘strategic insight’ people).
Guy Standing, Co President of the Basic Income Earth Network and Research Professor at the University of London was the academic. He has written on the ’precariat’, describing them as ‘dangerous’. ‘Political populism’ which appeals to them ‘must be challenged’, he writes, in words every Bilderberger would approve. His views recently became a book.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor in Chief of The Economist and Martin H. Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times were the GB media contingent. Don’t expect them to write anything about it, although Wolf is very concerned that ‘nativist populists’ must not win. The only GB politician this year was Labour MP Helen Goodman, a minister under Gordon Brown and now a member of the Treasury Select Committee.
We can be certain of one thing:: whatever the Bilderbergers have discussed, their schemes will benefit them first and the rest of us a long way second. But also be certain of this: the Lord will have the final word.
READ: Psalm 2:1-4, 48:7, 64, 76:12, 149; Isaiah 24::21; Luke 8:17; John 15:18; 2Cor 10:3-5; Rev 19:19-20.
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Left out of ‘the six’, ministers and officials from (stage l-r) Austria, Spain, the UK, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia gathered in Warsaw.
The European Union appears to be splitting in two in the wake of the Brexit Referendum.
The day after the result was announced, the foreign ministers of the founding six, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands met in Berlin. No-one else was invited.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, said European leaders have to meet “the expectations of [European] people” in its response. Then, In a revealing quote, he went on: “I am confident that these countries can send a message that we won’t let anyone take Europe from us.”.
Somewhat aggrieved by being excluded, the Czech Foreign Minister convened a meeting in Prague of the Central European Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) with the ministers of France and Germany. Then the Polish Foreign Minister invited all the ‘non-six’ to another meeting in Warsaw. Ten in total attended.
‘Invited by Minister Waszczykowski, the foreign ministers of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary came to Warsaw alongside secretaries of state and high-ranking officials from the foreign ministries of Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia and Austria. The meeting was also attended by Great Britain’s Minister for European Affairs, David Lidington.
‘This morning I took part in a meeting of the Visegrad Group together with the ministers of France and Germany. Just now I concluded a consultation of ten European member states. I did not create any given format, I invited many countries. Ministers came from countries such as Spain and Greece. They also came to discuss the situation after an open brainstorming session. We didn’t make any final decisions, we exchanged views, analysed the situation, proposed solutions. (…) We should have more of these debates. But they have to be debates that don’t exclude anyone,’ Minister Waszczykowski said, pointedly.
Another fault line could develop around the Euro. Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain are in the Eurozone.
Nicola Sturgeon: ‘a rat swimming to join a sinking ship’
Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden, and of course the UK, are not.
Finally, in recent days we have seen the Scottish National Party’s Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, scurrying around the European Union’s corridors desperately searching for a way in as the UK leaves.
In the light of what is happening, Winston Churchill’s famous jibe comes to mind. We are seeing the astonishing spectacle of a rat swimming to join a sinking ship.
To add more fuel to the fire, the President of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, has called for a referendum on his country’s membership not just of the EU but also of NATO. Although Zeman wants to remain in both organizations, he wants the public to have a chance to ‘express themselves.’
On top of that, Norbert Hofer, the Austrian Freedom Party’s candidate in that country’s re-run presidential election, has hinted at a referendum if Turkey looks like joining and if the EU’s institutions keep grabbing power: He told RT:
‘I hope that there will be no need for a referendum [on EU membership] in Austria, and that the Union will develop in a positive manner. But I am fully certain that Austrian people will not accept Turkish membership in the bloc, as well as the situation where Austria is deprived of its powers in favor of the authorities in Brussels.’
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Is the European Parliament Tower in Strasbourg modeled on the Tower of Babel, the Colisseum in Rome, or both? Why was Rome called ‘the Eternal City’? Who was the first Eurocrat, who drafted the Treaty of Rome and decided where it would be signed? What did he say about reviving the Roman Empire? View my video and find out!
After my video asking why the European Parliament was modeled on the Tower of Babel in Pieter Bruegel’s famous painting, someone suggested it is actually designed with Rome’s Coliseum in mind. So, being in Rome, I thought I should take a look.
