EU Referendum post:
...Of equal interest is Booker's second story, which concerns what the Government describes as "a small, technical and non-controversial" Bill now being nodded through Parliament. This will give the equivalent of diplomatic immunity to the employees of a range of 'international organisations", mostly organs of the EU. The "privileges and immunities" it grants will be enjoyed not just by staff members of these bodies, but to all members of their families and 'households'.Although questioning of this curious Bill has been led by the tireless Eurosceptic Lord Pearson of Rannoch, it has raised the eyebrows of even such a committed Europhile as Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He was surprised to discover that, since his wife is a director of the Robert Schuman Centre, part of the European University Institute, he will share her "immunity from domestic taxation" and other privileges, as her "dependent spouse".
The danger of this Bill, according to Lord Wallace, is that it will create "two classes of people- those of us who are subject to domestic law and pay our taxes and parking fines, and an increasing number of people who do not". While insisting he is a "strong supporter of the further development of the European Union", he regards "the powers, privileges and status of the Commission and many of its agencies with mixed feelings", fearing that "there is a real danger of a popular backlash against the emergence of this privileged elite". The significance of this is that, as Lord Wallace himself pointed out, there are ever more of these EU bodies whose staff enjoy privileges above national law. In response to a question from Lord Pearson, the Government itself only named 28, ranging from the European Railways Agency and the European Plant Variety Office to the European European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia, although the Foreign Office concedes its list will have to be updated "as new bodies are added".
What the Foreign Office would never explain, however, is how these fast-proliferating organs in many ways now represent the true government of our country. Just why therefore the privilegentsia which works for them should be granted the immunities traditionally accorded to diplomats of a foreign power is likely to inspire not just puzzlement but, as Lord Wallace suggests, very great resentment....