Your Constitution

Your Choice

To put the people in the picture - our aim is educational.

YOUR OWN CHOICE is a group of patriotic volunteers who are dedicated to explaining the historic independence and freedom that belong to the British people in covenant with their Sovereign and under the rule of Common Law.

You will see

1) The Primary Sources of Britain’s Constitution and Liberty
2) Your Sovereign’s Covenant with You to Defend the Common Law
3) The European Union and the British Citizen
4) The People’s Right of Petition

Our Sovereign Liberty is founded in history and in law

1) THE PRIMARY SOURCES OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION AND OUR LIBERTY

Our freedoms existed before Parliament. They flow from Common Law, Magna Carta, and our Constitutional Covenants with our Monarch.

• The British people developed Common Law to settle their differences peacefully and fairly.  King Alfred the Great (AD 871- 899) codified Common Law, thereby helping to establish the constitutional basis of British freedoms.
  
  
• In AD 1215, Magna Carta, the Great Charter, set out the people’s ancient liberties and Common Law. These liberties were confirmed as the people’s birthright long before Parliament existed. They include the right to trial by jury and the right to have a voice in determining taxation. In 1297 the Model Parliament confirmed Magna Carta in statute law. Since then Magna Carta has been re-confirmed many times.
  
  
• Parliament has no Constitutional power to amend or repeal the fundamental Common Law basis of Magna Carta, albeit it has amended or repealed many clauses in statute laws. Magna Carta remains in force to this day and is a principal part of the British Constitution. Sir Winston Churchill said about it, “In subsequent ages when the state swollen with its own authority has attempted to ride roughshod over the rights and liberties of the people it is to this doctrine that appeal has again and again been made and never as yet without success”.
  
  
• Magna Carta is the foundation of our liberty. It takes the power of enforcement away from the state and secures it to the people. It does this by mandating the right to trial by jury.
  
  
• Our Common Law is ultimately superior to the statute law created by Parliament. This is because a jury always has the right to give a not guilty verdict even if it runs counter to the interpretation or logic of statute law. Thus the people have the power to decide that a law is unjust and overturn it. The jury also ensures that the punishment fits the crime. The power of the state is thus limited so that statute law cannot become tyrannical. This is one of the Constitutional mechanisms that have defended our liberty for nearly 1,000 years. The true importance of jury trial is that it limits the power of the state by giving the people the power of enforcement. By this means the British people have successfully inhibited tyranny and despotism.
  
  
• That the Common Law is the Birthright of the people and may never be taken away is recorded in the Act of Settlement 1701.
  
  
• The principles of Magna Carta, Common Law, the Declaration of Right and Bill of Rights, the Coronation Oath, and the Act of Settlement are all written parts of the British Constitution. They describe the fundamental rules and principles that the British people have chosen to live by.
  
  
• The Sovereign, the Courts, Parliament, and the Civil Service are all bound to uphold British rights and liberties as embodied in Magna Carta, Common Law, the Declaration of Right and Bill of Rights, the Coronation Oath, and the Act of Settlement. This is what we mean when say we are a sovereign country ruled by law, not by personality or personal whim, not by politics, and not by any other nation-state.
  
  
•  ‘The rule of law’ means that laws are known and declared beforehand so that the actions of an individual or the State that contravene the law can be challenged and redressed.
  
  
• The ultimate consequence of the rule of law is the power of the courts or juries to declare that unconstitutional law is void.
  
  
• Constitutionally and traditionally, the House of Lords is the High Court of Parliament, and is the supreme and ultimate Court. In the 17th century the Lord Chief Justice ruled that the authorities could not pressure a jury and that juries have an inalienable right to freely decide guilt and innocence.

2) THE COVENANT BETWEEN YOUR SOVEREIGN AND YOU

When Queen Elizabeth II swore her Coronation Oath she contracted to govern us according to our laws and customs and promised that "I will cause law and justice in mercy to be used in all my judgments". Politicians would like you to believe that the Coronation Oath is just dramatic spectacle, but the Coronation Oath is made between you and the Sovereign and confirms that ‘we have a constitutionally limited Monarchy’ under the rule of Common and Statute Law.

Our history makes this clear -

• In AD 973, Edgar the Peaceful took the first Coronation Oath, as have all his successors. The Oath is a Covenant between the Monarch and the people, and calls on the Sovereign to protect the people’s Common Law and to promote justice, peace, equity, and mercy.
  
  
• In 1689, William and Mary accepted the people's Declaration of Right, coupled with the changes to the Coronation Oath. This limited the powers of the Crown and completed the settlement of the Glorious Revolution. The Oath became an undoubted and express contract for the governing of Britain and took place not between Parliament and the Crown but between the people and the Crown. The Covenant between people and Monarch is made for the duration of His or Her Reign.
  
