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EU – Christian Project or Catholic Plot?

Stephen

14 June 2016

TreatyRome — Signing the Treaty of Rome in the Palazzo dei Conservatori built on top of Jupiter's Temple. Paul-Henri Spaak is in the foreground

Dr Neil Summerton: EU 'Christian' — Dr Neil Summerton: EU ‘Christian’

View our videos:

Firstly, The European Union’s Tower of Babel

Secondly, The European Union’s Woman on the Beast

Thirdly, The European Union’s Pagan Foundation

Fourthly, European Union- Does the Lord Keep the City?

Lastly, The European Union’s Roman Empire

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

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 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.

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 1955 — 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

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

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

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.’

‘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 politicians of 25 EU nations who signed the godless European Constitution in October 2004 — 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's book carries the text of the plaque commemorating the signing of the 2004 constitution — 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.’

The Eurocrats love the idea of Europe being abducted and raped by a demon — 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.

View our EU themed videos:

Firstly, The European Union’s Tower of Babel

Secondly, The European Union’s Woman on the Beast

Thirdly, The European Union’s Pagan Foundation

Fourthly, European Union- Does the Lord Keep the City?

Lastly, The European Union’s Roman Empire

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Weird Swiss open Gotthard Base Tunnel

Stephen

12 June 2016

The dancers in orange jump-suits represent the five workers who died building the Gotthard Base Tunnel. As for the woman dressed as a bird? — 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?

The longest rail tunnel in the world opened last week with a weird ceremony accused by some of being ‘demonic’.

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 around showing 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 audience. — Certain aspects proved popular with the men in the invitation-only audience.

Yes, I understood the five dancers lying on the floor in their orange uniforms to refer to the five who died in the tunnel’s construction. Just what the bare-breasted woman with wings and a bird’s head was doing floating down from the ceiling above them, escaped me. She was, however, popular with some of the top-level audience, who stirred their video-phones into action.

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 the goat-god? — 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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UK votes for Monsanto Roundup

Stephen

8 June 2016

Monsanto's Roundup Glyphosate killer on the shelves at a garden centre in the UK — Monsanto’s Roundup Glyphosate weedkiller on the shelves at a garden centre in the UK

The United Kingdom was among twenty European Union nations voting earlier this week for Monsanto’s controversial ‘Roundup’ weedkiller, it has emerged.

The vote, held on Monday 6th June 2016, failed to authorise the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and similar products from Synerga and Dow Chemicals.

Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Portugal and Luxembourg abstained from the vote in the EU’s Council of Ministers and Malta voted against. The abstensions mean the ‘yes’ vote did not meet the requirement of 65% of the EU’s population.

From the end of this month, weedkillers including glyphosate will be pulled from shelves in gardening centres and supermarkets across the EU.

Spraying with 'Roundup' — Crop Spraying with ‘Roundup’ before harvest

REVOLVING DOOR

The United Kingdom’s support for glyphosate raises suspicions of Monsanto lobbyists having too close a relationship with our politicians.

Both David Cameron and Boris Johnson, in separate interviews on BBC’s Countryfile programme last Sunday (5th June 2016), expressed support for growing crops genetically-modified to be resistant to Roundup in the UK.

Fields of such ‘Roundup-ready’ crops may be sprayed with the weedkiller in the knowledge that the GM crop will stay standing while the weeds around it dies.

GLYPHOSATE FOUND IN BEER

Last year, the Munich Environmental Institute conducted a laboratory study of 14 of Germany’s most popular beers. They found glyphosate readings between 0.46 and 29.74 micrograms per litre.

The German government is keen to ban Roundup. ('Wurzel' is the German for 'root') — The German government is keen to ban Roundup. (‘Wurzel’ is the German for ‘root’)

The highest reading was 300 times the legal limit glyphosate in drinking water in Germany. The Institute concluded the results were ‘alarming’.

In March 2015, Glyphosate was classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO), as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

Were the high readings of glyphosate in German beer from residual levels of the weedkilling chemical in the soil, or is there another, more sinister route? Even with a ban on GM crops, Roundup may find its way into food by means of ‘dessication’. Farmers can spray fields of wheat, oats or barley with the weedkiller to kill and dry the crop to make it easier to harvest. The chemical is left on the grain.

SWITCH FOCUS TO WESTMINSTER

Monsanto actually recommends spraying with Roundup just before harvest to dessicate non-GM Canola (rapeseed), Flax (linseed), Peas, Lentils, non-GM Soybeans, Beans and Sugar Cane. It seems increasingly that the only way to be free of the stuff is to go organic. Or grow your own.

The EU Roundup affair and the comments of Messrs Cameron and Johnson illustrate the amount of work which will have to be done by environmentalists in the event of a vote later this month for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. The chemical is used liberally in the streets and parks of many UK towns and cities to control grass and weeds, as well as in agriculture and horticulture.

It would be a poor argument to remain in the EU because the UK Government can’t be trusted to protect the environment. Rather, activists and those who regard themselves as stewards of God’s creation will need to switch focus from Brussels to Westminster, if not now, then certainly if the UK votes ‘Leave’.

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

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European Union’s New Roman Empire

Stephen

16 May 2016

Boris Johnson is in trouble with the Guardian not just for saying the European Union is planning a new Roman Empire, but for saying Napoleon and Adolf Hitler had that dream as well.

(A more sympathetic view of Mr Johnson’s speech is here at the Daily Express!)

We say there is actually no need to invoke Hitler and Napoleon. Neither of them was educated enough to go to Rome to start their project.

But some clever chap in the EU was smart enough to organise the perfect place for such an endeavour.

So is Boris right to say the European Union is reviving the Roman Empire?

Take at look at our video on this very subject recorded in Rome itself and decide for yourself. No-one has ever before joined up these particular dots. Prepare to be amazed:

EU Referendum – Hospitality v Security

Stephen

17 March 2016

In this series of videos on YouTube we are looking at Britain’s membership of the European Union from a Christian, Biblical standpoint.

We ask should the UK stay or leave and look today at the matter of hospitality to Muslim migrants in particular vs the security of our borders.

There is more on the Queen’s Coronation Service here.

This link backs up the points about the European Commission.

European Parliament – is Seat 666 vacant?

Stephen

7 March 2016

MEP's sitting the European Parliament. But is seat 666 vacant, awaiting the Antichrist? — MEP’s sitting the European Parliament. But is seat 666 vacant, awaiting the Antichrist?

You will read all over the web that in the 863-seat European Parliament, Seat 666 is vacant, awaiting the Antichrist.

The otherwise informative website linked above voices the thoughts of many: ‘Interestingly, the seat numbered 666 is never occupied. Perhaps they are leaving it open for someone special?’

CONSPIRACY IS FACT

Now, we don’t believe in conspiracy theories at Christian Voice. We believe in conspiracy as fact:

Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. (KJV)

The number 666 certainly has notoriety. The Revelation to John says it is the number of the second beast, the one we know as the Antichrist:

Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

SO THE ANTICHRIST WILL BE IN SEAT 666?

So is seat 666 in the European Parliament vacant, awaiting the Antichrist?

Miroslav Mikolášik MEP occupied Seat 666

No it isn’t. The seating plan of the European Parliament shows seat 666 in Strasbourg is currently occupied by the Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola. Davor Škrlec, an MEP from Croatia, sits in the corresponding place in the Brussels chamber.

By the time you read this, different MEP’s may be in those two seats, because the seating changes every six months. Why the Brussels seating is different from the Strasbourg seating is an arcane EU mystery.

Previously, seat 666 has been occupied by Miroslav Mikolášik, a 63-year-old Slovak Politician. Before that, 666 was the seat of Italian (sorry, Sicilian!) politician Sebastiano (Nello) Musumeci, leader of the Sicilian Alliance. Neither Metsola nor Škrlec are the Antichrist, any more than were Mikolášik or Musumeci.

SO WHERE WILL THE ANTICHRIST SIT?

I predict that when the Antichrist does walk in to the European Parliament, he won’t sit at the back in seat 666. In fact, he won’t sit in the Euro Parliament at all, as it has no ability to initiate the legislation he requires. That power is reserved to the un-elected European Commission. So he will stand or sit right at the front and tell them what he has decided and what they are to do, Including the lowly inhabitant of seat 666.

