Friday 25 October 2019

CAN THE UNITED KINGDOM FORCE LEGISLATION ON THE CROWN DEPENDENCY TAX HAVEN OF JERSEY?

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"Don't look at me! - It was just my turn to run this farce!"

AND IF SO WHY DOES WESTMINSTER/WHITEHALL VIEW TAX DODGING AS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE EVIDENCED POLITICISATION AND ABUSE OF JERSEY'S PROSECUTION SERVICES?

I was most intrigued this week to read extracts from comments made by Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell where he re-stressed the view that the United Kingdom government could - and if necessary finally will force legislation upon Jersey and other Crown Dependencies in the event of them failing to meet the 2023 'deadline' for introducing real and "transparent registers of beneficial ownership of companies registered within their jurisdiction". 

Intrigued because 'cleaning up' Offshore tax dodging has never exactly been a priority for UK governments, be they Conservative or Labour (certainly prior to the coming of the Corbyn leadership anyway!) squatting as they do in the shadows of the City of London's murky underworld. Indeed, let us not forget that a financial services bill to which such an amendment had been attached was pulled only this past Spring.


So why now, I ask any readers interested in commenting? And is it really clear cut that they could do so?



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Andrew Mitchell MP

After all, having some more direct political contacts now that I am based on the UK mainland I am told that Andrew Mitchell is apparently very confident on two fronts. 


Firstly, that this transposing of legislation really can be implemented even if the Crown Dependencies back-track and ultimately try to refuse the imposition. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more surprising given the continued farce of Brexit rolling ever-onward, that suddenly there really might just exist enough support within Westminster for the unprecedented imposition to be enforced. 



For within Mitchell's latest public comments on the subject he has been quoted as stating that he and his fellow campaigner on this move, Labour Dame Margaret Hodge, have apparently actually been given assurances from the "very best lawyers in the land" that the UK government does possess the necessary powers. 

Given that in the past Mitchell's Tory colleague, Dominic Grieve has poured doubt on this - doubt that has in fact now been reiterated by another Tory, Andrew Rosindell,  an MP of the ilk that surely makes up the majority view of Conservatives i.e. that they don't give a damn about global tax dodging I really have to question the will to move for legislation now, even if I agree with Mitchell's belief that intervention would be possible.


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Could the UK's sacrifice of Jersey's Fulfilment industry be worth keeping in mind?

For those unfamiliar with this issue the key intervention catch-all is effectively hung on the issue of 'Good governance'. But I would also suggest that at a stretch - particularly if pressure from our European cousins should get ratcheted up as will almost certainly happen if Brexit finally takes place - the 'law and order' aspect of the United Kingdom's relationship with the Crown Dependencies could surely also be manipulated in to play if the will to support Mitchell and Hodge really has moved forward.

There is yet another interesting insight arising from Andrew Mitchell's latest comments which should likely also set some alarm bells ringing for the likes of former Jersey Bailiff 'Sir' Philip Bailhache and his fellow 'delusionals'; i.e. that faced with such increased threats  the Crown Dependency can simply give Westminster a right Royal two-fingered salute and declare 'Independence'. 


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Yes, we really are that small...

Frankly, with increased European hostility - as certainly will happen post-Brexit if only out of spite - and no reason for the United Kingdom government to any longer act as a buffer, the idea that Jersey Tax Haven PLC could just roll on regardless is about as credible as a 'Sir' William Bailhache speech on 'The Jersey Way'.  Even if somewhat veiled Mitchell makes this very threat.

Yet in asking readers for their own thoughts I would end with an aspect of all of this which, as one of those then political figures who fought the long battle to try and bring about justice for the countless victims of decades of abuse within the States of Jersey's 'child care' institutions, disturbs me hugely when I read all of this:

Why, if the UK government really can intervene in a Crown Dependency's affairs under the umbrella of 'good governance' - let alone that of restoring 'law and order' - is it that this has never once been tried or even threatened over the spectacular failings of the Jersey government to safeguard children in it's care? 

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Disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile pictured at Haut de la Garenne

After all, a full decade has passed by since the global breaking of the Haut de la Garenne scandal, and though £24 million has been spent on an Independent Care Inquiry the mandarins of Westminster really cannot fail to know that not only has very little changed; zero of their Crown Dependency equivalents has been held to account. Isn't that an issue worthy of intervention? 

To this regard I thus leave with this final thought:

Writing in Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler talked of what was to become known as 'the big lie' i.e. the use of a lie so 'colossal' that no one would believe that anyone could have the 'impudence to distort the truth so infamously'. 

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In my own opinion when, just a week or so before Andrew Mitchell's latest comments out-going Jersey Bailiff 'Sir' William Bailhache - the former Attorney General behind so many failings just like his two predecessors  - used his last day as President/Speaker of the States government to attack those who claim Jersey's 'Royal' Court and by extension it's related prosecutionary services are politicised was spouting garbage that fits the 'big lie' as described by Hitler perfectly. 