  
• It is the Sovereign’s duty to ensure redress and remedy and to protect the people. Should a breach of the Constitution arise through mishap or mischief it must be recognised as misgovernance and declared unconstitutional. The Monarch’s grant of Royal Assent empowers an Act. The Sovereign has a Constitutional duty to refuse the Royal Assent to any unconstitutional proposals from wherever they may arise, even from Parliament.
  
  
• The Glorious Revolution of 1688/89 confirmed the principle that the power of the law is the supreme authority, not the Crown and not Parliament. The Sovereign is the defender of the law.
  
  
• The Declaration of Right and Bil of Rights of 1689 state ‘That no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm’. According to the Britisth Constitution, to give the EU authority over the British people is unconstitutional.
  
  
• The Sovereign has the constitutional power to call His or Her Parliament or to dissolve and call a General Election, then to appoint a Prime Minister who is charged to form a Government to advise the Crown on policy. The ‘Crown in Parliament’ is said to be ‘Sovereign’.
  
  
• The House of Lords and House of Commons are principally advisory in their constitutional capacity of law making. They publish, debate and decide upon the context and content of bills. A bill is of no force or effect until it is enacted by the Monarch, granting Royal Assent. The Sovereign power is vested in the institution of the Crown, constrained by the rule of our constitutional laws. The Prime Minister is no more than the leading advisor to the Sovereign.
  
  
• The Prime Minister and all Members of both Houses of Parliament are required to swear the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign to serve the Crown before they can be part of the legislative process. Consequently Parliament is bound not to adopt any legislation that would breach the British Constitution. MPs are subject to the law; the Coronation Oath is part of that law.  It is a constitutional contract for the defence of every British subject's Liberty. The defence of Liberty should therefore be the public policy. As Liberty has also made us prosperous, it is a practical policy. The primary public charge of our MPs is the defence of the individual subject's Liberty.
  
  
• Constitutionally MPs are not delegates of a political party but representatives of their constituencies and the British people. The public trust is that they should represent the will of their constituents with the freedom of their consciences but always in accordance with the British Constitution.  Thus the Liberty of the subject must always be upheld by Parliament.
  
  
• The opening words of every Act of Parliament and the Declaration of Right and Bill of Rights confirm that the Monarch is not subject to any foreign power.
  
  
• By definition sovereignty is indivisible. It must remain free from external control and interference. To remove sovereignty from the Crown is to undermine the Liberty of the people and is unconstitutional.
  
  
• A referendum could never legitimize the diminution or destruction of our nation’s Sovereignty and our freedom. Any referendum that did would amount to treason under the existing principles of the Constitution and Constitutional Law.  The Monarch would be placed in an untenable position, unable to honour Her sworn contract with Her subjects. A new legal order would be needed, probably requiring the abdication of the Monarch, the renunciation of the Coronation Oath and the dissolution of Government.
  
  
• A referendum may only be used to determine the views of the voters. It cannot be used to breach the principles of Common Law and the British Constitution.
  
  
• To conclude, the priority of the Sovereign and the British Constitution is to maintain and defend the British people’s Liberty and individual, spiritual, civil, and property rights.  It is not for the State (as in administrative or police states) to impose rules by decree. Under our system the individual’s Liberty is the primary and essential duty of the Crown and Parliament.
  

3) THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE BRITISH CITIZEN

• In 1960 and again in 1971 the Government's legal advisors warned that to sign the Treaty of Rome would mean the loss of the British people's sovereignty – our independence and freedom from external control. To remove sovereignty is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, on the advice of Her Majesty's Ministers the Treaty of Rome was agreed.
  
  
• In 1972 Parliament passed the European Communities Act, which took us into the European Economic Community (the EEC), which has since transformed itself into the European Union (EU). The Act was passed after Britain's people were told falsely by their leaders that they were entering only a trading agreement, a Common Market, and that no ‘loss of essential sovereignty’ could arise.

• Britain's people were asked in 1975 if it wished Britain to continue as a member of the Common Market. Again they were falsely told that remaining in the European Union would entail no loss of freedom. The British people have never agreed to being governed and controlled by the European Union – a different proposition altogether.

• In 2003 the then Lord Mayor of London, himself a Recorder addressing members of the legal profession on the subject of "The City and the Law", said that if British Law were in conflict with EU law, the latter would prevail. His conclusion was that Parliament was no longer Sovereign. There was no dissent from his audience.  This implies that this audience of lawyers accepted that sovereignty had indeed been surrendered. This is not consistent with our Constitution, nor with recent Court judgements, which uphold our Sovereignty as indivisible and confirm its place as beyond the official powers of Parliament to diminish or to divide.
  
  
• To restore the British people's loss of freedom, it is within the authority of Parliament to withdraw from the EU. It has every obligation to do so because Britain's loss of sovereignty to the EU is an outrageous breach of our Constitution including the Sovereign’s Oath to her people.    

