Reaction to Mr Kerry’s intervention in the EU debate on behalf of the USA


The Independent reports my reaction to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s intervention in the EU debate:

What Eurosceptic MPs and Out campaigners had to say about 'patronising' John Kerry’s EU referendum intervention

Responding to Mr Kerry’s remarks at the Munich annual security conference the Conservative MP Steve Baker said to the Independent: “I refer Mr Kerry to the US Declaration of Independence. We will do peacefully at the ballot box that for which his nation fought a bloody war of insurrection.

“If the USA must express a view on the UK’s right to the separate and equal status among the nations of the world to which many of us feel entitled, perhaps they might consider whether they wish to discuss their back taxes.”

The US Declaration of Independence may be found here. It begins with some of the finest words ever written:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

You can read the specific and sometimes familiar complaints of the US Congress here.

Tags: , , , , ,

Comments & Responses

One Response so far.

  1. Phil MacInnes says:

    Brilliant – both the Decleration and the direction for the Secretary of State to rqcquaint himself with it.