Bruegel’s painting is also said to have been at least partly inspired by the ruins of the Coliseum. So do we have a bit of an architectural menage a trois? The Tower of Babel is accurately painted by Bruegel as a Ziggurat tower, intended as a political and religious centre of rebellion against God.
Now, if the Capitoline Hill was the political and spiritual heart of Rome, the Coliseum was a statement of her imperial dominance. Built with money looted from the temple in Jerusalem in AD70, it was built to entertain the masses with armed duels to the death between gladiators.
We know the Tower of Babel remained unfinished because the Lord confused their language. An act of God also destroyed the Colosseum. It was ruined by a succession of earthquakes and then looted for the stone.
But if the Tower of Babel was built with an Antichrist spirit of rebellion, the Coliseum is not exactly pure as the driven snow. It’s not washed in the blood of the lamb, it’s bathed in the blood of the martyrs.
During lunch intervals, executions ‘ad bestias’ would be staged. Those condemned to death would be sent into the arena, naked and unarmed, to face beasts, notably lions, which would tear them to pieces.
Christians were among those put to death in the Coliseum in the Rome of Revelation 17. In Acts we read (Act 17:6b) ‘These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.
That was sedition. You could worship who you wanted in ancient Rome, so long as you also worshiped the Roman gods. In Revelation chapter 2 and verse 13 we read of the martyrdom of Bishop Antipas for refusing to make sacrifice to Zeus. Well, the Romans adopted Zeus as Jupiter, the head of their Pantheon, Iupiter Conservator, to conserve and protect the Eternal City.
Rome was personified and deified as the goddess Roma, and regarded as Urbs Sacra, the sacred city. Roma sat on Jupiter just as Revelation seventeen says the woman sits on the beast. Or as Europa sits on Zeus as the Bull all over the European Union.
But Jupiter couldn’t save Rome. The eternal city was sacked in the fifth century. To this day, the ruins of Rome are a tourist attraction.
Or could it be that it is the antichrist spirit of Rome that is ‘eternal’? The Emperor Hadrian, the first man to use the expression ‘eternal city’ – that’s ‘urbs aeterna’ in Latin – suggested that Rome could be forever reborn all over Europe.
But could Imperial Rome itself be revived? The leaders of the six founding countries of the European Economic Community, the EU’s forerunner, gathered to sign the Treaty of Rome on top of the site of Jupiter’s Temple in March 1957.
A Belgian, Paul-Henri Spaak, a socialist and agnostic, had authored the Treaty and decided the venue. On the eve of the ceremony, he was overlooking the ruins of the Roman Forum with his right-hand man, Baron Robert Rothschild. Rothschild remembered Spaak saying to him,‘I think that we have re-established the Roman Empire without a single shot being fired.’
When the heads of state gathered to sign the European Constitution in 2004, in the same place as Spaak’s Treaty of Rome was signed all those years before, the Italian Government erected a plaque which spoke of ‘this most sacred Capitoline Hill, which is the citadel of this bountiful city and of the entire world.’ Under the Constitution, ‘the nations of Europe might coalesce into a body of one people with one mind, one will and one government’. The Eurocrats are convinced they are reviving the Roman Empire.
Looking at it from a spiritual point of view, the same spirit of rebellion, arrogance and futility which began at Babel was still going strong in Ancient Rome. And I think I see a revival of it in the European Union.
Nevertheless, a number of ecologist websites have run the story proposing that we are being spun the wrong culprit for the debilitating condition.
GLOBAL EMERGENCY
The World Health Organisation has issued a “global emergency”, the UK has sent spray planes to kill the carrier mosquitoes in affected areas, British tourists have been warned against unprotected conjugal activity and women have been told to avoid getting pregnant.
Brazil, where more than 4,000 cases of the birth defect have been reported since October, has even faced calls to postpone the Rio 2016 Olympics this summer.
But experts have now cast doubt on the link between Zika and microcephaly, and the spraying campaign is now under the spotlight.
