A European Declaration of Independence

5. The Lack of a Real Separation of Powers in the EU Invites Abuse of Power

We should study the work of the great eighteenth century French thinker Montesquieu, who admired the British political system. He advocated that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government should be assigned to different bodies, where each of them would not be powerful enough to impose its will on society. This is because “constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.” This separation of powers is almost totally absent in the European Union, where there is weak to non-existent separation between the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches, and where all of them function without the consent of the public. In short, a small number of people can draft and implement laws without consulting the people, and these take precedence over the laws passed by elected assemblies. This is a blueprint for a dictatorship.

In 2007, former German president Roman Herzog warned that parliamentary democracy was under threat from the EU. Between 1999 and 2004, 84 percent of the legal acts in Germany — and the majority in all EU member states — stemmed from Brussels. According to Herzog, “EU policies suffer to an alarming degree from a lack of democracy and a de facto suspension of the separation of powers.” Despite this, the EU was largely a non-issue during the 2005 German elections. One gets the feeling that the real issues of substance are not subject to public debate. National elections have become an increasingly empty ritual. The important issues have already been settled beforehand behind closed doors.

Free citizens should obey laws that are passed with the best long-term interests of their nation and people in mind. Most of the laws within the EU’s area are no longer passed by elected national representatives, but by unaccountable EU bureaucrats, some of whom could potentially have been bought and paid by our Islamic enemies with Arab oil money. As such, the citizens of these nations no longer have any obligation to obey these laws.

As Montesquieu warned, “When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.” He also stated that “Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.” The current problem with the EU is not just the content of laws and the way they are drafted and passed, but also their sheer volume. Law-abiding citizens are turned into criminals by laws regulating speech and behaviour, while real criminals rule the streets in our cities. This situation will either lead to a police state, to a total breakdown in law and order, or both.