Up Close and Personal
An interview with Phillip Day
Is the EU muzzling the British press?

ECLUB: Can you give us a round-up of the week's events for the purposes of this bulletin?

PHILLIP DAY: It's been a busy week, as most of them are. I think one of the main issues starkly exposed this week concerns the EU's bid to gag the British press. As most know, Britain has a very - shall we say - predatory tabloid corps. Last week, the Mail on Sunday got its hooks into the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder….

ECLUB: What was that about?

PHILLIP DAY: Curiously, nothing of great importance… at least at first. Chancellor Schroeder, who has been married more times than a black widow spider on a Club Med holiday, was rumoured to be having an affair with German television presenter, Sandra Maischberger, allegedly putting his fourth marriage in jeopardy. This was the type of Sunday morning, tabloid feeding frenzy the British have become used to over the years… resigned to, if you like.

Most don't realise the German press has traditionally left the private lives of its politicians alone - a commendable trait, many would say. The British tabloids however, with their customary and often abused press freedom, begged to differ, and the Mail, with its anti-EU stance, thought the story spoke volumes about the real character of Schroeder, one of the EU's most powerful politicians. After all, the Mail on Sunday reasons, if Schroeder can lie and deceive his wife, can he do the same thing to his people?

ECLUB: For some time, the EU has been looking for ways to gag the freedom of the British press, that's for sure. Do you think Schroeder was wrong to make his move against the Mail?

PHILLIP DAY: My disgust with how the press routinely winds up the public with scare stories, public castigation and scandal is well known. However, tabloid journalism, while often reprehensible, is well known for rooting out wrongdoing and abuses the public otherwise wouldn't get to hear about. I think this aspect of British journalism is its saving grace and the reason most of us are still prepared to tolerate the other press abuses. Schroeder's mistake here was to react to the story at all, and then foolishly move with characteristic German efficiency to have the Mail censored under German law, which of course, can't be done… yet.

ECLUB: I imagine the Mail was ecstatic.

DAY: The Mail did the usual thing and cried foul. It got a petition together with thousands of signatures protesting abuses of press freedom and tried to hand it to the German Ambassador to Britain, Thomas Matussek, who refused to take it. "Sorry Schroeder," the paper defiantly declared, "You don't rule Britain - yet." The hamstrung German press watched with glee as other influential papers around the world came to the Mail's defence. The New York Times labelled Schroeder a bully who obviously "does not share the free-speech concerns of the West".

ECLUB: This is a politically sensitive time for Schroeder, isn't it?

PHILLIP DAY: He has some regional elections coming up in a few weeks which are being viewed as a barometer of the public's continued confidence or otherwise in his policies. Germany is suffering high unemployment and a terrible financial sector at this time, so credibility is especially important to Herr Schroeder these days. Simultaneously, he is celebrating a tremendous success of prestige within the European Union as one of two leading figures the continental public views as 'running the EU' - the other being the French premier, Jacques Chirac. Once again, we are seeing the Franco-German axis, which is the EU, asserting itself even more prominently this week, with all the talk of two EU presidents, and other such nonsense. The point is, Gerhard doesn't want to lose everything he has worked so hard for over the years simply over a piece of hanky panky dredged up by an anti-EU tabloid - and worse, a British one.

ECLUB: So what is the real significance of this story?

PHILLIP DAY: The consequences lie in what the EU itself is generally doing about press freedom and free speech to protect its politicians and bureaucrats from future scandal and public exposure. The one thing the EU hates is transparency and accountability in its dealings - we discussed this in the last bulletin, as well as the immunity legislation introduced to render all EU officers and representatives above the law and unaccountable to the public they are supposed to represent. No-one comfortably ensconced within the cocoon of endless EU bureaucracies and political structures wants to be hanged, drawn and quartered in the press over anything. Remember the damage the British press did over the EU corruption scandal in 1999, which forced the resignation of the entire Commission?

ECLUB: So you're saying the EU is taking measures to prevent any such stories like Schroeder's coming to light in the future?