Nothing, I say to readers yet again, has changed in the way Jersey is run. Nothing has changed either in regard to the will to bring such change about. In consequence if, as the Mitchell story would suggest, pounds really are still far more important to most politicians than people - more important even than children - then it really is ripe that time is called on traditional governments per se, both on Jersey and here in the UK.

Whatever might replace it all could hardly be any less disturbing, honest or dystopian.










Tuesday 8 October 2019

THE JERSEY BAILIFF 2019 - 'THE JERSEY WAY' MADE FLESH: A TRUE VIDEO NASTY

  • Attack on the Independent Care Inquiry
  • Attack on brave Police S.I.O. who led abuse investigation
  • Attack on former Politicians who did the right thing
  • Excuses for a State in the 21st Century still having no separation of powers
  • A complete denial of reality...
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Bailiff Sir William Bailhache - A man who clearly doesn't understand irony?


PLUS CA CHANGE, PLUS C'EST LE MEME CHOSE

Any UK based readers who think that we have dire political/constitutional problems here with arrogant public school bully boy Boris Johnson shamelessly playing fast and loose with the law and his own High Office really ought to spare a few minutes to watch the following, truly shocking video at the end of this blog post.

This features the Bailiff of the British Crown Dependency of Jersey - a wholly unelected public school throwback to the 17th Century who even makes Jacob Rees-Mogg look caring and contemporary - allowed by the UK's studied collusion to sit as both Chief Judge of the Tax Haven's Judiciary and  President & Speaker of the legislature. 

Just as Bailiffs have done for over 800 long years!

Indeed, as viewers will hear with the raucous stamping of feet  - rather like that of recently shod sheep - greeting the Bailiff's inane, bitter and deeply offensive utterings of denial about the existence of the infamous 'Jersey Way' so inherently linked to his Office things really do seem stuck in a time warp in Jersey.

Certainly this indicates to me that it really must be sadly acknowledged that the aforesaid shocking 'Jersey Way' of burying things 'bad for the Island's image' rather than dealing with them a handful of politicians (I was very proud to be one of them) alongside bloggers and other anti-abuse campaigners fought so hard to change in support of brave Senior Police Officers Graham Power and Lenny Harper has now slipped back to pre-2008 levels.

For what else can one conclude when a member of the Jersey public feels the need to email me describing her disgust at the Chairman of the Privileges & Procedures Committee - in the lady's words 'sucking up to the Bailiff rather than holding him to account' for abusing a mechanism usually only used for advising States Members of house-keeping matters such as altered meeting dates etc and instead making it a platform for an embittered tirade on his last day in Office ?


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A 'disaffected' Police Officer to Bailhache - A hero to victims of 'The Jersey Way'

What can you conclude when you hear this sorry excuse for a Crown Officer insult the former S.I.O. Lenny Harper who strove to uncover what Jersey's Bailiffs and senior politicians had turned a blind to for decades as apparently being just a 'disaffected' police officer?

Or when the tiny handul of current States Members who were disgusted and wanted to ask Bailhache questions were denied this?

A DANGEROUS RELIC OF FEUDALISM

After all, picking up a salary twice, let us not forget, that of Prime Minister Johnson's Bailiff Sir William Bailhache sits atop a jurisdiction not just still without any real Separation of Powers!  But...


  • Still without any holding to account by UK Monarch and/or government. 
  • Still without any acceptance of their own appalling failings. 
  • Still without any aceptance of the need to change. 
  • Still without any evident understanding of just how terribly all of this - and this latest display of arrogance in particular - simply must negatively impact upon the victims.

The role is of course defiantly claimed by local Establishment apologists desperate to retain the status quo to help maintain their own power as being wholly 'a-political'. To this all I would advise new readers/viewers is watch the video above for yourself and make up your own mind. As to what set Bailiff Bailhache off on his latest revisionary rant...


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Hundreds of thousands of pages of documented evidence

The tinder for this was the second report and recommendations of the £24 million Independent Care Inquiry panel brought over to investigate many decades of appalling judicial, governmental and senior Civil Service failings and downright betrayal of countless children in the 'care' of the States over a period stretching right back to the immediate post-war years.

Hundreds of thousands of statements and other documents were amassed and assessed by the Independent Care Inquiry over a period of years. All of this within a Terms of Reference framework admittdely wholly lacking in the teeth to ultimately hold people in power legally to account. 

Nevertheless, everyone involved appears to at least accept the existence of what has become notoriously, globally known as 'The Jersey Way' as being central to this. Except the likes of those who really need to take it on board the most: Bailhache, his equally arrogant predecessors and the foot-stomping embarrassments we hear on the video. 

How damningly ironic a thought to end on then but to point out that the very Bailiff who refuses to acknowledge the existence of 'The Jersey Way' has just demeonstrated it in personification:

'The Jersey Way' made flesh...


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