Don’t get worried. Christian Voice has not gone soft. We still regard the European Union as a godless, corrupt, pretentious, expensive, wasteful, bureaucratic,oligarchic expression of Antichrist. It’s just that seat 666 of the European Parliament is not reserved for him. The Antichrist, the beast of Revelation, has something far grander in mind and that is world dominion.

Not that it will last. The Beast, the Antichrist, is heading for defeat at the hands of King Jesus:

Rev 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. … 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

If you are in Christ, you are on the winning side. Make sure you stay there.

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EU Referendum – Unity & Sovereignty

Stephen

4 March 2016

This is the first in what should end up as a series of videos on YouTube looking at Britain’s membership of the European Union from a Christian, Biblical standpoint.

We ask should the UK stay or leave and look at the matter of unity versus sovereignty.

There is more on the Queen’s Coronation Service here.

This link backs up the points about the European Commission.

22 reasons to stay out of Syria

Stephen

30 November 2015

President Assad is the only gurantor of stability in Syria and the UK can only defeat Islamic State with his army as ground forces. — President Assad is the only guarantor of stability in Syria and the UK can only defeat Islamic State with his army as ground forces.

I was in favour of bombing Islamic State in Syria until very recently. But evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and Mr Cameron’s shiftiness in the House of Commons last Thursday have changed my mind.

(1) Two years ago, thank God, the House of Commons voted against bombing President Assad’s forces in Syria. If the vote had gone Mr Cameron’s way, Syria would be in a worse mess now, loss of life would have been greater, Islamic State would be far stronger and there would be far more displaced people queuing up in Hungary. The Christians in Syria would be history, as would the Druze and the Alawites.

(2) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has heard evidence that airstrikes from Britain will make no difference whatsoever to the collective effort.

(3) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee has also heard evidence that airstrikes must be supported by ground troops. Mr Cameron gave a figure of 70,000 which he said came from the Joint Iintelligence Committee together with the impression that these could be those ground troops. Yet they include some ten groups and literally hundreds of different factions who are all in the far west of Syria. ISIS is based in the east and north. The 70,000, even if they could be persuaded to switch from fighting the Syrian army to fight ISIS and trek all the way from western Syria to the east is frankly preposterous. In short, they are in the wrong place with the wrong focus. It could well be, as Craig Murray argues, that no-one actually believes Mr Cameron, but few have challenged him on the figure, not even the official Opposition. ‘70,000’ wil be Mr Cameron’s ’45 minutes’, a figure which was also stated by the JIC.

(4) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee heard evidence in September that the Free Syrian Army is a ‘busted flush’. The evidence said it would be absurd to try to differentiate between radical and moderate Islamists among the opposition to President Assad.

(5) As David Winnick MP reminded the House on Thursday, the Prime Minister made the same sort of passionate arguments two years ago. He was wrong then and he has not made any case that shows he is right now. It is still the same old bluster.

(6) The Free Syrian Army have either given or sold equipment given to them by the United States to the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda offshoot. I searched Thursday’s debate in vain for any mention of Al Nusra. Does the Prime Minister regard them as moderate or radical?

(7) The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also heard evidence in September that the only guarantor of stability in Syria is President Assad. ‘It’s Assad or the Deluge’, said one.

(8) If oil wells are liberated from Islamic State, whose will the oil be? There is no strategy or understanding.

(9) I noted the Prime Minister said in the debate: ‘(ISIS) … get their money from selling oil to Assad’. As Mr Denis Skinner pointed out, it is well documented that ISIS get far more money from selling oil to well-placed individuals in Turkey. It was duplicitious of the Prime Minister not even to mention Turkey and then when challenged to say that Turkey had ‘taken action’ about that. On the very same day that the Prime Minister made his statement, President Erdogan flatly denied Turkey was buying any ISIS oil at all. But the Guardian reported on Tuesday last week: ‘Turkish businessmen struck lucrative deals with Isis oil smugglers.’ The sum involved is said to be $10m per week.

(9a) One Mr George Haswani was identified in March as the middleman between ISIS and President Assad in an oil deal, but the sums involved in these alleged Syrian deals have yet to be spelt out. I am not actually surprised that enemies are doing deals with one another over oil resources. In one sense, it is better than blowing them up. But when a NATO member is profiting from Syrian oil and denying it, I should expect our Prime Minister to at least acknowledge that fact.

(10) On the subject of Turkey, if Mr Cameron is serious about ground troops including Kurdish fighters, what representations did the UK make to Turkey when Turkish forces attacked Kurdish fighters in July, killing hundreds of souls?

(11) This summer, Turkey sent three hundred air strikes against Kurdish forces fighting ISIS and only three against ISIS itself. What representations did the UK make to Turkey about that?

(12) In early September, Turkey violated Iraqi air space to attack Kurdish fighters and violated the territory of Iraq to pursue them as well. The only ones to gain from that were ISIS. Seeing Britain has an interest in Iraq, what representations did the UK make to Turkey about that violation of sovereign territory?

(13) In ‘The Independent’ on 4th October, Patrick Cockburn reported that the US had betrayed the Syrian Kurds in a deal with Turkey. This is despite the fact that the Syrian branch of the PKK has apparently been the most successful ground ally of the US at retaking areas from ISIS. Are these the same Syrian Kurds who are now expected to be the northern ground troops to follow up UK airstrikes? And will you support removing the UK’s ‘proscribed’ classification of the PKK, who pose no threat to Britain at all, under the Terrorism Act?

(14) Mr Cameron said he had learned the lessons of Iraq and Libya. The Iraq invasion was in 2003 and the first elections were held in 2005. Iraq was well known to be a disaster by at least 2007. The UK intervened in Libya in 2011. No lessons were learned from Iraq to be put in place in Libya, so north Africa is now flooded with Islamists and arms. Why should we believe the Prime Minister now? ‘Regime Change’ is illegal and ends in death and destruction.

(15) The issue of unintended consquences has not been remotely addressed. The most recent direct consequence of our intervention in Libya was the 22 deaths in Bamako in Mali.

(16) There are certain to be civilian deaths in places like Raqqa, violating at least one principle of the ‘Just War’ principle. In the war in Iraq, which was waged for regime change and nothing else, an estimated 165,000 civilians died. Those MPs who voted with Tony Blair for war in 2003 have that blood on their hands.

(17) I recognise that Air Chiefs of Staff want to see how their latest bits of technology work in the field and Mr Cameron wants to appear tough and militaristic when he meets other leaders but these are just positions of vanity.

(18) UK jets have been operating in Iraq, but the only success to date is the liberation of Sinjar. What other success in Iraq can Mr Cameron point to?

(19) At a time of continuing austerity, Mr Cameron has not even presented the cost of a Syrian operation to Parliament. Every two-plane mission with each plane discharging four Paveway bombs and two Brimstone missiles would cost the taxpayer £1 million. The cost could soar into billions all of which will have to be borrowed.

(20) No coherent strategy has been presented, let alone an exit strategy.

(21) United Nations Security Council resolution 2249 ‘Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law’. International law does not allow the United Kingdom to violate Syrian air space. The Prime Minister did not tell the House of Commons how or even if he proposed to seek permission from President Assad to overfly Syria. If he does not, the action will be illegal.

(22) Pursuant to paragraph (3) above, any force wanting to liberate Raqqa or other eastern Syrian towns will need the cooperation of the Syrian army under President Assad. Yet the Prime Minister has ruled out any approach to or support for President Assad, maintaining his ‘Assad must go’ mantra. Without the involvement of the Syrian army, we are wasting our time, as your colleague Dr Julian Lewis has said.

For all the reasons given, please urge your Member of Parliament to vote against UK air strikes in Syria.

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70,000: the new 45 minutes

Stephen

28 November 2015

David Cameron counting moderate Syrian rebels.

David Cameron’s assertion in the House of Commons on Thursday 26th November 2015 that there are ‘seventy thousand’ moderate Syrian opposition forces ready to back up UK air strikes is unravelling fast.

Dr Julian Lewis MP, chairman of the Defence Committee, said in the debate, ‘I have to say that the suggestion that there are 70,000 non-Islamist, moderate, credible ground forces is a revelation to me and, I suspect, to most other Members in this House.’