Pyriproxyfen targets the larvae of mosquitoes, stunting their development, stopping them from growing proper wings and genitalia. It is not implausible, say the doctors, that in humans the same pesticide could cause babies’ heads to fail to develop properly, limiting their brain’s development.
RELATIVELY HARMLESS
Only pregnant female mosquitoes transmit Zika virus.
Zika has been known for years as normally a relatively harmless virus that causes little more than a rash. No birth defects have been reported in some areas where as many as three in four people have it.
The virus has been present in Brazil for a number of years, but the outbreak of microcephaly was only reported in April 2015. That was just a few months after pyriproxyfen was added to the water supply.
The researchers also point out that 3,177 pregnant women have contracted Zika in Colombia and none of the babies have developed microcephaly.
Experts double-checking the reports of 4,100 cases from Brazil over the last six months claim as many as half of the children either don’t have microcephaly or the Zika virus.
ARGENTINE PHYSICIANS FIND LINK
The Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, is one of the two groups of doctors viewing the Zika-link with suspicion.
Microcephaly was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns say the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, the pyriproxyfen chemical larvicide was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014 in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes.
The Physicians added that the Pyriproxyfen is manufactured by Sumitomo Chemical, a Japanese “strategic partner” of Monsanto. Pyriproxyfen is a growth inhibitor of mosquito larvae, which alters the development process from larva to pupa to adult. The resulting malformations are supposed to kill or disable the juveniles. It is an endocrine disruptor and is teratogenic (causes birth defects), according to the Physicians.
The Physicians commented: “Malformations detected in thousands of children from pregnant women living in areas where the Brazilian state added Pyriproxyfen to drinking water are not a coincidence, even though the Ministry of Health places a direct blame on the Zika virus for this damage.”
Just as pyriproxyfen is a relatively new introduction to the Brazilian environment, so is the microcephaly increase a relatively new phenomenon. The larvicide seems a plausible causative factor in microcephaly – far more so than GM mosquitoes, which some have blamed for the Zika epidemic and thus for the birth defects. More about them below. Out of 404 confirmed microcephaly cases in Brazil, only 17 (4.2%) tested positive for the Zika virus.
BRAZILIAN HEALTH EXPERTS AGREE
The Argentine Physicians concur with the Brazilian doctors’ and public health researchers’ organisation, Abrasco, which has published its report independently.
British-based Oxitec is accused of supplying GM male mosquitoes that don’t actually work, despite their publicity (see below).
Abrasco also names Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the microcephaly. It condemns the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes, which it says is contaminating the environment as well as people and is not decreasing the numbers of mosquitoes. Abrasco suggests that this strategy is in fact driven by the commercial interests of the chemical industry, which it says is deeply integrated into the Latin American ministries of health, as well as the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organisation.
Abrasco names the British GM insect company Oxitec as part of the corporate lobby that is distorting the facts about Zika to suit its own profit-making agenda. Oxitec sells GM mosquitoes engineered for sterility and markets them as a disease-combatting product – a strategy condemned by the Argentine Physicians as “a total failure, except for the company supplying mosquitoes”.
WILD FEMALES REJECT GM MALES
Or maybe they don’t actually work at all …
Oxitec sells male GM mosquitoes, supposedly in order to decrease the local population. A lethal gene is inserted in those mosquitoes, which is transmitted to the offspring, causing death to larvae if it is not blocked by an antibiotic (tetracycline).
NaturalNews say: ‘Currently in Brazil nearly 15 million GM mosquitoes have been released, and the failure is complete. Where field tests were carried out, less than 15% of larvae were transgenic, that is to say… wild females are not accepting the English mosquito from Oxitec.’
But of those that are accepted, the website points out that the female only “stings” when it is pregnant and generating eggs after being fertilised by a male. The biology shows it needs blood components in order to develop its eggs. ‘So, if millions of male mosquitoes are released, there will be many more fertilised females looking to suck the blood of mammals, thus increasing the spreading of the disease from infected people to healthy people!’ protests NaturalNews.
COVER STORY
NaturalNews concludes: ‘It looks like the world’s health authorities are using Zika virus mosquitoes as a cover story to conceal the damage caused by toxic chemicals manufactured by powerful globalist corporations.’
