The EU is holding back legislation until after the referendum

The EU are deliberately holding back on new legislation until after the EU referendum to avoid giving ammunition to the leave campaign.

Included in the queued up legislation is a proposal to increase the EU budget by €20bn, new guidelines increasing the freedom of movement rights and EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights which will override domestic human rights legislation in all EU countries.

If the referendum goes the wrong way there is a lot of pain waiting for us as soon as it's over.

Diane James responds to EU Court of Human Rights ruling that prisoners must be given the vote

Diane James has criticised the EU Court of Human Rights' decision to uphold an earlier judgement that says not allowing prisoners to vote is a breach of their human rights.

This case highlights that a foreign court with inexperienced judges has final say over the British justice system. The ECHR has not pulled back one inch in demanding its right to be the final judge.

UKIP believes that it should be the British parliament which should have the final decision on which laws are implemented in the Britain.

There should be no unwarranted interference in a national issue.

This European court has a history of giving succour to murderers and terrorists. The only way to escape the intervention of this court is the leave the EU itself. David Cameron is deluding people when he says he will try to curb the power of the ECHR without leaving the EU.

EU Court orders British government to allow prisoner votes

The EU Court of Human Rights has ruled that the blanket ban on prisoners voting is a breach of their human rights and the British government must allow some prisoners to vote.

The court has ruled that Italy can legally deprive prisoners of the right to vote because it's not a blanket ban but that the British government's ban on voting is illegal because there are no exceptions.  It has given the British government 6 months to change the law to allow prisoners to vote.

The policy director of Liberty, Isabella Sankey, has criticised the ban on prisoners voting and seems to suggest that because it is an old law (an "irrational Victorian law) then it must automatically be wrong.  Liberty, of course, campaigns for the protection of the fundamental human rights English people have possessed since the writ of Habeas Corpus was first used in the 1100's.  Are they suggesting that Habeas Corpus, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights should be be repealed because they're old?

If you commit a serious crime you will (or more accurately these days, may) be punished with the temporary suspension of certain rights that society has, over the course of centuries, decided should only be enjoyed by those who respect the law.  These rights include the right to liberty and the right to vote.  If you can't live in a way that the rest of society finds acceptable then why should you have a say in who makes the laws to (theoretically at least) ensure the population behaves in a way that society deems acceptable?

Membership of the EU requires submission to the primacy of the EU Court of Human Rights and the EU Court of Justice.  Technically they aren't organs of the EU state but in all practical terms they are merely arms of the EU and EC, there to ensure that EU laws are adhered to by member states.

Mentally ill prisoners taking British government to court for benefits

Four convicted criminals and a former inmate in secure mental hospitals like Broadmoor are taking the British government to the EU Court of Human Rights for the "right" to receive benefits while they're locked up for rape, murder and other serious crimes.

Their case revolves around the fact that other patients who are sent there by the courts for their own safety or because they pose a risk to the public are entitled to claim benefits.

This all comes back to the argument against giving prisoners the right to vote - if you commit a crime and go to prison you have failed to live by the basic rules that society sets and do so in the knowledge that if you are caught committing the crime you will go to prison and be deprived of most of your rights and privileges.

The social security system was set up to help people in need, not to pay for fags and porn for criminals.  These people are locked up in a secure hospital as a punishment as well as treatment of their mental illness.  They can't pop down to the local shopping centre to spend their money and they haven't got homes to keep and bills to pay for.

If the EU Court of Human Rights rules that it's unfair to deprive mentally ill dangerous criminals of their "right" to benefits when non-criminals in the same hospital are allowed them then the answer is simple: don't pay the benefits to any of them.  Pensioners in care homes get their benefits taken off them, as do people staying in hospital long term so why are mental patients any different?

Tory MP, David Davis, said:

Yet again this is not an issue of human rights but of lawyers trying to play the system on behalf of their clients.

It is to be hoped that when the State tries to do the best possible thing, both for society and to rehabilitate criminals, that these efforts are not crippled by the meddling of the European Court.

No Dave, it's a case of the British government letting the EU run our country and you are helping to make it happen by propping up the europhile ConDem government.

Nigel Farage, meanwhile, said:

It would be an outrage if any prisoner received a penny of social security payments. It is disgusting that people like Ian Brady could get a back dated pension, stripped from the pockets of law abiding taxpayers on the wishes of foreign judges.

Ultimately it's the rabid europhile, Ken Clarke, that will make the decision as Home Secretary and as he's going around telling MPs that they're going to have to comply with the same EU court's ruling that prisoners be allowed to vote, the result is a foregone conclusion.

MPs in futile rejection of prisoner voting rights

The turncoats in Westminster have finally grown a pair and voted in favour of a motion calling for the British government to defy the EU Court of Human Rights over giving prisoners the right to vote.

The motion is non-binding and the British government is still adamant that it must comply with the EU Court of Human Rights' ruling that a blanket ban on prisoners voting is a breach of their rights.

It's good that at least some of the EU's regional administrators in Westminster have defied their EU masters but only 256 of 650 British MPs voted and only 234 of them voted in favour of the motion.  The other 400 will vote in favour of capitulation to the EU when the time comes.