THE MADNESS RETURNS..

My very good friend Mr. Slightly commented the other day on one of my posts concerning football that, football apart, `the world is quite mad.`  He was right.   And now we have yet another example from, unsurprisingly, the European Court of Human Rights.

It was in December last year that I had a bit to say about the tragic case of 12 year old Amy Houston who was mown down and killed by a failed asylum seeker who used Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to be allowed to stay in this country because he had fathered two children here - http://snoppersays.blogspot.com/2010/12/blog-post.html may jog the memory.

And now we have yet another case that stretches reason to its limits.  The other day, a Nigerian serial rapist escaped deportation after European judges ruled that he had a right to a `private life` here in Britain.   This after he had been found guilty of raping a 13 year old girl and having exhausted every legal avenue of appeal in this country.   Indeed, his case to be allowed to remain was so flimsy that the Court of Appeal refused to hear it.  

Despite all of that, the European Court of Human Rights sitting in splendid isolation in Strasbourg not only ruled in his favour but also awarded him costs of £3,500.   The seven judges, seen existing stage left above, included representatives of such pillars of reason as Bosnia, Albania and Montenegro, said that the Court must `protect his social ties with Britain,` despite the fact that he has no wife, long term partner or children in the UK, all of which are factors which foreign criminals have used to stay here under the now discredited Article 8.

The crime he committed is appalling  but the nonsensical decision to effectively show leniency towards someone who shouldn`t be here anyway is, frankly, astonishing and it shows once more the farcical world we seem forced to endure all the while we are strapped to the yoke of the EU.   Now of course, I confess to having my `difficulties` with anything connected with the EU - common agricultural policy, fisheries policy, its vast expense, its totally ineffective management of its common currency, it`s wasteful and unnecessary dabbling in foreign affairs.....I could go on.

And at this point, I have reminded myself of the words of Jean Monnet, a  French diplomat and a `founding father` of the EU, who said, "Europe`s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening.   This can be accomplished by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation."  Indeed.

Now I agree that all of that is perhaps a long way away from having a moan about yet another daft decision from the judges in Strasbourg, but it does serve to remind me that all the big things that are going wrong with Europe, coupled now with these humanly tragic `smaller`  issues, surely make the case of themselves for this country`s politicians to do what they promised - a referendum on Europe and a Bill of Rights following withdrawal from the Human Rights Act.

Trouble is, we`ve got a coalition government with the inevitable result that nothing will happen here and, all the while, the madness of Europe will continue unchecked.   And you wonder why people like Mr. Slightly and myself try to escape all the madness and find comfort, and sometimes even reassurance, in football.