A brief description
of EU plans

Since 1972, British independence and freedom have been secretly transferred bit by bit to the European Union in Brussels. The EU constitution, now called the Reform Treaty, would further that process. It is happening secretly, without your approval, but it is happening:

THE VIOLATION AND DESTRUCTION
of the British Constitution and the rule of law

THE BREAK UP
of the United Kingdom into 12 EU Regions

THE END
of Great Britain and self-government

THE LOSS OF OUR LIBERTIES
to be replaced by rules handed out by unaccountable politicians

THE SUBVERSION OF SEPARATION OF POWERS
by ending jury trial and habeas corpus, and boosting state control

THUS CREATING
an embryonic police state by the gradual unification of the power to legislate with the power to enforce; and by allowing imprisonment without cause or charge

THE ABANDOMENT
of the Pound Sterling

GIVING UP
economic control of the United Kingdom to the EU

RELINQUISHING
the United Kingdom's international role, including its seat at the
United Nations and NATO

HIGHER TAX INCREASES
including items not now VAT rated

LOSING
United Kingdom resources and pension funds

TERMINATING
the Anglo/US special relationship

INCREASING IMMIGRATION SUBSTANTIALLY

DISENFRANCHISING THE BRITISH VOTER & WORKER WITH UNCONTROLLED ACCESS TO BRITISH JOBS & ELECTIONS
by all EU citizens

Remember, jobs are dependent on trade with the EU, NOT on membership of the EU.

4) THE RIGHT TO PETITION

Only now, at this late hour, do increasing numbers of the British people realise the enormity and consequences of the massive and secret transfers of power to Brussels, made piecemeal by successive governments as the Common Market has transformed itself into the EU. Only now are we awakening to the threat to British independence, the loss of our right to govern ourselves, the loss of our freedoms, and the changes it will make to our lives and the lives of our children and future generations.

The people have spoken clearly and repeatedly about their concern in polls, but the MPs refuse to listen. They do not admit they have made a dreadful mistake.

The British people must know the truth about the EU before the government, opposition parties and self-interested groups with vast funds start a comprehensive campaign to influence the electorates’ opinion on the EU. There must be an open and honest public debate about the real implications. Remember, jobs are dependent on trade with the EU, not on membership of the EU.

Already the EU plan for regional government is being gradually implemented though it is yet another breach of British Constitutional law. This may be what the British people want. If it is not, then the people must take action by speaking out before it is too late.

• Britain's Constitution states ‘that it is the true right of all subjects to petition the King and all commitments and prosecution of such petitioning are illegal’. A Petition to our Sovereign is our lawful remedy, for the Sovereign has the Constitutional duty and responsibility to defend our laws and freedoms.
  
  
• It is not sedition for the people to advise their Sovereign that she has been misled by her Ministers or mistaken in giving her Royal Assent to treaties that destroy our sovereignty.
  
  
• If the British people are in favour of repealing the 1972 European Communities Act it is right that a petition to the Queen, our Sovereign, should be implemented demanding constitutional redress. 
  
  
• Since Parliament is not representing us, people have called for a referendum. As you have seen, a referendum cannot be binding since it would be in breach of our Constitution, and sheer madness to risk our country and our Constitution on the basis of one vote.
  
  
• We have an inalienable right of petition that connects us directly to our Sovereign as the Constitutional upholder and defender of our Constitutional rights.
  
  
• As Her Majesty succinctly said during her visit to Canada in 1964, “The role of a Constitutional Monarch is to personify the democratic state, to legitimate authority, to assure the legality of its measures and to guarantee the execution of its popular will.”

5) OUR PROPOSAL: YOUR OWN CHOICE

If you respect and believe in your sovereign country; if you treasure your birthright of Liberty under the rule of law which has assured the freedom that we have enjoyed for centuries and which previous generations have striven to secure for us and our children, then you must let your views be known. Apathy is tantamount to surrender. You must make your own choice.

THIS IS DECISION TIME.

IF YOUR OWN CHOICE IS TO LIVE FREE
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO PETITION THE QUEEN TO INITIATE BRITAIN'S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE EU AND TO REFUSE HER ROYAL ASSENT TO ANY ENCROACHMENT UPON OUR SOVEREIGNTY.

All that is fair, kind, honest and generous in the British nation is being steadily, surreptitiously and stealthily replaced with all that is undemocratic, dishonest, and corrupt in the European Union. The British democratic principle in which the people are sovereign and enjoy their freedom under the law is being destroyed.

Government as the servant of the people is being exchanged for the undemocratic totalitarian European way, where the state is sovereign and the people are the servants of the state and suffer the whim of arbitrary rule. France was ruled by Napoleon; Portugal by Salazar; Spain by Franco; Germany by Hitler; Italy by Mussolini; and further east Russia was ruled by Stalin. All of these populations became dependent upon the benevolence or not of these rulers. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; history has told its own tale.