The Independent reported that Mr Lewis would be tabling a question in the House of Commons demanding Mr Cameron clarify the claim. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the 70,000 figure was based on the “best intelligence and analysis we have”, adding: “The figure was provided to him by the Joint Intelligence Committee; they provided that intelligence and analysis independent of the Government.”

That will be the same Joint Intelligence Committee which apparently assured Tony Blair, after some arm-twisting, that Saddam Hussein could fire a long range missile with a chemical warhead at the UK in the famous figure of ’45 minutes’. It looks suspiciously as if ‘70,000’ will turn out to be Mr Cameron’s ’45 minutes’.

The Independent says Mr Lewis asked Sky News: ‘Where are these magical 70,000 people and if they are there fighting, how come they haven’t been able to roll back Isil/Daesh? Is it that they’re in the wrong place? Is it that they’re fighting each other? Or is it that in reality they’re not all that moderate and that there are a lot of jihadists among them?’ He urged the Prime Minister to start working with President Assad to defeat Islamic State. “Sometimes the best you can do is choose the lesser of two evils,” he said.

Writing in the Spectator, Charles Lister, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Doha Center and a Senior Consultant to The Shaikh Group, wrote to verify the figure. He came up with 65,000 fighters in ten separate groups with names like ‘Daybreak’ (Faylaq) and ‘Front’ (Jabhat) sporting memberships from 1,000 to 25,000. The biggest forces were the ‘Southern Front’ with 25,000 men in fifty-eight different factions and the ‘Northern Free Syrian Army’ with 20,000 in fourteen factions. Having coordinated meetings with up to a hundred other separate rebel militias, he counted a further 10,000 men in these groups.

Immediately, however, Mr Cameron’s claims start to unravel. He said the 70,000 were ‘principally of the Free Syrian Army’ whereas only 45,000 of them are. Then he said these are people ‘with whom we can co-ordinate attacks on ISIL’.

The first obvious problem is, these fighters are all in the extreme south-west and north-west of Syria. Now, according to a helpful map at the bottom of this article in the Guardian, Islamic State has a pocket of ground in the south-east, and another in the north-west. These are areas being patrolled by Russian aircraft from their base in Latakia, on Syria’s North-West coast.

The second obvious problem is that the ‘Free Syrian Army’ are just as interested in fighting the Syrian Army as Islamic State. Russian aircraft have been supporting Syrian army forces with air strikes against these very same forces. As Mr Lister said: ‘They remain focused on fighting the Assad regime, however, as it represents a more immediate priority for most, in terms of self-protection, the defence of civilian populations and of course, pursuing the revolution’s ultimate objective.’ Without British commanders on the ground prodding these men towards the Islamic State pockets, there is absolutely no guarantee they will follow up a British air strike against Islamic State on their manor, even if our air chiefs could gain an agreement with their Russian counterparts to avoid bumping into each other over this stretch of land. And British ‘boots on the ground’ have been rightly ruled out.

Working with groups such as the ‘Free Syrian Army’ has been a nightmare for the US. Equipment supplied to them by the US has ended up in the hands of the Al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat Al-Nusra. The FSA either gave or sold the armaments to them. In addition, as Ewen MacAskill wrote in the Guardian article cited above, ‘the US spent $600m (about £400m) training rebels to go back over the border into Syria. In the end, only 58 went back. Asked in September at a Congressional committee how many of them were still fighting, General Lloyd Austin said: “We are talking four or five.”’

Islamic State also holds ground to the east of Damascus and in the north-east of the rest of Syria. None of the ‘70,000’ are anywhere near these areas. Around Raqqa, where French warplanes have been active, there is no moderate opposition at all.

Mr MacAskill reported that retired British brigadier Ben Barry, who he described as ‘a specialist in land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’, estimated ‘a joint US-UK-French coalition would require 20,000 troops to retake Raqqa. He described the prospect as “challenging”, given that IS had been preparing its defences for the last year.’ In the absence of those troops, it can only fall to the Syrian army to retake Raqqa. Mr Cameron would have to speak to Mr Assad.

The 70,000 are nowhere near Raqqa which is also far from the extreme north of Syria where the Kurds are based. And on that subject, the Kurdish forces are allied to the Kurdish Peoples’ Party, the PKK, which the UK has proscribed as a ‘terrorist organisation’ to appease Turkey. The PKK pose no threat to Britain and it is high time that proscription was removed.

This is a time when Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition should be actively opposing and challenging the government. But according to Gary Gibbon in a revealing article on the Channel 4 website, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition is not even opposing and challenging those in his own Shadow Cabinet who support Mr Cameron.

Labour MP Paul Flynn said on the BBC yesterday that Prime Ministers can get carried away with their importance. They can become possessed by a spirit of hubris while dreaming of their ‘place in history’. It happened to Tony Blair. Now it is happening to David Cameron. If this nation is not to waste millions on pointless air strikes, we need the Opposition to oppose him.

But more importantly than that, we need prayer. There was a massive outpouring of prayer before the Commons vote not to bomb President Assad’s forces in August 2013. The reasons for MPs to vote ‘No’ are different this time, but the need for prayer is still there.

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What is the Gender Pay Gap?

Stephen

4 November 2015

David Cameron working out the gender pay gap.

The UK Government is going to force firms to reveal the bonuses they pay to men and to women.

Apparently, in the UK, a woman on average earns around 80p for every £1 earned by a man. The Government will also make it a legal requirement for every company with more than 250 employees to publish the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees.

Earlier this year, business hit a target for the percentage of women on company boards. That was set at twenty-five percent by government adviser Lord Davies. Be in no doubt he will want that to go to fifty percent.

Our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron, has said: “You can’t have true opportunity without equality. There is no place for a pay gap in today’s society and we are delivering on our promises to address it.”

Maria Miller MP, who chairs the Commons Women and Equalities Committee chimed in, launching an inquiry by her committee into government strategy on reducing the difference between what women and men are paid.

Mrs Miller said unequal pay was predominantly a problem that affected women over forty and that measures already announced by the government did not account for this group.

I saw a video recently in which one Mike Buchanan was pointing to research indicating that having loads of women on company boards impacted negatively on their profitability.

GOD CREATED THE MAN TO WORK AND THE WOMAN TO HELP HIM

But I think my disquiet is more with the principle that gender pay equality is either achievable or desirable.

You see, in the beginning, God created the man, gave him some work, and then created the woman to be a helper for him. The pattern of a man as the head of the household, providing outside the home and women caring within it is still one which chimes with people and to which they aspire.

Even in what we regard as the most primitive societies, women stay near the camp, keeping their home smart, gathering stuff, looking after the children, while the men go out and hunt. The women usually cook what the men bring back.

Most women, in all the surveys I have seen, would rather be at home looking after their children than out at work. But sadly we have too many single-parent families today, and most of those are headed by a mother, and in two-parent households, governments have organised things so that today so many families need two incomes to survive.

GENDER PAY GAP IS A MYTH

I also want to suggest that this ‘gender pay gap’ might actually be a myth. After all, it’s illegal to pay a man more than a woman for doing an equivalent job.

So how do the Government come up with their 80% figure? Well, they just take a average of what every man earns and compare it with the average of what every woman earns, then round it up to the nearest 10%.

But men do more dirty and dangerous jobs, that pay more – and kill many of them. Many women – probably too many for the government’s liking – actually want to bring up their own children. Taking time out of a career inevitably impacts on earning ability.

And when you read about the real differences between men and women, you find that men are more driven and focused on achievements, while women are more concerned with relationships.

Lastly, if more men than women prioritise work, as the figures seem to show, won’t that, coupled with natural testosterone-fueled ambition, impact on relative earnings?

NEGATIVE PAY-GAPS

According to the Office for National Statistics, the gender pay gap is actually 9.4% for full-time employees. It only rises to 19.1% (not 20%) when part-time employees are included. And for part-time employees, they say, ‘the higher rate of pay for women than men results in a ‘negative’ gender pay gap’. The Government are not campaigning to address that problem, or seeking to raise the pay of young men to equal that of young women.

