Unless you live on Mars, you will not have failed to notice that 27th January was "National Holocaust Remembrance Day". Less well known is the vote in the EU Parliament on that day, which saw 9 UKIP MEPs and 2 British euro-realist MEPs vote to support a variety of measures which violate their principles, including voting "to promote social, economic and political integration", to urge making "European citizenship standard elements in school curricula throughout the EU" and to urge "the Council to reach agreement on a ban on incitement to racial and religious hatred".

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
The euro-realist MEPs voted "Yes" to a Resolution entitled "The Holocaust, anti-semitism and racism" which can be read here.
A copy of the Resolution is included with the Sovereignty printed edition to enable our readers to reference the document directly.

This Resolution does not establish any new law. The EU Parliament cannot initiate legislation. However, the Resolution calls on the Council and Commission to progress on a variety of initiatives, thereby enabling these institutions to advance new laws by claiming the approval of the Parliament and doing so in the name of all the MEPs who supported it!

The initial paragraphs start with the common legal phrase "having regard to" and the next 6 Articles begin with "whereas".
It could be objected that voting for the Resolution did not necessarily imply acknowledgement or endorsement of everything contained within these initial paragraphs.
However, these paragraphs are the qualifying context, the reasoning upon which the Resolution to take further action is founded. The "whereas" statements are there to ensure that one is agreeing to a set of proposals on the basis of them. That is, one accepts in advance the argument that the forthcoming actions stated, inferred or implied, are the legitimate and necessary means to prevent whatever has been cited as a negative, or accentuate whatever has been cited as a positive.
Thus, by unqualified endorsement of the Resolutions basic logic, in its entirety, including the "having regard to" and "whereas" paragraphs, one is making it difficult, if not impossible, to later call for its opposite with any credibility.
That is basic legal theory, and why the Vlaams Belang party and 7 other MEPs (see below), abstained to avoid that dilemma.

However, it is in the paragraphs which follow under Article F that the MEPs end up contradicting their own principles.
By voting "Yes" to this Resolution, our euro-realist MEPs became party to agreeing that, quote:

• The European Parliament…rejects and condemns revisionist views and denial of the Holocaust as shameful and contrary to historical truth, and expresses concern over the rise of extremist and xenophobic parties and growing public acceptance of their views; (F para.1)
   
• Urges the Council and the Commission, as well as the various levels of local, regional and national government in the Member States…to promote social, economic and political integration; (F para.3)
   
• ... urges the Council, Commission and Member States to strengthen the fight against anti-semitism and racism through promoting awareness, especially among young people, of the history and lessons of the Holocaust by: encouraging Holocaust remembrance, including making 27 January European Holocaust Memorial Day across the whole of the EU…making Holocaust education and European citizenship standard elements in school curricula throughout the EU… (F para.5)
   
• ... urges the Council to reach agreement on a ban on incitement to racial and religious hatred throughout the EU… (F para.6)

To take the first point, "revisionist views and denial of the Holocaust". What is a "revisionist view"? And what is "denial of the Holocaust"? These are smear phrases to attack what, for most people, is more properly described as normal historical enquiry. Certainly there is no reason to "reject and condemn" such historical enquiry unless one has a hidden agenda to ban it!

As for expressing "concern over the rise of extremist and xenophobic parties" -- UKIP always gets lumped by its enemies, no matter how unfairly, into that category!
See for example the article "1 in 5 Britons could vote far right", in The New Statesman, 24 Jan 2005, which stated:
"The rhetoric of 'truth-telling' is fundamental to the strategies of both the BNP and United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) and shows that they are part of the same phenomenon. It allows them to express solidarity with racism and xenophobia while also defining themselves as plain-speaking folk who will risk persecution for their defiance of liberal hegemony and 'politically correct' laws and attitudes."

Clearly, the UKIP MEPs do not seem to understand that they are perceived as "xenophobic" by their enemies regardless of what they say and do. Can these MEPs not see where supporting such rhetoric will lead, if not to their own criminalisation?