If the doctors are right, that conclusion looks inevitable. Will the mainstream media report it? Don’t hold your breath quite yet.
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One Christian argument for the European Union, certainly superior to vague sentiments of unity, hospitality and ease of travel, is the one which declares the EU to have been from its inception a Christian project. Of course this argument provokes the response that for ‘Christian’ read ‘Catholic’ and that it was actually a Roman Catholic plot. The two views are two sides of the same coin.
Dr Neil Summerton promotes these views in an article for Future First, a newsletter published by Christian researcher Peter Brierley.
EU PROJECT ‘CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT’
Dr Summerton was a trustee and board member of Christian Research between 1990 and 1998. He has been in local church leadership. He worked in the Department of the Environment for thirty years. Interestingly, he was involved in negotiations in the European Union in the 1990s. He writes:
‘Most British people are quite unaware that the European project has been deeply Christian Democratic in character, owing much to Catholic social thought. That has now largely been displaced by post-modernist secularism – though Brexit will not defend the UK against that. A vote to leave is a vote to leave something which was at base a Christian project.’
He goes on to warn of ‘an element which owes its roots to right-wing Christian reaction, deeply suspicious of Catholic Europe as a popish plot. This is the Protestant thread which was foremost in British-ness for more than 300 years. It is still very common among older, particularly nonconformist, evangelicals’. Warming to this theme, he concludes ‘I find that they are often sympathetic to, if not active in, UKIP’. UKIP, eh? Enough said.
PAST TENSE FOR CHRISTIANITY
The United Kingdom needs national repentance
In one sense, by putting the alleged Christian – or Catholic- base of the EU project in the past tense, Dr Summerton has already lost the game. He has to resort to saying Brexit will not defend the UK against post-modernist secularism. In that he is quite right. Our politicians were and are quite willing and able to legislate against Kingdom principles without any help from the European Union. In the event of Brexit the Lord’s people will need to start praying in earnest for national repentance. But at least they will have that opportunity. With the UK in the EU, it does not really exist.
So Dr Summerton would have to concede that if the EU is now post-modernist secularist, it matters not at all what it was when it was founded. The alleged Christianity has gone, if it ever existed at all. But I argue it never existed, however much it is talked about. I believe both views, Dr Summerton’s positive view of the EU as a Christian Democrat project and the Catholic-plot view he sends up are both equally wrong. The answer to this article’s headline is ‘neither’. The European Union, including its forerunner the European Economic Community, was never a Christian, or if you prefer a Catholic, project at all.
CATHOLIC FOUNDING FATHERS
Now, I’ll accept that at least three of the EEC’s prime movers were strong Catholics. In February 2007, in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the President of the Association of the Europe Foundation, Giorgino Salina, said it was time to combat what he described as ‘the rising anti-Christian attitude of EU bureaucrats’. It is not just Dr Summerton who has noticed it.
Salina praised the ‘spirit, ideals and hopes,’ of ‘the three men credited with founding the European Economic Community’; West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Italian statesman Alcide De Gasperi and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. These men, he said, were ‘three Catholic Christians with a great and clear awareness of the common good for which nationalist egoisms must be sacrificed, but also statesmen gifted with great political realism and wide vision.’ (From ‘Time to reclaim EU’s heritage,’ The Universe, February 23, 2007)
Robert Schuman
ROBERT SCHUMAN
Indeed, Robert Schuman was an intensely religious man. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Pope Pius XII and St. Thomas Aquinas. He was arrested in 1940 for acts of resistance and protestation at Nazi methods and interrogated by the Gestapo. He escaped in 1942 and joined the French Resistance. He became passionate about Franco-German and European reconciliation and rose to great prominence after the war. He was French Minister of Finance, Prime Minister from 1947–1948 and Foreign Minister in the latter year.
On 9th May 1950, Schuman invited the Germans to manage their coal and steel industries jointly with France. This formed the basis of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. He conceived the idea with compatriot Jean Monnet, another Catholic, though not as devout. They suggested if the two countries jointly managed these resources, they would be unable to go to war with each other. At the time, with the erection of the ‘Iron Curtain’, Europe seemed an unstable place. Schuman’s idea made sense in his day.