According to the Guardian newspaper, there is a negative gender pay gap among the young. ‘The pay gap is low or slightly reversed among 18 to 39-year-olds, but the gap for hourly earnings grows from the age of 40 onwards, reaching its highest point for women in their 50s’, said the paper. This is precisely the point where women are taking time out of their career for family reasons and men are nearing the peak of theirs.

The Government protest that after decades of equal pay acts, Britain still has the sixth-highest pay gap between men and women in the EU. But even this claim is highly simplistic.

The European Commission say: ‘A high pay gap is usually characteristic of a labour market which is highly segregated, meaning that women are more concentrated in a restricted number of sectors and/or professions (e.g. Czech Republic, Estonia and Finland), or in which a significant proportion of women work part-time (e.g. Germany and Austria)’. Both of those, to a certain extent, would apply to the United Kingdom.

The BBC’s Mark Easton asked ‘which jobs have more women than men‘, and he linked to a 2012 report from the House of Commons Library. (Click on the PDF to see the full report).

Another pay gap is never talked about. It is the gap between what people earn in the private sector and in the public sector. According to ONS: ‘Private sector earnings have remained consistently at around 85% of public sector earnings since 2009.’

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Syria – Sense and Compassion

Stephen

6 October 2015

The Russian air strikes in Syria have set fur flying in Westminster. But despite the strutting ministers, some people are speaking with sense and compassion, among them former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey and Crispin Blunt, a little-known MP who chairs one of the most influential select committees in the House of Commons.

Firstly, on Sunday 4th of October 2015, former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr George Carey was reported saying that the United Kingdom has a responsibility to Syrian Christians.

Lord Carey said: “Time is running out for Christians in the region. Successive UK governments have failed to do enough to support minority communities in the Middle East and now sadly, many Christians have concluded they have no future in a region where they have lived for nearly two thousand years.”

He did not condemn Russia’s air strikes, but our Defence Secretary did. Michael Fallon MP said Mr Putin was targeting the ‘Free Syrian Army’ and claimed: “He’s shoring up Assad and perpetuating the suffering.”

But also over the weekend, the Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said that Britain and the US were getting “in the way” of solving the Syrian civil war by calling for Assad to step down.

Mr Crispin Blunt MP said it was not “helpful” for David Cameron to compare Assad’s regime with the actions of ISIS terrorists. And he said the West was “in no position to complain” about Russian airstrikes in Syria.

We reported last month that Mr Blunt’s committee heard from experts on Syria, among them learned professors and journalists who agreed that Mr Fallon’s ‘Free Syrian Army’ is a busted flush and that the the Syrian Opposition is now totally dominated by Islamic State and Al Qaeda offshoots like the Al Nusra Front.

Much as one might dislike Bashar Al-Assad, said one expert, if he goes Syria implodes. There is no other guarantor of stability. It’s Assad or the Deluge, said another.

So when Mr Fallon complains that the Russians are shoring up Assad, I respond on the video, ‘You mean, they are preventing Syria from becoming a failed state like Libya is after our intervention? How inconsiderate of them.’

Our Government, including the previous gung-ho foreign secretary William, now Lord, Hague, bear much of the responsibility for the mass displacement of people by encouraging, supplying, training, even arming, Syrian rebel groups. It is we who have perpetuated the suffering, not Assad.

The sadness is, we can’t trust either our government or that of the US to tell us the truth.

The word of God tells us to support Christian brothers and sisters and to pray for our leaders. So I’m praying to hear from Mr Cameron that he is prepared to prioritise asylum to Syrian Christians, and that he will work humbly with Syria and its allies to defeat Islamic State and bring stability to Syria – and Iraq – so that the Christians, and the other minorities, can return to areas they and their ancestors have lived in, as Dr Carey reminded us, for two thousand years.

Please take a look at the video above and see if it is the prophetic voice I am praying it will be:

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Assad essential to UK security

Stephen

18 September 2015

Andrew Parker, head of MI5, the UK Security Service.

The head of Britain’s Security Service has said that the ‘situation in Syria’ affects the threat of terrorism in the UK.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 17th September 2015, MI5 Director General Andrew Parker said terrorism is ‘a threat which is continuing to grow largely because of the situation in Syria and how that affects our security.’

Last week, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee heard compelling evidence that without President Assad, Syria would become a ‘failed state’ like Iraq and Libya.

It follows that President Assad is essential not just to defeat Islamic State, but his presence and a victory for the Syrian armed forces is necessary to minimise the threat to domestic UK security.

DRIVEN FROM CONFLICT ZONES

‘The shape of the threat we face today has changed in some ways because it is driven from conflict zones and the way people react to that,’ continued Mr Parker.

UK border police at Heathrow. But what of the militants who have slipped in unknown to them, or those entering illegally?

‘Because of the internet and the way terrorists use social media, including from Syria and the way we all live our lives using the smart phones in our pockets – the terrorists do the same.’

In answer to a question about the likelihood of extremists among ‘the migrants and refugees who are coming into Europe at the moment’, Mr Parker said guardedly he was ‘aware’ of that threat, but said he was concentrating at the moment on returning UK-based Islamic State fighters, who are probably already on MI5’s radar:

‘Of course it’s MI5’s job with others to monitor where the terrorists may be and how they are operating and how they are moving … we take an interest in those who have been to Syria and are coming back. So as far as the flow of migrants and refugees go of course it’s something we are aware of, it isn’t as we speak today the main focus of where the threat is coming from’.

ASSAD OR THE DELUGE

Either way, the unrest in Syria, which was encouraged by the United Kingdom, specifically by then-Foreign Secretary, the recently-ennobled William Hague, is putting at risk the safety of the people of the United Kingdom.

Foreign Affairs Select Committee member Mark Hendrick MP asked witnesses about what he described as ‘the so-called Arab Spring, that seems to have gone totally out of direction in a way that nobody would have predicted.’ Professor Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre in Oxford, gave this response:

Professor Rogan: ‘I say this with a shared distaste for Bashar al-Assad and his methods of government, but I do believe he is an essential man. The policies based around the idea that Bashar al-Assad must go are ill-advised. They are unrealistic because those who advocate them do not have a champion they would put forward in his place and because recent history has shown us that when the state collapses you get a failed state.

Julien Barnes-Dacey appearing before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

‘State-building in the context of a failed state has given us Afghanistan and Somalia, and great difficulties in Iraq—and Libya and Yemen right now. Seeing Syria go the route of another failed state seems to me to be the greatest threat to our interests, as an American, and to yours as Britons, because when the state is gone in Syria the Islamic State will take its place, and it will then be a reality as an Islamic state—we will not quibble over Daesh, and so on. It will be the caliphate that they declare it to be. I think that it is now Bashar al-Assad or the deluge.’

Julien Barnes-Dacey, Senior Policy Fellow, Middle East and North Africa programme, European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed: ‘He is a guarantor. I think that is analytically correct. With Assad going, there are no guarantees of what comes next. … If (the question) remains pivoted on the person of Assad, it will continue to fail.’

OPPOSITION IN SYRIA ‘DOMINATED BY IS AND AL-QAEDA

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent, The Independent

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also heard from Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, and freelance reporter James Harkin.

The transcript is here and is very well worth reading to understand the realities in Syria.

In an exchange which contradicted all the UK Government would have us believe, Mr Cockburn told a stunned Michael Gapes MP that there are no longer ‘numerous fighting groups’ in Syria, as Mr Gapes believed:

‘The armed opposition in Syria is dominated by Islamic State, which now holds more than half the country, and al-Qaeda type movements such as the official representative of al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, or Ahrar al-Sham and the others are now dominant in the armed opposition, and there are not too many others. The Free Syrian Army and others that people used to talk about are very weak these days,’ said Mr Cockburn.

Al Jazeera reports that the United State’s plan to train thousands of ‘moderate’ Syrians to fight Islamic State is in shambles, with only sixty having been trained and only four or five of them left.

Freelance journalist and Syria expert James Harkin.

Nadhim Zahawi MP asked James Harkin: ‘Very briefly, what secular or moderate groups have any major role now in the fighting or in the political arena (in Syria)?’

This was Mr Harkin’s response: ‘As I see it, the secular or moderate groups that we support are still ensconced in hotels in Istanbul, having nice lunches three or four years later. These people are largely meaningless to any political settlement, and that really should not be the question we are asking. We should be asking what Syrian people want, rather than who can be our friends’.