Needless to say, promoting "social, economic and political integration" is directly counter to the UKIP Constitution, as is making "European" -- by which is meant EU -- citizenship standard elements in school curricula! Indeed, these are offences which bring the party into disrepute and would be punishable by expulsion!

Urging the Council to reach agreement on a ban on the highly subjective concept of "incitement to racial and religious hatred" threatens the principle of free speech which UKIP, and euro-realist MEPs generally, would normally be expected to defend.

And why on earth are eurorealist MEPs welcoming, of all bizarre things, "the declared intention of the Luxembourg Presidency to restart the stalled discussions on the proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating Racism and Xenophobia" (F para.6) or inviting "the Commission to start a review of the application of the Racial Equality Directive 2000/43/EC(9) aimed at strengthening European Union anti-discrimination measures" (F para.7) -- all possibly to be used against their own political viewpoints sometime in the future?

There are other absurdities like calling on "the institutions of the European Union" (F para.2) to express views in the name of these MEPs including condemning acts of racial hatred, and "in particular" anti-Semitism -- which sounds rather sectarian.

HOW DID THE MEPs VOTE?
An MEP has three possible voting options. He or she can vote "Yes", or "No", or vote to "Abstain".
It is UKIP's policy to vote "Yes" in the European Parliament only if the Resolution or Amendment is to reduce or delay any piece of EU legislation.
Otherwise, in the vast majority of cases, UKIP will vote "No" or vote to "Abstain". Voting to "Abstain" is the safest route when MEPs have not had time to read or consider the material.

There are 732 MEPs in the European Parliament.
For this Resolution, 617 voted "Yes", zero voted "No" and 10 voted to "Abstain". The other 105 were absent and not in the Parliament to vote at all.
Unfortunately, in this case, the 9 UKIP MEPs present voted to endorse the Resolution!
They were Gerard Batten, Godfrey Bloom, Derek Clark, Nigel Farage, Roger Knapman, Michael Nattrass, Jeffrey Titford, John Whittaker and Tom Wise. The UKIP has 10 MEPs. Graham Booth was absent from the Parliament so did not vote.
Robert Kilroy-Silk and Ashley Mote also voted in favour.

The perfectly respectable course would have been to vote to "Abstain", as did members of the Vlaams Belang, the Front National, the Danish Peoples Party, the Italian Christian Democrat, 3 Communists from France and Greece and Paul van Buitenen, the anti-EU-corruption campaigner.

The Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure reported that Frans Vanhecke MEP, the president of Flanders' Vlaams Belang party, which abstained, was concerned that the Resolution would be used against parties who "fight for European values and European peoples".

The Voting Roll can be accessed from the EU Parliament Minutes website or downloaded directly as a pdf from here. Copies are also available from Sovereignty.

WHY DID UKIP AND EURO-REALIST MEPs VOTE "YES"?
The excuses we have heard so far include:
"UKIP's main issue is the EU. We need to concentrate on leaving the EU. We can't allow ourselves to get side-tracked onto sensitive issues like 'The Holocaust'."
The reality is that politics does not work like that. Politics is about life in its entirety. It is a perpetual conflict to achieve the right to make the ultimate decisions in all aspects of life.

If you aim your guns on one flank, if you concentrate only on one issue, then you will be outmanoeuvred on other fronts -- as UKIP has been here.
You need to have a clear view of the entire battleground, in order to have the strategic awareness necessary for long-term victory. No aspect of politics, or life, exists in a little vacuum with which one can obsess alone. One must have a holistic worldview, encompassing all the issues.
Voting for this Resolution can be seen as a direct consequence of UKIP's limited political perspective, hitherto.

"The motion was a condemnation of Nazi death camps. All the rest was just window-dressing verbiage."
No, that's not how Resolutions work. You vote for it all, or you vote for none of it. Over all the decades of the EEC/EC/EU advancing, it is always such "verbiage" that has been the platform for further power grabs -- always under the justification that the principal had been accepted. But however bogus its foundations may have been, it still became law anyway. The "verbiage" is never put there just for the fun of it!

