World News and Trends: Taking stock of Britain

After nearly 20 years of Conservative government in Whitehall, a decisive national election ushered a Labour administration into power with such a vast majority that monumental changes suddenly became feasible.

Already Scotland is to have an elected parliament and Wales a national assembly. This historic turn of events doesn't bode well for the future of British sovereignty. Further, the central government in London appears much less resistant to the pressures that Brussels-headquarters of the European Union-will inevitably bring on Englishmen's way of life.

The justice system is a case in point. A fundamental principle of law with the American and British systems is that one is innocent until proven guilty. That traditional supposition is now under threat in Britain because on the Continent it tends to work the other way around.

As columnist Leo McKinstry explained: "At a meeting of the European Social Affairs Council, the government is to sign up to a new directive shifting the burden of proof in cases of sex discrimination from the employee to the employer. In other words under this inane Euro-regulation, firms accused of sex discrimination will be guilty until proved innocent."

European reversals of British court judgments are fairly common. For instance, in September of 1997 a lesbian couple won a sex-discrimination case against a train-company employer for failure to provide the same benefits as it did for heterosexual couples.

Britain has also been in the dock with the European Union (EU) over the Continent's maximum-48-hour working week. Perhaps much less serious in nature, but still a blow to the British psyche, is that in "two years packaging and recipes must by law be metric only." Yet the results of a poll show that, "despite a 30-year campaign to force Britain to go metric, the majority of its citizens still find it more convenient to use feet and inches, pints and pounds." Anglo-Saxon tradition dies hard.

At first glance merely comical, the plight of the British lavatory takes on a sobering significance when the implications are carefully considered. Said one Sunday newspaper: "The British lavatory, widely regarded as the world's most elegant and efficient means of waste disposal, is about to be challenged by its leaky European rival." According to the British Council, "millions of gallons will go down the pan every day" in a country recently troubled by serious water shortages. So much for the battle of the flushes.

The above news items represent only the tip of the iceberg of numerous EU regulations that are being brought into conflict with long-held British traditions. The public does not yet realize the full extent of the changes taking place on a daily basis. Sovereignty is fast shifting from London to Brussels. When the peoples of the United Kingdom fully comprehend what is taking place, there may be real conflict between Britain and the European Union. (Sources: The Express [London], The Sunday Telegraph [London].)