PHILLIP DAY: EU bureaucrats are using the usual 'harmonising' strategy to state that they are looking to expand the current draconian German privacy laws across the Union to control what can and can't be reported. It's political correctness gone mad, effectively allowing 'victims' of press articles to sue newspapers and TV and radio stations for defaming them under the laws of the country in which they live - which laws, of course, are increasingly EU legislation as the new superstate comes on line.

ECLUB: This isn't really about Herr Schroeder's little dalliances with Fräulein Maischberger then, is it?

PHILLIP DAY: Let's put it this way. If these privacy directives become law, all newspapers, TV and radio stations will have to ratify their stories legally prior to broadcast for fear of falling foul of the authorities and suffering dire penalties. They are unlikely to do this willingly. However, if the consequences to a newspaper covering a juicy but forbidden story are heavy fines or bankruptcy, exposure of any EU wrongdoing might start to look a little less inviting. Seditious libel is insidious and has been banned as an offence in the UK because you cannot successfully define it without moving into Stalinist territory. What the EU proposes in the way of press censorship goes far beyond anything the British press corps has had to face to date. It's North Korea, but without the firing squads for now.

ECLUB: Do you think it will stick?

PHILLIP DAY: Once again, those of us who choose to ignore the slow-motion coup d'état of our country by the European powers do so at our peril. Over half the laws now governing Britain originate from Brussels. Many of these are just busybody, nanny regulations. But others represent a dire threat to traditional British liberties. Most of these threats won't become apparent to the rank and file until we start falling foul of them.

ECLUB: Can you give us an example?

PHILLIP DAY: Certainly. Take the new European Arrest Warrant. With effect from January 2004, a judge in any member state can have you arrested by either British police or Europol officers especially sent to detain you. You can then be extradited without any evidence being produced against you, or any British court being involved in your proceedings. You have no right to appeal in any British court. You can be taken and detained for up to nine months without any charges being brought against you in any prison in the European Union.

ECLUB: I imagine all this was put through to give law enforcement authorities the powers they apparently need to fight the ephemeral 'War on Terror'?

PHILLIP DAY: Correct. The warrant covers 32 offences, but also include those old chestnuts, 'racism' and 'xenophobia' (fear or dislike of foreigners), which is how the EU intends to take itself out of the crosshairs of the press. The implications for the press are appalling. In fact, publishing and broadcasting of any kind will be hit hard. No paper will be able to write a story on the problems Britain is having, for instance, with the EU or asylum seekers, for fear of falling foul of new racism laws.

I, for instance, as a confirmed opponent of the EU and all its works, can be extradited to face charges of xenophobia in Brussels, because of the work I have published, and will continue to publish in highlighting EU abuses to British civil rights.

ECLUB: And yet, under the Human Rights Act, also sourced from Brussels, you won't be able to have the charges thrown out?

PHILLIP DAY: No. It doesn't work that way. Now, if I were an Algerian terrorist being thrown out of Britain because I was cooking up ricin in my cellar and someone had pushed my mother over when they came to arrest me, that would be a different. Human rights to the EU are arbitrary and discretionary, depending on whether the Union itself is being threatened.

ECLUB: I can't see the British press doing anything other than attacking Brussels over this.

PHILLIP DAY: Once the reality of their predicament dawns on British newspaper editors, I would expect them to act in outrage. And that might just be one of the most dangerous miscalculations Brussels will make. The British press, while mostly viewed as a bunch of predatory, pugnacious harpies by the very citizens it serves, may yet vindicate itself when the right to exert its own salaciousness is finally fed into the EU shredder. Even America's prestigious Washington Post believes that "messing with the British tabloids may be a whole lot tougher than the Chancellor thought." In that respect, Sandra Maischberger may become the most important component in the German Chancellor's career over the coming months - the passionate fling Gerhard Schroeder - and the EU - could live to regret.

ECLUB COMMENT: Phillip Day's new book Ten Minutes to Midnight deals with an overview of the European Union and its danger to the future of Britain. Phillip also deals with the liberal-socialist revolution and how it came to have so much power over us. There is also a special chapter on the food supplements and herbal directives.

Ashley Mote's Vigilance is a more in-depth look at the EU and what we can do about it. Both books are required reading, in our opinion, for anyone who cares about the future of our country and the continuance of her freedoms.
To order, please visit www.credence.org