Konrad Adenauer
KONRAD ADENAUER
Konrad Adenauer was the first post-war Chancellor of (West) Germany. He developed a “weltanschauung” – a worldview – to provide a complete account of the universe, man, and politics. Adenauer realized that part of the appeal of totalitarianism was the promise of such a worldview. Democracy was seen as neutral about outcomes, simply managing the clash of competing interests. In contrast, communism and fascism offered complete worldviews. However, said Adenaur, they were ones based on ‘atheistic materialism’.
Adenauer said both communism and fascism reduced the individual to an automaton of the state. He argued for a spiritual worldview to replace atheistic materialism. Fortunately, Adenauer argued, Western democracy had such a worldview in Christianity.
Adenauer viewed the formation of the Christian Democratic Union in 1945 as a non-denominational party open to all people, while insisting on a platform that stated: ‘Only Christian precepts guarantee justice, order, moderation, the dignity and liberty of the individual and thus true and genuine democracy … We regard the lofty view that Christianity takes of human dignity, of the value of each single man, as the foundation and directive of our work in the political, economic, and cultural life of our people.’ Well, Amen.
Alicide de Gasperi
ALCIDE DE GASPERI
The Italian politician Alcide de Gasperi was, like Schuman, deeply affected by the Second World War. He said: ‘the lesson that all Europeans can learn from their tumultuous past is that the future will not be built through force, nor through a desire to conquer, but by the patient application of the democratic method, the constructive spirit of agreement, and by respect for freedom’.
De Gasperi opposed all forms of totalitarianism and when Chairman of the parliamentary group of the Italian People’s Party, he opposed the rise of the fascist party.
From 1943 he occupied various ministerial positions, and continued to oppose the powerful Italian Communist Party. De Gasperi responded immediately to Schuman’s call, and worked closely with the latter and with Konrad Adenauer.
CHRISTIANITY NOT MENTIONED
It was only five years after the end of the Second World War that Schuman said in his 9th May 1950 declaration: ‘Europe will be born from this, a Europe which is solidly united and constructed around a strong framework.’ Oddly enough, Christianity was not mentioned.
So far we have a Frenchman, a German and an Italian launching, as their defenders say, a ‘movement to build a Europe that they hoped would be peaceful, prosperous and democratic.’
What of the other three members of the founding six countries of the European Union, as it would become? During the war, in London, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had formed a Benelux customs union and even fixed their currencies against each other. Schuman’s vision went down well with the Benelux countries.
Jean Monnet, President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) from 1952 to 1955
TREATY OF PARIS
So it was that the Treaty of Paris (1951) which formed the European Coal and Steel Community was attended and agreed by ‘the inner six’: France, Italy, the three Benelux countries and West Germany. The United Kingdom refused to participate. Britain’s Government of the day, under Labour’s Clement Attlee, rejected the supranational authority set up by the Treaty.
The Paris Treaty did indeed set up a ‘High Authority’, to which the UK had objected. That would become the European Commission. Its first president was Jean Monnet. There was also a Council of Ministers and a 78-strong Common Assembly.
In 1954, plans for a political union with a common European army came to nothing when the French refused to consider it, so a conference was planned for the next year and was held in Messina in Sicily. It was there all six countries decided upon a customs union and a common market using the Benelux model.
CHRISTIAN / CATHOLIC THREAD UNRAVELS
Paul-Henri Spaak
Now here is where the Christian / Catholic thread unravels. Somehow, a Belgian politician by the name of Paul-Henri Spaak was proposed and entrusted with drawing up proposals for a European Common Market. Spaak was neither a Catholic nor a Christian Democrat. He was a socialist activist and a revolutionary who had talks with Trotsky. Well-heeled through family, education and his legal and political career, he led his party’s left wing. Spaak became known as the ‘Bolshevik in the dinner jacket’. He had been instrumental in the Benelux project. Spaak described himself as a socialist and an agnostic.
