Starmer, national sovereignty and the Ministerial Code

Since the Mandelson/Starmer matter questions are being asked about whether the Ministerial Code has been breached.

This prompted me to look at how the current PM changed the Code when he came to power, and one item jumps out. It relates to the extent to which international law and treaties may override our national sovereignty.

Paragraph 1.6 of the 2010 edition issued under the then new Con-LibDem coalition government read thus:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life.”

In October 2015, following the General Election which returned a Conservative government under Cameron, the italicised words were omitted. Officially it was said not to be a substantive legal change but in that case why the change in wording?

In a letter to The Guardian newspaper the Treasury Solicitor Paul Jenkins said:

“As the government’s most senior legal official I saw at close hand from 2010 onwards the intense irritation these words caused the PM as he sought to avoid complying with our international legal obligations, for example in relation to prisoner voting.

“Whether the new wording alters the legal obligations of ministers or not, there can be no doubt that they will regard the change as bolstering, in a most satisfying way, their contempt for the rule of international law.”

According to Grok critics

“argued it was motivated by frustration within parts of the Conservative government — particularly Cameron himself — with certain international obligations, especially:

“The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (e.g., on prisoner voting, deportation cases, or counter-terrorism).

“Broader tensions with international law in areas like military action, immigration, or treaty commitments.”

In November 2024 under the new PM Sir Keir Starmer the relevant paragraph was amended to read:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations, and to protect the integrity of public life.”

It remains the same in the 2025 edition.

It seems clear that Starmer wishes to see our sovereignty re-subordinated to supranational governance.

This is evidenced in the proposed new law to bring our legislation into “dynamic alignment” with EU law and implement it via “Henry VIII” powers so as to bypass Parliamentary scrutiny.

Sir Keir is the deliberate enemy of our liberty and independence.

How Poland saved us from Communism

The video below tells us something I hadn’t known and should have. In the summer of 1920 Lenin sent 200,000 soldiers into Poland with the objective of reaching Berlin - and spreading Communism beyond.

Help from the West was not whole-hearted.

Postwar Germany was very weak at this time. Only a year earlier thousands of its people had starved to death as the Royal Navy continued its blockade during the 1919 peace negotiations. The Left was stirring: Communist revolts were put down by the Weimar government but who knows where a successful Red invasion could have led?

In Britain also there was much socialist unrest. Urged by the British Communist leader Harry Pollitt, organiser of the Hands Off Russia campaign, dock workers in London prevented the loading of arms onto the SS Jolly George for Poland.

Russia also had its sympathisers in France - only a few months later the French Section of the Workers’ International voted to join Lenin’s Comintern. For political and other reasons the help France provided to Poland, though crucial as it turned out, was limited.

Lenin’s attempt failed because intelligence reached the Polish military that the enemy’s forces, split into two, had a weakly defended centre through which the Poles managed to drive and harry the supply lines in the rear.

Here’s to Poland and the 1920 Battle of Warsaw.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Supertramp, by JD

Supertramp emerged from the unlikely partnership of two contrasting musical minds: Rick Davies, a working-class pianist with jazz and blues roots, and Roger Hodgson, a classically-trained vocalist with an angelic tenor.

From their chaotic beginnings as “Daddy” in 1969 to becoming one of the most successful rock groups of their era, Supertramp crafted intelligent yet accessible songs that balanced Davies’s urban grit with Hodgson’s ethereal idealism.

In 1979, Paul McCartney was asked to name his favourite song of the year. He chose The Logical Song by Supertramp. For Roger Hodgson, Supertramp’s co-leader, it was the greatest of compliments. “Having been brought up on The Beatles,” he said, “it was wonderful to hear that Paul McCartney loved my song.”