CONSEQUENCES OF SYRIAN REGIME COLLAPSE

The Committee chairman, Crispin Blunt MP, asked, ‘if the regime did collapse, what would be the consequences?’

Patrick Cockburn responded: ‘Well, we’ve got 4 million refugees already. I think you would probably have about the same number coming out, or trying to get out if they could. Most of the minorities would cut and run. So too would people associated with the army or with the Government, and a lot of the Sunni. You would have mass panic. Can you imagine what it would be like if Daesh entered Damascus or started taking other cities? I think you would have mass population movements. I think it would be very bad.’

James Harkin added: ‘As Patrick says, whether you are an Alawite or a Christian or a Shi’a, the people I speak to there do not particularly hold great store by analytic detail about hundreds and hundreds of different factions, they just see that these people are out to kill them, because they are heretics.’

UK GOVERNMENT AT ODDS

Astonishingly, even as the committee was hearing this evidence, David Cameron was preparing to tell the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s questions that ‘Assad must go’. Does the UK government have no access to anyone who knows anything about Syria?

Former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford.

Even back in April, the UK’s former ambassador to Syria Peter Ford denounced Mr Cameron’s attitude as ‘arrogant’ and ‘reckless’ in the Guardian saying that, ‘If David Cameron had had his way, we could have been embroiled by now, more than we already are, in yet another Middle East war. As it is, his Syria policy has still backfired, contributing to the rise of jihadism in our own back yard. If (he) had had his way, the jihadis could be in control of Damascus by now. Where is the accountability?’

The fact is, the more the UK and the US have undermined President Assad, the worse the situation in Syria has become, and the more refugees have been generated, not just from the Christian, Shi’a, Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities that the President has protected from the Syrian Sunni Muslim majority down the years, but also from newly radicalised but now displaced Syrian Sunnis, who threaten UK security.

More encouraging than Mr Cameron’s bluster was the contradictory evidence his new Foreign Secretary gave to the Select Committee as Mr Cameron was speaking. Rt Hon Philip Hammond signalled that the UK had actually retreated from its position of demanding that President Assad should relinquish power as a pre-requisite for UK assistance, according to this report in the Times of Israel.

The Foreign Secretary told the Committee that the solution of the crisis in Syria should be political rather than military, adding that London had sent a message to Russia and Iran, two countries backing the Assad regime, that it would be willing to consider a plan that sees Assad stay in power temporarily.

UK MUST WORK WITH SYRIA

The policy shift came as Ex-SAS and writer Chris Ryan has said that the UK must work with Syria, Russia and Iran if there is to be any hope of defeating Islamic State.

The novelist, who fought in the first Gulf War, said in the Daily Express:

“The best idea would be to hit them both sides with Europe and the United States one side and Russia on the other. The longer we wait, the stronger ISIS will get.”

Russia and Iran are President Assad’s strongest Allies. The Russians and Chinese have repeatedly blocked UN resolutions critical of the Syrian regime and have consistently opposed ‘regime change’.

It may be difficult to see how matters could be worse in Syria, and yet, as the Professor Rogan said, it President Assad were to be toppled, Syria would descend into the mayhem of Libya and the situation, especially for the Christians who remain there would be even worse and the refugee crisis unimaginable. Patrick Cockburn said ‘You would have mass panic … it would be very bad.’

We must give thanks to Almighty God for the stance taken by Russia and China and for the support Syria has received from Iran. Not least, we must thank God for the vote in the House of Commons in August 2013 in which MPs refused to allow the UK Government to bomb President Assad’s forces.

BRICKS NOT BOMBS

As to whether the UK should now enter into a bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria, there was agreement among the witnesses that bombing alone would do little against Islamic State.

Mr Cockburn observed: ‘Where the Americans are supporting the Syrian Kurds and their militia, who are well disciplined and well organised, with air strikes, that is where Daesh (Islamic State) have suffered defeats. At Kobane, they lost about 2,000 men in a four-and-a-half-month siege. At another place, called Hasaka, also in the north-east, they also suffered a defeat, but there was a combination of efficient ground troops and American air strikes.’

He went on: ‘a lot of air missions by the Americans do not find a target. But above all, what you need is people on the ground who are calling in air strikes and who can see ISIS. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t really work very effectively. For the air strikes to work, you need people on the ground, giving the co-ordinates of exactly where Daesh is, and then they can hit those targets immediately.’

But Professor Rogan had a different and important take, telling Yasmin Qureshi MP:

‘Ms Qureshi, if I could put one plea forward, it would be to prioritise the sending of bricks rather than bombs to Syria, because I do not see how further air strikes or military action is going to do anything except further destroy the urban fabric of Syria. I tried to find some figures before coming to this meeting, and the most recent I could find suggest that 1.4 million Syrian homes have been destroyed. It is not West London prices—say it is £50,000 a unit—but that is £60 billion to rebuild the houses Syrians need to go home.

Professor Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics and Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies, University of St Andrews. — Prof. Raymond Hinnebusch.

‘You were asking previously what Syrians want. They don’t want to be in Europe. They don’t want to be in England, Germany or Hungary. They want to be home. The sooner we adopt policies that prioritise the needs of Syrians and provide not a safe haven but a safe habitat for them, with schools, hospitals and homes, the better, but that takes bricks, not bombs.’

NO NEGOTIATION

There will have to be a rebuilding effort when this conflict is over, but while Professor Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics and Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews agreed with Professor Rogan’s plea for a political settlement, it is difficult to see how that might happen.

Patrick Cockburn said: ‘… unfortunately the armed opposition is controlled at this stage by people who do not really want to talk, but want to win’.

There can be little prospect of negotiation with Al-Nusra and none at all with Islamic State, so even though bombing their positions might run the risk of radicalising even more Sunnis against those they will see as infidel invaders, there is no choice but to embark on smart bombing backed up by ground forces if Islamic State is to be defeated. Then, and only then, can those genuinely sympathetic to Syria and its people begin to discuss a long-term settlement in that country.

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Juncker Blocks EU Referendum

Robin

22 April 2015

Negotiations regarding Britain's status in the EU will not take place while Juncker is in office. — Negotiations regarding Britain’s status in the EU will not take place while Juncker is in office.

Jean-Claude Juncker blocked EU referendum with Britain, saying that re-negotiations regarding Britain’s treaty with the EU will not happen while he is still president of the EU.

In January of this year David Cameron promised to hold a referendum to amend Britain and the European Union’s relationship. Any changes, if they come, will not be until the end of 2019.

Although Cameron promised a referendum on the UK’s membership, he wanted to stay in the EU if the negotiations went favorable. His goal was to change the relationship between the Britain and the EU.

If re-elected, Cameron will be forced to hold a referendum on EU membership without the option of reclaiming any power from Brussels. In this situation it will be more likely that Britain would leave the EU.

An official told the Times:

“No treaty change proposals are envisaged until after November 2019, the end of Mr Juncker’s mandate as president of the commission.”

In this case negotiations would not begin until 2020.

This incident comes after the Prime Minister very publicly tried to prevent Mr Juncker from becoming President of the European Commission and vowed that he would “reclaim powers from Brussels.”

The 2015 Conservative party election manifesto, which Mr Cameron spear-headed, states that Britain would “want national parliaments to be able to work together to block unwanted European legislation. And we want an end to our commitment to ‘ever closer union’ as enshrined in the treaty to which every country has to sign up.'”

In order to avoid a Labour Government supported by the Scottish National Party, Mr Cameron also told members of the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) that they would need to vote conservative.

Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip, branded the Conservative manifesto a “work of fiction” as the treaty is change is non-negotiable by the Conservative part. He said:

“I challenge David Cameron to tell the British people this simple truth rather than dupe, delude and deceive them.”

European leaders in Brussels have already made clear that if Mr Cameron returns to Downing Street they will not accept any treaty changes before next year. Any amendments to the treaty would not be overhauled until 2025, and even that will require unanimous vote of all EU countries.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that this statement from Brussels is nothing new. He also told the Times: “It was said there would be no changes after the Lisbon Treaty, but that was proved wrong. These latest claims will be proved wrong too.