Paul Belien of the Washington Times, writing at BrusselsJournal.com, contrasts the view of the three Catholic statesmen with that of Spaak like this: ‘Some of the EU’s founding fathers claimed that political unification was needed to prevent European nations from going to war again. Others, such as Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian foreign minister who authored the Rome treaty, dreamed of a European superstate. He hoped that such a state might one day become as powerful as the United States.’
‘The Europe of tomorrow must be a supranational Europe,’ Spaak stated in a rebuff to French President de Gaulle’s 1962 ‘Fouchet Plan’. De Gaulle called for a ‘Union of the European peoples’ ‘without supranational institutions.’ Spaak was always intent on a superstate.
Chateau de Val Duchesse
CHATEAU DE VAL DUCHESSE
The Spaak Committee presented its report in April 1956 to another conference of foreign ministers of the six. It was approved, and Spaak went away to draft the full treaty.
His right-hand man in the project was one Baron Robert Rothschild (not to be confused with the New York banker of the same name). In 1954 Rothschild had been appointed Spaak’s chef de cabinet at the Belgian foreign ministry. For two years he worked with Spaak on the Treaty of Rome.
As summer turned to winter during 1956, the ‘Treaty establishing the European Economic Community’ was being put together in a Belgian country house, the Chateau de Val Duchesse.
The first Eurocrats
Typist: Marie Helene von Mach
A BBC webpage says: ‘From the beginning they struck a tone that dogs the European project to this day: they worked largely in secret. There was little reference to public opinion. The political elites laboured on in splendid isolation. The Treaty was put together in secret.’
Even the typists, who included the bilingual Marie-Helene von Mach, had to sign contracts which banned them from talking about their work, even to their families. The team formed, says the BBC, ‘a new kind of public servant: these were the first generation of what would come to be known as the Eurocrats.’
According to the Daily Express, Paul-Henri Spaak claimed in his memoirs that ordinary people were ‘indifferent’ to his plans, but that his elite ignored them anyway.
Mr Spaak wrote: “There were a great many sceptics. Overall, public opinion was not hostile; it was indifferent. The work accomplished was done by a minority who knew what they wanted.”
CHOOSING A VENUE
Not only did Spaak and Rothschild draft the Treaty, they also had the opportunity of deciding where it would be signed. They chose the principal first-floor room of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the southern peak of the Capitoline Hill in Rome as their venue.
The author outside the Palazzo dei Conservatori
Bedecked with murals depicting Romulus and Remus and the rape of the Sabine Women, the Hall commemorates the battles between the seventh-century BC families of Horatii and Curiatii. At each end of the long hall stands a massive black marble statue of a pope. Innocent X sits at one end and Urban VIII at the other.
But I suggest it was neither the decorations nor the statuary which were the point for Spaak and Rothschild. They knew the Palazzo had been constructed in the middle ages right on top of the Temple of Jupiter. The site had immense spiritual and political significance. Every year, the Roman Senate held their first meeting in the Temple. Jupiter was the protector, the ‘Conservator’ of Rome. Not only that, he was the Roman successor to the head of the Greek pantheon, Zeus. Moreover, if the altar to Zeus in Pergamos was said in the Bible (in Revelation 2:13) to be ‘Satan’s Seat’, this was Rome’s equivalent.
Rothschild and Spaak were overlooking the ruins of the Roman Forum (the road up to the Capitoline Hill is on the right) when Spaak said they had re-established the Roman Empire.
ROMAN EMPIRE RE-ESTABLISHED
The key objectives of the EEC were the establishment of a common market and customs union, ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and the pooling of resources to strengthen peace.
But Spaak and Rothschild had managed not only to avoid any mention of the Christian faith which had allegedly inspired the process. They had also brought Konrad Adenauer (the only one of the ‘Catholic three’ to sign – neither Schuman nor Gasperi represented their countries), to take part in a ceremony held on the principal pagan site in Europe.
In case I am thought to be reading too much into this site, a revealing comment from Spaak confirms it. Baron Robert Rothschild recalls in his memoirs that he was standing beside Spaak gazing over the Forum in Rome on the eve of the signing of the treaty. ‘I think,’ Spaak said, ‘that we have re-established the Roman Empire without a single shot being fired.’
