9: WESSEX WITHIN A FEDERAL EUROPE

When I stood as a `Wessex Regionalist and European Federal Party' candidate in the Euro-election of 1979, in my campaign I was advocating a 24-point list of what was required for the well-being of `Wessex within a Federal Europe', (as the leaflet was entitled). It read as follows:

1: The Parliament at Strasbourg should furnish a political platform where the voice of Wessex can be expressed as participating within a Europe of Regions, rather than a Europe of Nations.

2: We should look forward to the emergence of a United Regions of Europe, that might be compared with the United States of America. Wessex will be one of these Regional States.

3: There should be a European Head of State: some much revered elder statesman, to be elected by the Parliament at Strasbourg.

4: All decisions of the European Supreme Court of Justice should be upheld and implemented by the authority of the European Parliament.

5: There should be a gradual transfer of sovereignty from Westminster to Strasbourg in three important spheres:

(a) the control of the armed forces

(b) the control of foreign policy decisions

(c) the control of the economy.

6: The supreme officers within the European High Command should be responsible to Strasbourg, with the entire British armed forces serving under this command.

7: Strasbourg must debate the foreign policies of all Western European nations, so that they can be fully co-ordinated.

8: There should be a European Foreign and Consular Service, responsible only to the Parliament at Strasbourg. This will replace the present national system.

9: Strasbourg must encourage European monetary union, with due regard to the transitional problems that this may involve for the weaker currencies.

10: The Parliament at Strasbourg must furnish Europe with a uniform tax structure (involving income tax, super tax and capital gains tax) applicable at the same levels within all European nations. This will not preclude the right of national or regional governments to raise taxes by additional methods, if they so choose.

11: Wessex and all other regions should receive a substantial tax rebate from such taxation revenue, apportioned in accordance with their per capita and per hectare rating as European Regions. This rebate should be spent as the Regional Assemblies see fit.

12: Another large portion of all federal taxation revenue should be paid annually into the regional fund at Strasbourg, with a view to effecting a gradual redistribution of capital and social resources over Western Europe at large.

13: A further portion of the federal taxation revenue should go into a European redevelopment fund, with a view to assisting those nations such as Britain with peculiar transitional problems: or generally assisting towards the cost of unifying the nations of our continent.

14: Applications should be made to the European Parliament to shoulder the cost (from out of this redevelopment fund) for changing the British road system from left to right.

15: The cost of linking Britain to France by several bridges and tunnels should also be financed from this fund.

16: The Common Agricultural Policy should be modified so as to ensure efficiency in farming, without destroying the idea that Europe should become agriculturally self-sufficient.

17: The representatives from Wessex should seek to ally themselves with the representatives of those European Regions where farming is practised efficiently, asserting our mutual interests against regions where farming is practised inefficiently, or where the interests of agriculture as a whole are subordinated to industrial interests.

18: Strasbourg must co-ordinate and control the scientific and technological research of its member nations, so as to attain maximum efficiency and co-operation.

19: The operation of multinational companies in Europe should be carefully monitored, so as to avoid any upsurge of their influence to a degree that cannot be safely controlled by the elected representatives of the people.

20: Strasbourg must take charge of energy policy within Europe, which should be carefully planned to allow for the situation that will arise after our oil supplies have run out: involving heavy investment in alternative energy research.

21: Strasbourg must take general charge of environment policy, to ensure that national standards are consistently high.

22: The standardisation of weights and measurements according to the European metric system should be pressed forward to its conclusion.

23: A uniform electoral system of proportional representation, with single transferable vote, should be adopted by the Parliament at Strasbourg before the next Euro-elections.

24: Research should be undertaken at Strasbourg for a computerised voting system, for future adoption, whereby the voting strength of each delegate from a Regional State is registered automatically within the European Parliament in direct relationship to the number of people that the delegate's party can be shown to represent.