“Commission President Juncker himself has said that answering the ‘British question’ is one of his key priorities.”

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Merkel Warns over UK Immigration Plans

Robin

8 November 2014

Angela Merkel fears that Britian’s new immigration rules could be the last straw for severing UK and EU ties.

The German Chancellor has issued a warning about David Cameron’s plans to limit “freedom of movement”, hinting that she would rather see the UK leave the EU than for immigration to be curbed.

David Cameron, who has come under increasing pressure from anti-EU voters, has attempted to reduce the free flow of immigrants throughout the 27 member states onto British soil. But the German chancellor told Cameron that his proposed quotas could accelerate Britain reaching a point of no return.

Cameron is now looking on alternatives to setting quotas, such as limiting the time immigrants can be in the country without a job.

Merkel is not the only foreign leader that has expressed concerns on the subject. Stefan Lofen the Prime Minister of Sweden, believes that EU immigration policy could result in the EU unraveling.

“The fact that one country believes that one thing is wrong does not mean that we can change, because every country might have its own priorities and that may just ruin the European Union,” he announced.

“If you first create a common market with common rules and then if the individual countries are supposed to change that on their own, then, I mean, soon, we do not have a European common market,” Lofven said.

Even states that were championed by Britain to be part of the EU have reservations about Britain’s immigration reform.

Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister has attempted to appease his anti-EU constituency by claiming that the British people are his only boss, adding:

“What we need in Britain is a renegotiation of our relationship with the EU and then a referendum where the British people decide do we stay in this reformed organization or do we leave it.
“That’s what I will pursue, that’s what I will deliver, and at the heart of that renegotiation we need to address people’s concerns about immigration. I’m very clear about who the boss is, about who I answer to and it’s the British people. They want this issue fixed, they are not being unreasonable about it, and I will fix it.”

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EU Penalizes Britain For Prosperity

Robin

3 November 2014

The European Union has insisted that David Cameron hand over £1.7 Billion in what is essentially a prosperity penalty.

Britain must pay at least £1.7 Billion to help with recovery, the EU has announced.

The UK was targeted for the bill, due on 1st December, as a result of the country out-performing other economies in Europe since 1995.

The controversial bill includes retroactive payments that the EU assumes Britain owes them based on the country’s success over the last two decades. It does not include the £680 million that will be taken out of British taxpayers’ pockets to support an estimated increase for next year’s EU budget.

This backdated surcharge highlights how the price-tag for EU membership fluctuates depending on how well an economy is doing, with the more prosperous nations paying the most, all calculated depending on gross national income.

News of this pending payment is likely to add to the growth of groups demanding that Britain quit the EU.

Poorer Nations Get Rewarded

Part of the controversy over Britain’s bill is that it runs parallel to a practice of rewarding poorer nations in the EU block. France is getting handed 790 million for having a poorer and much more stagnant economy over the past year.

The Netherlands, which is scheduled pay 642 million for its own success, has highlighted the problem of rewarding the economies of stagnant nations with cash handouts. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, representing both the Dutch and the British, scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the payment crisis and how it should be dealt with. His concerns were echoed by Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex. “The EU punishes economic success and rewards profligacy and failure”, he said, adding that “Britain is right to support the world’s poorest countries we shouldn’t be supporting some of the richest.”

Illegal Economic Activities Are Include

Not all the money for this bill is coming out of the mainstay economy. Prostitution and illegal drugs make up about 10 million of the British economy and are being calculated in the EU payout. This has been criticized by Tim Worstall at Forbes Magazine who pointed out that “while it might be appropriate to use the total economy, grey and black portions included, as a measure of the economy for some purposes it simply isn’t for the purpose of working out how much should be coughed up to the EU. Quite simply because, by definition, those extra parts of the economy aren’t paying the tax which is what Brussels wants a cut of.”

£1.7 Billion in Perspective

Daniel Hannan put in perspective how extreme the 1.7 pound bill actually is. In his article “The EU has just given us another 1.7 billion reasons to leave” he pointed out that

Daniel Hannan

£1.7 billion would allow us to hire an extra 60,000 nurses and fund their pensions. It’s more than is raised by the bank levy. It represents an extra £65 a year for every family in the direct payments they make to Brussels – on top of the £525 they are already paying.

I say “direct payments” because we are paying far more indirectly, through higher food bills (to subsidise the Common Agricultural Policy), higher fuel bills (to subsidise the EU’s carbon reduction programmes) and higher VAT bills (to subsidise – well, just to subsidise Brussels functionaries in general).

You’ll be lucky to find an elected representative in Britain prepared to defend the EU on this one. The additional £1.7 billion is being sought because, in essence, the UK economy is outperforming the rest of the EU. Several other countries are affected at the margin – bizarrely, debt-stricken Greece is being surcharged while wealthy Germany is getting a rebate – but no one else is being asked to pay anything like so much. Most of the adjustments are in the tens of millions, though the Netherlands is another big loser, and France and Germany are big winners. But the UK is the outlier: our hike would more than pay for the rebates of all 17 net gainers put together.

Why? Because, frankly, we stayed out of the euro and so – despite Gordon Brown’s best efforts to bankrupt us – we were able to recover more swiftly from the downturn than most of the countries that had surrendered their currencies.

The European Commission has made little effort to raise revenue by fining the Eurozone states that breached the Stability and Growth Pact, and thus contributed to the euro crisis in the first place. On the contrary, most of them are being rewarded while we are punished for having had the effrontery to have called monetary union correctly.

A prosperity surcharge is never a good idea. If you tax successful countries in order to subsidise unsuccessful countries, you end up with fewer successful countries and more unsuccessful ones.

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UK Government still obdurate over Syria

Stephen

23 October 2014

Assad in Maaloula — President Assad inspects damage left by Islamist rebels in the Christian town of Maaloula

Tobias Ellwood MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. — Tobias Ellwood MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

Her Majesty’s Government is stubbornly blaming President Assad for the rise of Islamic State despite the funding and encouragement it sent to Islamist opposition groups in Syria.

In an obdurate letter sent out to Members of Parliament and forwarded to constituents, Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood MP says ‘Assad has been one of the leading causes for the rise of ISIL (Islamic State – SG) and other extremist groups in Syria. He has created the conditions that have allowed terrorism to flourish – by destroying the social and physical fabric of the country, fuelling sectarianism, and leaving a trail of insecurity and ungoverned space across Syria’.

Mr Ellwood conveniently ignores:

1 The view of two retired generals and Sir Malcolm Rifkind who have all called for collaboration with President Assad of Syria in order to defeat Islamic State,

2 The fact that President Assad is all that stands between both the Syrian Christians and the Alawite commmunity and a bloodbath,

3 The inability and unwillingness of any Syrian opposition group to guarantee the safety of the Syrian Christians and Shi-ite Muslims, including the Alawites,

4 What happened to the Christians in the Syrian town of Maaloula as US-armed rebels took the town and is happening now in Mhardeh,

5 The reality, as President Obama confirmed in a meeting with Eastern Patriarchs last month, that President Assad protected the Christians (Mr Obama even referred to ‘the Syrian government; rather than ‘the Regime’),

6 That it is the UK which has fuelled the rise of Islamic State by the support it gave when the uprising started to anyone opposing Assad, including Al-Qaeda and its offshoots Al-Nusra and Islamic State,

7 That the destruction of Syria is not the responsibility of President Assad but of the UK and US Governments and NGOs encouraging a destructive uprising against a man who just fell out of favour with them,

The US funded Al-Qaeda-affiliate Al-Nusra Front

8 That the closure of the Syrian Embassy in London and the British Embassy in Damascus has made any possible defeat of Islamic State more difficult,

9 That the ‘Houla Massacre’, quickly used by William Hague to expel the Syrian Ambassador and his mission, was actually perpetrated by the Free Syrian Army and used to blame the Syrian government. (Der Spiegel & GlobalResearch)

Mr Ellwood concludes his letter by arguing that ‘Most of the opposition are ordinary people, fighting to protect their homes and their loved ones, fighting in the hope of a better future for their country. They deserve our support.’