Leaders of the original six signing the Treaty of Rome in the Palazzo dei Conservatori built on top of Jupiter’s Temple. Paul-Henri Spaak, signing for Belgium, is in the foreground, Adenaur sits four places to his left.
‘WE FELT LIKE ROMANS’
Paul-Henri Spaak moved on to become Secretary-General of NATO. Later he allegedly said: ‘We felt like Romans on that day; we were consciously re-creating the Roman Empire once more’.
I say ‘allegedly’. I have tracked this comment down to a book by American Christian writer Grant R Jeffrey called ‘The Signature of God’. It appears on page 208 of the 2010 third edition of the book. Jeffrey claims in a footnote that Spaak said it in a BBC documentary and also says he found the comment at: http://europa.eu.int/abc/obj/chrono/40years/3testim/coll-en.htm.
Annoyingly, he says the site is now discontinued. Indeed it is, and I have been unable to trace the quote any further. The quote is not on any saved version of the page at www.archive.org. Nevertheless, it chimes with Rothschild’s recollection. On its own, that showed that reviving the Roman Empire, the one mentioned in Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as being formed of ‘iron and clay’, was at the front of Spaak’s mind.
I don’t know how such an interest in Classical studies and pagan religion fits in with Spaak’s self-confessed agnosticism. I suppose we are complex beings inclined to spirituality. C S Lewis proposed that when we cease to believe in the Almighty, we do not believe in nothing. We actually believe in anything. It may have been thus with Paul-Henri Spaak. More research, as they say, is necessary.
IMPERIAL AMBITION
Be that as it may, for whatever reason, Spaak himself believed he was reviving the Roman Empire, without firing a shot. It was an empire he hoped would rival the United States in power and influence. Spaak’s was no Christian project and no Catholic plot. Gone was Adenauer’s Christian world-view, Schuman’s humility and Gasperi’s devotion to his church. In their place was Spaak’s imperial ambition. He had found the perfect venue to initiate it. Indeed he could have found no more appropriate site in the whole of Europe.
Tony Blair and Jack Straw were among leaders of 25 EU nations who signed the godless European Constitution in October 2004 in the same room of the Palazzo dei Conservatori as the Treaty of Rome was signed.
Moving on some forty-seven years, we come to the attempt at cementing the European Union together with a constitution. In October 2004, Tony Blair and Jack Straw gathered with the representatives of the other twenty-four countries of the EU and signed the document.
They signed it in the same room of the Palazzo die Conservatori on top of the Temple of Jupiter as Spaak, Adenauer and the rest signed the original Treaty of Rome in March 1957.
EU CONSTITUTION PLAQUE
Boris Johnson, in his book ‘The Dream of Rome’, says the Italian government erected a plaque in the Palazzo commemorating the event.
Written in Latin, it translates as follows: ‘On 29 October, 2004 in this most sacred Capitoline Hill, which is the citadel of this bountiful city and of the entire world, in this famous and August hall named after the Horatii and the Curiatii, the high contracting parties of the nations joined in the European Union signed a treaty about the form of constitution to be adopted, so that the nations of Europe might coalesce into a body of one people with one mind, one will and one government.’ (page 31)
Boris Johnson, author of ‘The Dream of Rome’
‘MOST SACRED CAPITOLINE HILL’
‘Most sacred Capitoline Hill’, it said. The Latin is ‘SACRATISSIMO’. Johnson misses that revealing adjective, referring as it does to the Temple of Jupiter. He also passes over the reference to the site being the ‘citadel’ not just of Rome but ‘of the entire world’.
Nevertheless, he asks: ‘One mind, one will and one government? When did the continent last have one mind, one will, one government? Not since the fall of the Roman Empire. And it is surely no accident that the plaque echoes the old Roman slogan plurimae gentes, unius populis – many nations, one people.’
EU Eurocrats love the idea of Europe being abducted and raped by a demon so much that they have put images of Europa on the Bull all over Europe. This statue is in Strasbourg.