Hodgson left the group in 1983 to purse a solo career. Davies died in 2025 at the age of 81.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertramp
https://supertramp.com/home

Supertramp - The Logical Song (Official Video)

Supertramp Don’t Leave Me Now

Supertramp - My Kind Of Lady

Rosie Had Everything Planned - Supertramp (1971) Songwriters: Frank A. Farrell / Roger Hodgson

Babaji - Supertramp co-founder Roger Hodgson, Writer and Composer

Supertramp - It’s Raining Again

Cromwell returns: PMQs 15th April 2026

Sir Keir claims the right to govern based on a freak electoral result but since then has repeatedly shown his contempt for democratic accountability, not least at PMQs. This week after another Starmer peroration on Tory past history Speaker Hoyle was driven to tell him “Prime Minister, it is Prime Minister’s questions. We have got to concentrate.”

Some may think that Sir Lindsay’s intervention was partly a response to recent public comment on his own seeming reluctance to hold the PM’s feet to the fire but even so the latter had angry words for Hoyle, stomping off and furiously clouting the Speaker’s chair on his way out.

I suspect that Starmer’s question-dodging and tetchiness are because like other fanatics he has delegated his identity to an ideology, in this case a simplistic political one. To question his belief, his mission, is to threaten his sense of himself and it triggers aggression.

Leaders who are sure they are right are a danger to others. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken,” wrote Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland just before slaughtering hundreds in the Battle of Dunbar.

Cromwell himself had no doubt that he was God’s instrument. So having fought the King as a Parliamentarian he ended by turning on Parliament, becoming as great a tyrant as Charles I had ever been. He dismissed the House of Commons, made himself Lord Protector and for a time split Britain into ten regions, each governed by an appointed Major-General.

This suppression of the people’s national voice is echoed in Sir Keir’s strategy. He is proposing to use “Henry VIII powers” in a new UK-EU trade bill to enable “dynamic alignment” with European regulations, so bypassing the Commons as was the practice when we were in the EU.

Just as power is deliberately leached away from Westminster, so also is it being sucked from the people all around England. Each of the several planned “unitary councils” is intended to rule a population of about 500,000 - seven times the size of an average Parliamentary constituency! The 2024 White Paper calls it “devolution” but as far as the individual voter is concerned it looks more like a system of Ottoman governors.

What will be the chances of “throwing the rascals out”? Come Christmas 2017 the current Mayor of London will have held office longer than Margaret Thatcher’s record tenure as Prime Minister, yet he was last elected on a turnout of only 40.5% in 2024. We think we are a democracy but our universal adult franchise is less than a century old and the habit can easily wither away. We are subjects not citizens.

As to justice, Magna Carta (1215) was originally not for our sakes but for King John’s barons: serfs and commoners were not “free men” entitled to trial by jury! That extended interpretation came much later, under Edward III.

Like Cromwell, socialists are sure they know what is right. They are the modern version of “the godly” but they serve History instead of God. As with religious fanatics, for them all opposition comes of the Devil and there is no debating with him. If for example, someone dares to raise the issue of organised mass violation of women and girls, that must be dismissed as a “dog-whistle” to the supporters of evil. And if the Speaker of the House of Commons offers even a mild criticism to the righteous he must be attacked; there is no compromise to be had between Right and Wrong.

On the contrary: our liberty, peace and prosperity depend on not resolving many issues and agreeing to disagree. Starmer and his lethal absolutist certainty are a grave danger to the common weal. He has described himself as a “hard bastard” and our hope lies in his being only half right; else we should be headed for another civil war.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Tango - Astor Piazzolla, by JD

Yes, it is time for tango once more and a suitable diversion from the madness of the world’s political lunatics/’leaders’:

We have had one or two tango posts previously as well as more than a few about other music and dance. This post is a variation on a theme: Astor Piazzolla is a well known name in the world of tango both as a composer and performer but the following videos feature his music in an orchestral setting. Sacrilege you may think and a long way from its roots but it works!

Gidon Kremer - Oblivion (Astor Piazzolla)

A. Piazzolla. Libertango

Astor Piazzolla “La Muerte Del Angel” Milano Chamber Orchestra

Astor Piazzolla - Oblivion

Piazzolla - Fuga y Misterio

It will all be fixed, eventually...