Furthermore, there is no virtue in condemning Nazi death camps if, at the same time, you reject and condemn our right to historical enquiry regarding them -- as these euro-realist MEPs have done!

"If we had abstained we would have been accused of being 'racists' or 'anti-Semitic'."
It would not have been "racist" or "anti-Semitic" to abstain, in the sense that it would not have been an irrational act of hatred for people of a different race, or for Jews!

" If we had abstained we would have been accused of being 'Holocaust deniers'."
No, you would not be "denying" that Jews suffered and perished in great numbers in WW2, as did many other people. You could have put out a Press Release which made that point more effectively than voting against your principles!

"The only MEPs who abstained were the far right and 3 communists. We wouldn't want to share a bed with them!"
This is an over-civilised concern for "respectability". The abstainers were simply not silly enough to vote for their own proscription!
If one side cares about looking respectable and the other side cares about winning, who do you think will come out on top?

FOR FEAR OF THE SMEAR
These latter points boil down to, "for fear of the smear we veered". Of course, this fear is not baseless. The smearers are real and their smears have power. We have to acknowledge that the fear of these smears is a powerful motivator. Indeed, so powerful is the fear that it will make euro-realist MEPs -- who were elected on a platform to take Britain out the EU -- totally violate their fundamental principles and vote "to promote social, economic and political integration" (F para.3)!

For fear of the smear, it seems, our euro-realist MEPs are in danger of voting for anything. In future, our euro-realist MEPs need to be more afraid of their party members and supporters than they are of the smearers in the media and elsewhere, who are often exposed as straw men when confronted.

THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THIS INCIDENT
Let us be clear. Our euro-realist MEPs do a good job in difficult circumstances. We value and respect them. That is why we hold them to high standards. We don't expect them to act like the other Parties, who promise to defend Britain then sell us out behind our backs.
This mistake has compromised their ability to put up a principled defence against any further anti-free speech laws. It has called into question their overall judgement and it has shocked many of their party members and supporters, who expect better.

However, the good news is that they will have plenty of opportunities to redeem themselves in future -- if they learn their lessons. And if they do, we'll be right behind them!
Firstly, our MEPs need to beware that the EU will always try to smuggle various empowerments of EU institutions, agendas and bad laws within Resolutions couched in high-sounding, language. They've fallen for it once, they must not fall for it again.
Secondly, it is clear from this example that "the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and racism" are effective rhetorical tools to elicit assent to any agenda.

This suggests that the EU, or our own Government, just has to bundle "the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and racism" with any proposed anti-free speech or anti-freedom of association law and people will be too afraid to disagree or abstain for fear of being called "racists", "anti-Semites" or "Holocaust deniers".
Therefore, our MEPs and those of us who intend to dissent, must fortify ourselves against the fear of these smears. As one of our subscribers said to us, "Who cares if they get called 'racists', a worse word is unpatriotic!"

WHAT EURO-REALIST MEPs MUST DO IN FUTURE
Here is what UKIP and other euro-realist MEPs need to do when something like this comes up again, as surely it will:

• Firstly, if voting No is not an option then they should vote to Abstain, and if they can't bring themselves to do that, then they should, at least, arrange to be diplomatically absent from the Parliament that day!
   
• Secondly, if they vote No or Abstain on a Resolution which ties "the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and racism" into attempts to urge a ban on freedom of speech and association, then they should issue a non-sectarian Press Release stating their sympathy for all the people, including Jews, who perished at the hands of the Nazis, and also expressing sympathy for all those on both sides who perished in WW2. The Press Release should explain why they voted as they did and could easily be turned against the EU by "deploring the EU's exploitation of the Holocaust in order to ban freedom of speech, create bad law etc."
   
• Thirdly, they should make it clear that they will always oppose all laws which seek, under whatever guise, to limit freedom of speech and association. In any case, these laws should be the responsibility of individual nation-states, not the EU! The resulting publicity can only be good for them, will shift public debate in their direction, and will undermine the power of the smearers.