It is worth noting that despite the prayers of Christians and the lobbying of both the Catholic and Orthodox churches, there was no reference to Christianity or Almighty God in the European Constitution. Mercifully, the Constitution was never ratified. The voters of France and the Netherlands rejected it. Undaunted, the Eurocrats put most of it into the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon anyway.
Continuing the pagan spiritual theme, they have also caused statues of Europa being abducted and raped by Zeus to be erected in Strasbourg and Brussels and the image of this mythical event to appear all over the European Union. Talk about their intentions being ‘hidden in the open’.
EU SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST
The Emperor Hadrian as a bust in the Altes Museum in Berlin.
Clearly, if the EU ever had been a Christian project or a Popish plot it had run out of steam by 2004. But of course, as we have seen, it was neither. Schuman’s dream may have been noble, but Spaak turned it into a secularist-cum-pagan nightmare. He made it a revived Roman Empire, one perpetually at war with the Kingdom of God.
Let us make no mistake. The spirit behind the original Roman Empire was the spirit of Antichrist. It had wormed its way from Babel to Babylon and on through Persia and Greece. It ended up in Urbs Aeterna, the ‘Eternal City’.
Rome itself was destroyed in a series of sackings during the fifth century AD. On one level ‘Jupiter’ or its Antichrist spirit if you prefer could not save it. But the 2nd-century Roman Emperor Hadrian suggested it was the spirit of Rome itself which was eternal. He said it would be reborn all over Europe. Hadrian may not have realised it, but he was speaking of the spirit of Antichrist.
For a pagan emperor, that man had some vision. And his empire was indeed reborn by Paul-Henri Spaak and the leaders of ‘the six’ he persuaded to sign, wittingly or unwittingly, on top of Jupiter’s Temple in Rome in March 1957.
THE LAMB SHALL OVERCOME THEM
So despite what Dr Summerton says, the European Union was never ‘at base’ or anywhere in its structure ‘a Christian project’. Nor was it ever a Catholic plot. It was a pagan/secularist scheme from the moment Paul-Henri Spaak got his hands on it. And it remains so to this day.
It follows that the EU is dangerous for any nation to be part of, marked as it is for God’s judgment. The Revelation to John addresses the demise of Hadrian’s and Spaak’s revived Roman Empire in chapter seventeen:
Rev 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. 13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. 14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
It would be sensible for any nation to be on the right side in that battle.
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The dancers in orange jump-suits represent the five workers who died building the Gotthard Base Tunnel. But as for the woman dressed, so to speak, as a bird?
World leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi attended the opening of the Gotthard Base tunnel which cuts a direct route to Italy under the Alps.
There are several videos aroundshowing robotic and slightly under-rehearsed (or perhaps it was meant to be out-of-sync) dancers clad in Orange work-style jump suits shuffling in to a lone drummer before going outside, stripping down to their underwear and rolling down a slope to the accompaniment of Alpenhorns.
Quite what all that signified, only German director and choreographer Volker Hesse would know.
Certain aspects proved popular with the men in the invitation-only audience.
Equally popular was the simulated lesbian groping which formed part of a float of scantily-clad gyrating dancers, appearing to have lost their way from some gay pride parade. Someone hit part of a railway wagon with chains. As you do.
Children’s tales, or Baphomet the goat-god?
Perhaps the strangest part of the ceremony involved a man dressed like nothing half so much as a goat-god. The grass-clad dancers bowed down to him. It is this apparently demonic element which has most concerned some Christian commentators.
Austin Ruse on the Breitbart website, under the headline ‘Stupid, not satanic’, was keen to explain that the Swiss trot out a lot of this weirdness at Christmas. Apparently they love dressing up as mountain goats or trolls and scaring the children. That makes it just fine, then.
The closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics laid itself open to similar accusations of satanic role-plays. There were people worshiping a pyramid, a nod to a one-world global vision and a phoenix rising from the flames. The dancers bowed down to that as well. It was all very ‘New World Order’.
Are the directors of these events briefed to provide something to please the global elite? Or do they produce all the occult symbolism out of their own heads? No doubt the new rail tunnel will cut several minutes off the Swiss north-south route. This author might well be inclined still to take the scenic route.
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