No, Mr Ellwood, the ‘opposition’ is a fractured basket-case of rival groups, with the ‘ordinary people’ of IS and Al-Nusra competing with the ‘ordinary people’ of Islamic Front, the Free Syrian Army and the well-connected Syrian National Council (see this amazing article by Charlie Skelton for the low-down on SNC), with every armed faction fighting in the hope of an Islamic future for their country. All the militias will increase the possibility of terrorism on our streets and they all need to be opposed.

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Islamic State: Hammond! Talk to Assad!

Stephen

27 August 2014

Ministry Of Defence Announces Army Job Cuts — Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP

Two top retired generals and the chairman of parliament’s intelligence and security committee are calling for collaboration with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in order to defeat Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

But HM Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs refuses even to pick up the phone.

Former army chief and committed Christian Lord Dannatt, General Sir Richard Shirreff and Sir Malcolm Rifkind have all called on Philip Hammond to work with President Assad.

Lord Dannatt told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “I think whether it’s above the counter or below the counter, a conversation has got to be held with him. Because if there’s going to be any question of air strikes over Syrian air space, it’s got to be with the Assad regime’s approval.”

Sir Malcolm, the chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, and a former foreign secretary and defence secretary, said that the US and its allies must be prepared to work with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to have any hope of defeating Isis. He said history had shown that “sometimes you actually have to make an arrangement with some nasty people in order to get rid of some even nastier ones”. Sir Malcolm also called for Saudi Arabia and Qatar to stop “the private funding and help that has been given to jihadi extremists by supporters in their countries for several years”.

But Philip Hammond rejected the calls, saying: “We may very well find that we are aligned against a common enemy but it would poison what we’re trying to achieve in separating moderate Sunni opinion from the poisonous ideology of Isil if we were to align ourselves with Assad.”

Today, General Sir Richard Shirreff spoke of the inevitability of talks with the Syrian president.

“There can be no eradication of Islamic State as a threat without a regional approach,” he said. “Islamic State is operating and has spread into Syria and therefore, there is likely to be – or inevitably going to be – a need to sit down and talk to difficult bedfellows.”

Christian Voice believes that Mr Hammond, like his predecessor, over-estimates his ability to turn the Syrian rebels into some sort of democratic body respecting the human rights of minorities such as the Christians and Alawites of Syria.

The Syrian regime was destabilised at the bidding of fanatical pro-democracy agitators like George Soros. Soros funded Syrian activists directly and through his links to avaaz.org. (See March 2011 in the link) (More on Avaaz here). It was only by the grace of God that a government motion to take military action against the Syrian Government was defeated in the UK House of Commons on 30th August 2013. But US intervention and UK and European logistical support inevitably fueled the rise of ISIS. Weaponry delivered to the rebels has inevitably found its way into the hands of Al-Qaeda and now ISIS.

There are recent reports that France has been supplying the non-ISIS rebels. Even while ISIS was getting going, America sent arms to Syrian rebels in April 2014. The US supplied TOW missile systems which are now in Syrian rebel hands. There are reports that the US trained Islamic militants at a base in Jordan: This is from WorldNetDaily and is too heavily laden with reasoned comment and good links to be dismissed. Another article from WorldNet Daily exposes the Soros links and shows that back in February this year, the US and UK were not even bothered about ISIS as they gaily pressed ahead arming the Syrian rebels and plotting President Assad’s downfall. The US was warned a year ago about ISIS, and ignored the warnings. Now it is the world’s best-funded terrorist group.

We have held a consistent view that only President Assad stood between Christians in Syria and a blood-bath, that the UK Government was wrong to support the Islamic militants trying to oust him. Our Government are responsible for a colossal loss of life and property, in fact for what Sir Malcolm calls the ‘destruction’ of Syria. They now have a face-saving opportunity to switch sides.

SEE:

10th March 2014: Kidnappers Free Syrian Nuns

16th February 2014: Senator McCain Defends Syrian Rebels in Unprecedented Temper Tantrum

16th February 2014: Syrian Rebels Kidnap Nuns and Orphans

13th September 2013: CIA-armed Syrian rebels attack Christian town

11th September 2013: Interview with Samuel Noble on Syria, Assad, and the US

9th September 2013: Why Obama Needs a War with Syria

6th September 2013: Vladimir Putin Warns America Not to Attack Syria

30th August 2013: Syria: How your MP voted

20th June 2013: How the West is Helping to Destroy Christianity in Syria

18th June 2013: Middle East state arms Syrian Islamists

10th August 2013: £32.5m for the anti-Christian Syrian rebels

27th July 2013: Syria – Thank God for the Russians

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Will Blair ever accept responsibility for Iraq?

Stephen

20 June 2014

Tony Blair should either apologise and accept responsibility for the mess that Iraq is in, or shut up, according to the Mayor of London.

Boris Johnson has described Tony Blair’s latest intervention, calling for bombs to drop everywhere from Baghdad to Damascus, as ‘slightly unhinged’ and ‘bonkers’.

In an interview, Boris was asked if he had any advice for Tony Blair. “My general message would be to put a sock in it really,” said the Mayor. “Paper bag on head time is my advice.”

Iraq intervention ‘tragic mistake’

Tony Blair and George W Bush oversaw the execution of Saddam Hussain. Hypocritically Mr Blair would never have voted for the death penalty in Britain. Furthermore they allowed the American ‘neo-cons’ to pursue a policy of destroying Iraq’s Bathist infrastructure. They hoped something stable would ‘evolve’ from the ‘democracy’ they imposed. But the chaos and sectarian violence that came instead persists in Iraq to this day.

Describing Britain’s Iraq intervention as a “tragic mistake” and a “misbegotten folly”, Mr Johnson seems at odds with William Hague, the Foreign Secretary. He still believes it was the right thing to do.

Christians are fleeing Homs as ISIS demands they pay a Dhimmi tax for 'protection' — Christians are fleeing Homs as ISIS demands they pay a Dhimmi tax – Jizya – for ‘protection’

We continue to argue that Mr Hague has the blood of thousands of Syrians, including Syrian Christians, on his hands. Hague backed the Islamist rebels in Syria rather than President Bashar Al-Assad, with all his faults. He gave encouragement to Al-Qaeda extremists and turned Syria into a blood-bath.

Now the same ISIS extremists who are trying to overthrow Syria’s ruling Alawites, in order to massacre them and the Christians, are advancing in Iraq. President Obama is considering air strikes against ISIS in Iraq. What about ISIS in Syria?

‘Responsibility to Protect’

Her Majesty’s Government became involved at the instigation of pro-democracy activists like those at the George Soros-funded ‘Open Society’. Soros helped spread the so-called ‘Arab Spring’. It gave hard-line Islamists a foothold and left chaos in its wake by funding opposition movements around the Mediterranean. A doctrine invented by a Soros-funded think-tank, ‘Responsibility to Protect’, has given Western governments the excuse they needed to interfere and destabilise countries like Iraq and Libya.

Only in Syria was Western military intervention avoided because the House of Commons voted against it. We thanked God last August for such an answer to prayer. The Syrian Government has been able to fight the insurgents, despite the aid Britain and the United States gave the jihadists. And now the chickens have come home to roost wearing an ISIS black flag. Moreover, the Americans will have to fight the ISIS monster they have created in Iraq. But it’s high time we switched sides in Syria.

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Immigration Increases Strain in Britain’s EU Membership

Robin

29 May 2014

Immigration levels are more than twice what David Cameron projected for the last year.

According to an official report released Thursday, immigration into Britain increased by 27% last year.

In fact, net immigration is currently twice Mr Cameron’s target goal of reducing immigration to “tens of thousands.” The results show that a net total of 201,000 EU citizens immigrated to the UK, as compared to the 158,000 immigrants last year.

The already strained relationship between the EU and Britain has been further weakened by these findings, with many people believing that immigration policy will not change unless Britain secedes from the EU.

In 2013, a total of 526,000 people moved to the UK and 314,000 left, which resulted in the net figure of 212,000 immigrants. This is an increase from the 177,000 immigrants in 2012.

The ONS report further shows that the total number of people coming into the UK increased 5%, with 43,000 more EU citizens and 11,000 fewer non-EU citizens arriving. According to the Office for National Statistics, 125,000 of those immigrants came to find work, up from 95,000 in 2012.

