I am reproducing below the entire text of a blog post from the co founder of the Albion Alliance
I have signed the pledge which reads thus:
I pledge to work tirelessly to give the voters of my constituency a democratic and direct voice in the United Kingdom's continued relationship with the EU.
I pledge that I will sponsor a Private Members Bill, written in clear concise terms, calling for a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union - and/or support any motion for such a referendum - and to vote positively for any Bill that may call for such a referendum, irrespective of Party Whip, with a view to the successful outcome of this pledge within 1 year of a new Parliament or sooner.
Now for Ian's brilliant post
If you click the title of this post you will be taken to the original which is reproduced below with his kind permission.
As the near continent wide ban on aircraft movements enters its 4th day, and the airports of Europe begin to resemble refugee camps and field hospitals, a bigger and much more pressing set of questions now come to the fore.
Forgetting the shrills who have been carping on about Co2 and Food miles (the Icelandic volcano has put more Co2 into the atmosphere in 4 days than European industrialisation and air transport could do in 1000 years) the reserves of food available across the UK must now be looking fairly thin.
For years we have been told by our politicians that Globalisation is the way forward, it is good for Britain, yet we have seen that this same globalisation has all but destroyed our financial systems, in turn sending to the wall and bankrupting small and medium sized business at an unprecedented rate.
Supranational treaties with the EU, OECD, WTO and the UN have destroyed many of our key industries, mining, steel, potteries, etc and those same treaties have destroyed our food security.
The Government of the United Kingdom has an obligation to ensure that the population of these islands can feed itself, but after many years of interference both at national and supranational level, our arable farmers only produce a fraction of what is required, our fishermen are regulated, quota driven and fined, livestock farmers have been reduced to a bare minimum by introduced diseases such as foot and mouth and swine & bird flu.
Much of what food is produced in the UK is discarded or diverted for other purposes because of quotas for biofuels or processing, or it does not meet the plethora of regulations on sizes, shapes & colours.
As a nation we are now dependent upon the farmers of Egypt, Kenya, Syria, Spain, Italy and many more overseas producers for our basic foodstuffs. A large percentage of this is shipped into the UK by airfreight, as sea and road transportation would see these goods spoil or rot before they reached the supermarkets.
Besides the obvious inconvenience of moving people about, the inability of aircraft to fly will only show how globalisation is ruinous for this country, not only in financial terms but in the most basic of human requirements, the ability to feed ourselves.
When the supermarkets begin to have supply problems of potatoes, tomatoes, beans, apples, pears, oranges, lemons, asparagus, aubergines, sweet corn, those nice medley packs, runner beans, sweet potatoes, mange tout, carrots, swede, turnips, cucumbers, celery, peppers, radishes, onions, pineapples and grapes and a host of other foodstuffs that we buy every day, all in the main imported by air (just look at the labels) who will we blame.
Who will we blame? No doubt the newspapers and politicians will be blaming the Icelandic volcano ash cloud, a problem beyond their control.
But the problem should never have gotten beyond their control in the first place, they have neglected us, our ability to feed ourselves completely from within our own borders, in this mad dash for globalisation, for power, for money, for control.
So when the politicians knock on your door, ask them who is to blame if you cannot feed your family properly this election, just make it clear to them that without the EU, its rules and regulations, this country could grow what it wanted, it could fish where it liked, it could reduce our dependency on overseas food imports to a minimum, so that natural disasters such as this latest volcano would have a minimum impact on families here.
So rather than looking at this Icelandic Ash Cloud as a problem, it could in fact be our saviour, it could make the people of the UK wake up a little.
The way to get your candidate to understand that you wish to be self sufficient in food here, and the only way to do that is to get a referendum on the EU.
To get that referendum, reneged on by all the 3 main parties, Lib/Lab/Con, all candidates should be denied our vote unless they have already signed the Albion Alliance Pledge (see Candidate data base, button on right side bar). Alternatively, when candidates ‘come a canvassing’, they can also be presented with this to sign – a form which is being downloaded at the rate of ‘hundreds’ each day, since it became available on the Albion Alliance website.