The first part of the tweet below shows the way forward:

People are rightly getting tired of the doom-mongers. If the gloomy prophets are right then what is the point of continuing to follow them? Those of working age who can make a new life abroad should do so - there are signs that this is happening already. The rest of us should hoard provisions and prepare defences.

Given the people who are now running the country and those who want to replace them it does seem that things are going to get worse before they get better. However, our gibbering in fear and anger merely generates income for the clickbaiters.

Instead we need to look past the crises to how the problems will be solved, for they will be, one way or another.

The hard way is simply for disaster to overtake us and for the survivors to rebuild.

If we want to avoid that we should continue to take an interest in national politics so that the destruction is less and the turnaround can start earlier.

To give us hope here are a couple of examples of how even a terrible situation can be rectified with intelligent analysis and systematic effort.

The first - and it’s worth watching - is about a farmer in Iowa who bought an additional forty acres of apparently dead ground. His neighbours loaded up with debt to buy more good land and new machines and were caught out when the President blocked grain exports to Russia and the Treasury boosted interest rates from nine to eighteen per cent. Our hero avoided the dangers of financialisation and spent several years improving the soil before growing a commercial crop. His business survived when thousands around him quit or were bankupted:

The second is about a 250-year plan to restore the great Caledonian forest from its tiny remnants - not just the trees but the whole ecosystem, from micoorganisms in the soil to wild animals and birds attracted back to the resources of the woods:

Like the farmer in the first video we need to start by working out what needs fixing and in what order. Here’s a bit of a list:

• Securing cheap, reliable and plentiful energy

• Balancing our national budget by rebuilding our industrial base and reforming the welfare state

• Increasing our ability to grow food locally

• Strengthening our national defences against foreign enemies

• Dealing with threats from internal enemies - terrorists and revolutionaries

• Suppressing crime and public disorder

• Preserving our freedoms and our ability to influence those who govern us

The energy question is fundamental and highlights the difficulty we have with governance. Any fool can see that we need extra fossil fuels to cover our transition to sustainable EROI-positive energy security (nuclear, hydro etc), yet the fool in charge cannot see it!

As to farming, the Government should abandon trying to destroy it with taxation and instead punt in money to make it more productive.

As an example of what can be done consider the work of the inventor James Dyson who has developed a farming system that grows strawberries all year round, generates heat from waste and avoids the use of poisonous agricultural chemicals: https://www.dyson.co.uk/discover/sustainability/farming/dyson-farming-on-bbc-rick-stein-food-stories

To conclude, time will resolve all our problems, brutally if we are stupid.

And there is so much time ahead! Perhaps five billion more years before the Sun consumes the last of its hydrogen fuel, though long before that it is expected to continue steadily burning hotter to the point where Earth cannot support life. Elon Musk’s plan to colonise Mars may keep us going.

As to sustainable energy the former American Archdruid imagines that in the fullness of time we shall have another carboniferous age to make new oil and gas - though we likely shall not be around to benefit from it: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-05/the-next-ten-billion-years/

It’s all a question of temporal perspective.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Caroline Lavelle, by JD

Caroline Lavelle is a British cellist, composer, and singer / songwriter. She has released three solo albums, collaborated with numerous international musicians, and is a member of the band Secret Sky.

Her career as a cello player started by chance: as a child, she’d been desperate to play the violin. On the day instruments were distributed, she was at the back of the queue. As luck would have it, when it was her turn, only a trombone and a cello were left. Choosing the latter, she went on to study at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London.

After graduating, she opted out of the orchestral route, preferring to perform her own compositions. “The creativity involved in writing your own music and marrying lyrics and arrangements is my greatest love.”
https://carolinelavelle.com/home

Turning Ground

Alexandria - Αλεξάνδρεια - الاسكندرية - CAROLINE LAVELLE

Farther Than The Sun (Live) - Caroline Lavelle

Caroline Lavelle - Moorlough Shore (Official Music Video)

Fool and the Genius