In an Express report, Alan Murad, Deputy Campaign Manager of ‘Get Britain Out’ warned:

‘These figures demonstrate that while we remain in the EU we are completely powerless to control immigration to Britain. Unless Britain leave the EU the Government will continue to have no say on the hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the UK from EU countries every year. This is putting enormous pressure on our public services, presents a real threat to British jobs and is a major risk to our economic recovery.’

UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemned David Cameron for “breaking a solemn promise to the British people to get net annual immigration down to the tens of thousands.” Mr. Farage further commented on immigration, which he called “one of the most important political issues,” saying that Mr Cameron “refuses to take back control of our borders in respect of more than 400 million people from more than two dozen countries on continental Europe.”

Mr Cameron recently “launched a full-blown attack” against Farage, saying that Farage is essentially an elite citizen who seeks to “‘destroy the Conservative party.'”

In addition to the changes mentioned above, there was a 150 percent increase in people coming from Romania and Bulgaria into the UK, even before work restrictions were lifted in January. The numbers increased from just 9,000 in 2012 to 23,000 in 2013. Approximately 70 percent of these immigrants came to find work.

Other increases came from countries like Poland (from 11,000 to 102,000), Italy (from 9,000 to 42,000), and Bulgaria (from 7,000 to 18,000).
Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said: “Controlling EU migration is impossible without reform. It is clear that the Government’s aim is unrealistic and unachievable. The Government should drop its target now.”

Interestingly, reports in The Telegraph and BBC News UK say that net migration remains unchanged at 212,000 per quarter, although that number is still twice that of the Government’s target of less than 100,000 immigrants a year.

However, later on in the BBC News article, the reporter mentions the same figures as the other articles: 201,000 EU citizens migrated to the UK as long-term citizens, a statistical increase of 43,000 over the previous year. How does net migration remain the same if it increased by 43,000 people? Apparently the “movements of other categories of people” cancelled this effect, causing the net migration numbers to remain unchanged.

Mr Cameron is now drawing up new immigration laws to counteract UKIP and ameliorate anger over this rise in EU immigrants moving to Britain.

Not even David Cameron can reduce the number of immigrants to Britain, as long as immigration laws in the EU remain unchanged.

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Prof hounded for support of Belize anti-sodomy law

Stephen

20 May 2014

STOP PRESS 21st May 2014: Professor Bain has been sacked as head of CHART.

A university professor is being hounded by Caribbean homosexual advocacy groups for speaking in support of the Belize anti-sodomy law.

Thirty-three ‘gay’ advocacy and civil rights groups want the University of the West Indies (UWI) to fire Professor Brendan Bain from his position as head of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training (CHART) Initiative, claiming his expert testimony in Belize represents a conflict of interest.

They say his testimony in the case brought by one Caleb Orozco in an attempt to overturn Belize’s anti-sodomy law has ‘destroyed their trust in him’. The sub-text is that they all want Jamaica, Belize and other Caribbean Commonwealth members to legalise sodomy.

In his testimony, Professor Bain said that the risk of contracting HIV is significantly higher among men who have sex with men (MSM). He said this was true for Belize, as well as other countries, including those that have repealed the law that criminalises ‘anal sex’.

Responsibility to assess behaviours

According to Bain, some public health practitioners and agencies “have hypothesised that decriminalising the practice of anal intercourse among consenting adults would lead to a reduction in the incidence rate of HIV infections among MSM”. However, he said that to date, published data have not substantiated that hypothesis.

“As a physician and public health practitioner, one of my responsibilities is to assess behaviours for their impact on health and well-being,” Professor Bain said in his written testimony.

“When something is beneficial, such as exercise, good nutrition, or adequate sleep, it is my duty to recommend it. Likewise, when something is harmful, such as smoking, overeating, alcohol or drug abuse, and unsafe sexual behaviour, it is my duty to discourage it. Together with promoting individual responsibility, it is clear that environments that enable individuals to make and practice safe and healthy choices must be provided at family, community and governmental levels,” he said.

Bain added that another of his responsibilities as a public health practitioner is to assess the cost of behaviour, not just to the individual ‘actor’ but also to the community. “There are some private behaviours, either carried out by individuals or between consenting adults, that may either be helpful or of little adverse consequence to other persons in the community,” he said.

“Behaviours that are helpful to individuals and to the community are to be encouraged. On the other hand, there are instances in which private behaviours result in considerable public cost due to illness, with accompanying loss of productivity and social disruption and the prospect of premature death. The public cost of these private behaviours must be acknowledged and actively reckoned with,” Bain argued.

“The risk to MSM and their intimate sexual partners is not just to their physical health. The adverse physical and physiological consequences of STIs (including HIV) in MSM create significant and avoidable financial costs to individuals, households and governments. These important considerations must be included when considering whether to give public approval to risky behaviours such as are often practised by MSM,” Bain stated.

HAART AIDS Treatment costs UK NHS £1.5bn / year

Such a view is so obviously true as to seem uncontroversial in normal times. Since Highly-Active Anti-Retroviral Treatment (HAART) became available for those with HIV in the UK, ‘gay’ men have thrown responsible behaviour, caution (and their condoms) to the wind. The number of people living with HIV and having HAART treatment was almost 78,000 in 2012 and is likely to be over 85,000 today in 2014. Each one costs the Health Service £18,000 per year, according to AVERT. The total cost of HAART treatment is therefore £1,500,000,000 (£1.5 billion) per year and rising.

But Professor Bain’s opinion prompted the lobby groups to write to UWI Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris expressing displeasure with Bain’s testimony and asking for his dismissal. They did not claim that what he said was untrue, only that they had ‘lost confidence’ in him. Prof Harris is now considering the matter. The churches in Jamaica have rallied behind Professor Bain, but we can be sure that American universities with educational and financial links to UWI will be lobbying Professor Harris incessantly to try to force him to sack the honest Professor.

The condemnation of Professor Bain is being led by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, a well-funded grant-giving outfit with a huge board of directors seeking to advance the cause of street-children, drug-users, prostitutes and, of course, homosexuals. The CVC has wide international connections to groups advancing the gay cause, including to UNAIDS. We have so far been unable to discover who funds CVC, but wealthy US groups like the Ford Foundation and Arcus are likely culprits.

Government and University figures attend Caribbean pro-homosexual meetings

Astonishingly, in a region where only the Bahamas has decriminalised sodomy, pro-homosexual advocacy meetings are regularly held across the Caribbean, and are routinely attended by government ministers or representatives of UWI.

An estimated 600 Belizeans turned out in San Ignacio on July 10, 2013 to oppose the inclusion of 'sexual orientation' in the country's gender policy. — An estimated 600 Belizeans turned out in San Ignacio on July 10, 2013 to oppose the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in the country’s gender policy.

The Rt Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas, St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister and Chair of the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS, opened the ‘Caribbean Consultation on Justice for All and Human Rights Agenda’, in Kingston, Jamaica, in April 2014. Naturally, Dr. Carolyn Gomes, Executive Director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, attended. Prof. Archibald McDonald, Vice Principal of the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies called for ‘social inclusion’ of homosexuals and an ‘end to stigma’. The notorious campaigning Australian homosexual activist, Justice Michael Kirby, delivered the keynote address. The Consultation was coordinated by UNAIDS, which one might expect, but also, astoundingly, by the Government of Jamaica and the University of the West Indies.

Timothy M Shaw, PhD, Director, Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies-St. Augustine attended ‘A Conversation on the Commonwealth and LGBTI Advocacy‘ in 2009.

By the grace of God, Caribbean churches are beginning to respond. Church leaders in Jamaica rallied to defend their island’s anti-sodomy law last year and have also given strong support to Professor Bain, a committed Christian. In Central America Belize Action, led by the courageous Pastor Scott Stirm, is fighting a superb campaign against pro-sodomy initiatives from the Belize government which seems to have given up all hope that the country’s courts will uphold the law in the Orozco case.

Section 53 of Belize’s criminal code states that “every person who has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any person or animal shall be liable to imprisonment for 10 years”.

Please pray for Professor Brendan Bain to know the peace and strength of Christ at this time and for the Church across the Caribbean to stand firm holding their governments to account as ministers of God.

Romans 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.

Psalm 12:8 The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

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