There Is Nobody At The Wheel Of This London Bus
My first impressions on the UK parliamentary debate
On Monday 18th December, an historic debate took place in the UK parliament, attended by a handful of mostly very thoughtful UK MPs and throngs of concerned men and women. As the creator of the petition, I would like to thank all the MPs that attended the debate, especially those who spoke and expressed many of the concerns raised by the World Council for Health policy team. It was also good to see that MP Andrew Bridgen was not the only MP concerned with the imminent hand over of British sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable entity that is the World Health Organisation!
Six months ago, on 10th June 2023, the WCH Policy Brief on the WHO Pandemic Treaty and Amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations was hand delivered to all 660 UK MPs parliamentary mailboxes. At additional cost, we included the WHO’s proposed IHR amendment document to ensure that MPs had it and there could be no misunderstandings as to their contents. The printing costs of these documents, including summary and covering letter, were covered by public donations.
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During the debate submissions, I was reassured by the objections raised to the proposed IHR amendments that the MP speakers or their counsel had read the WCH Policy Brief. My overall impression of the arguments against the amendments to the IHR put forward by MPs John Redwood, Mark Francois, Dannie Kruger, Philip Davies, and Andrew Bridgen, who acknowledged the input of former WHO employee David Bell and International Law expert Philip Kruse to his understanding of the subject matter, is that they were measured and well-informed, with most of our key points raised.
MP Sir Christopher Chope added to speaker submissions, highlighting the story of ivermectin as an example of why the corrupted WHO should certainly not be given more power.
Answering for the UK government
Answering on behalf of the government’s position to strengthen the WHO, the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, MP Andrew Stephenson, and the Shadow Minister for Primary Care and Public Health, MP Preet Kaur Gill were really clueless of both the documents and what’s at stake for nation and people. It is interesting that these two MPs gave no indication of having read the documents of concern, despite their grave significance to not only the health of every man, woman, and child, but also to the very sovereignty of the people and country they both purport to serve. Indeed, the incumbent minister has absolutely no background in health but rather an early passion for cooking which led to studies in management and a career in insurance. The shadow minister, although having studied social work and specialising in child protection seems to have little grasp of the seriousness of the issues at hand.
As such, Stephenson and Gill mixed up the WHO Pandemic Treaty with the proposed IHR amendments (the matter under debate) and talked about deadly pandemics with seemingly no knowledge that the IHR amendments relate to PHEICs (public health emergencies of international concern) of any description, not just pandemics. They regurgitated the same phrases that were used on the British population to coerce us to comply with unlawful mandates, phrases such as “no one is safe until everyone is safe” peppered their speeches, which surprisingly sounded like they were written by the same person despite their being from opposing political parties.
Ah, I almost forgot, the debate opening…
If you had popped out to the loo you’d have missed it. I had not held out great hopes for the introduction of the debate by MP Cat Smith. It was short and perfunctory. In the meeting I had with her beforehand, she made it clear that she was roped in at the last minute as MP Scott Benton had been withdrawn. She clearly had no prior knowledge or indeed any interest in the matter under consideration, namely that of UK sovereignty. As such she neither impressed nor disappointed me.
MP Scott Benton, who unfortunately was suspended from his political party the day after I briefed him last week, may have done a better job as he seemed to understand the issues and be concerned.
Smith’s opening speech contained similar sound bites to Stephenson and Gill; all three expressed perfunctory platitudes relating to Covid and the season, coming across similarly contrived and condescending on all three deliveries. Hardly incisive thinking from public figures elected to serve the British people.
Amateur theatre
As they played their part in what was tantamount to a primary school production, repeating their childish messages from a conjured multiparty script, I heard from the concerned people behind me in the public gallery, “They must think we’re idiots.”
Without a debate, the debate ended as abruptly as it began.
Frankly, it is quite clear to all who the idiots are. Given only a handful of scripted lines to work with, and no knowledge of the subject matter with which to ad lib, Stephenson and Gill would have run out of words and talked themselves into a corner had the debate been allowed to go on a half hour longer. This must be why such limits are set.
Certainly no-one watching the debate would get the impression that one is witnessing democracy in action. As a ‘non-substantive’ debate, the whole event seems really to be nothing more than amateur theatre for the masses.
Although asked repeatedly, the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, and a finalist of BBC Junior Masterchef, Andrew Stephenson, would not say who is leading the British negotiating team, nor indeed how big the team is, or whether there is a team at all.
Quite simply, they have no answers. They don’t know.
Potential procedural issues with the IHR amendments adopted in May 2022
A key issue that was not debated was the rejection of the amendments that were adopted in May 2022 at the World Health Assembly meeting. These adopted amendments reduce the time frame for rejection of future IHR amendments from 18 months to 10 months, and for implementation from 24 months to 12 months.
Curiously, MP Cat Smith did know about this and mentioned these as if a fait accompli in her brief opening. New information that has found its way into the public realm via researcher James Roguski, however, indicates that these amendments were not put to a vote in May 2022 and are as such null and void. This needs further elucidation and discussion.
Where to now?
We don’t need to hold our breathe for MPs to wake up and do their duty. Yes, let’s remind the 650 or so MPs, who could not be bothered to turn up, to watch the debate on you tube and get up to speed. Let’s advise them that the double-decker bus in which they are travelling, with their children and their grandchildren, has no driver – there is simply no one is at the wheel.
However, our new WCH craft has been custom-made with love and for purpose. Guided by the principles of the Better Way Charter, the World Council for Health is here to help all people seeking to navigate through the wake of incompetence and corruption to calm waters. There’s a better way and we at the World Council for Health are with you all the way!
Looking back, getting this UK parliamentary debate to happen has been extremely resource intensive for the World Council for Health team. A culmination of several months of work, it was a multi-disciplinary team effort that drew expertise from our policy and legal department, social media and graphics teams, administrative team, and teams on the ground in communities.
To all the wonderful people who signed our Reject the IHR amendments petition, please look out for our new petitions and support these and other actions to counter monopoly power coming soon!What has been achieved has laid the foundation stone for further effective activism against monopoly power in the UK and elsewhere in 2024.
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Thank you!
I get the sense both "ministers" are selected specifically (by "someone") for cluelessness and lack of domain expertise. Otherwise they might object. And we can't have that. Incompetence by Design.
Great work Tess and WCH.
Gracias. Displaying their level of idiocy is actually a powerful step in the right direction.