Late last year HART was invited to be a co-signatory on an open letter to the relevant Parliamentary scrutiny committees on the much vexed question of increasing WHO powers. The proposals are via a combination of changes to international health regulations, which require only a 51% majority of member states, and a wholescale change to the Treaty, which would require a two thirds majority.
Dr. David Bell, a British public health physician currently working in the U.S., wrote a detailed analysis of the changes here, and it would have been helpful if some of the MPs attending last week’s parliamentary debate had read this or even the WHO document itself before speaking.
The parliamentary debate arose from a petition which had garnered well over the 100,000 signatures required to trigger such an event.
As a representative of HART, I joined Shiraz Akram, lead author from the Thinking Coalition, and Jon Dobinson, another signatory on behalf of Time for Recovery to attend in person. Arriving early, I immediately saw the tireless Piers Corbyn with loudspeaker in hand and a team of leafleteers trying somewhat unsuccessfully to engage the passersby. Unfortunately, constitutional change, completely ignored by mainstream media, doesn’t really grab the attention.
Moving inside through the usual security, we soon encountered the ubiquitous British queue. The first problem for open democracy is that of course the debate was held in one of the committee rooms. The members of the public attending were greater than the number of MPs, with no possibility of moving some of the empty members’ seats into the public area at the back, so some were left waiting outside. Those of us lucky enough to get a seat were all under strict instructions not to heckle nor indeed to clap! This proved too hard for some of the more enthusiastic.
It is well worth watching the whole debate though you may wish to play it on a fast setting (slow it back to normal for Esther McVey who crammed many excellent words into her allotted time).
Alternatively, skim reading on Hansard is a good option or if really short time to Molly Kingsley’s Twitter thread!
The opening speech was by Nick Fletcher MP, from the Petitions Committee. Committee members are under no requirement to promote the views of the petitioners but he was quite measured and I suspect reading the petition had got him thinking about issues of sovereignty he would otherwise have completely overlooked.
Watch the early interjection by John Spellar – the venom of the word ‘antivax’ and the way it is simply used as an alternative to debate are notable. He opened his subsequent speech with, “Part of this argument has been about vaccination. We go back to Dr. Wakefield and that appalling piece of chicanery that was the supposed impact of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which has now been completely exposed and discredited. He is now Mr. Wakefield and no longer a recognised doctor.” The implication was somehow that anyone questioning the wisdom of the WHO should be stripped of the title ‘doctor’ or else what was the relevance of his remarks? He described the “appalling subculture of those who live by conspiracy theories. The anti-vaccine campaign is one of those”.
Then followed an excellent speech by Danny Kruger giving examples of the proposed extension of the regulations.
The WHO’s powers will potentially extend to ordering countries to close borders; to travel restrictions; to the tracing of contacts; to refusal of entry; to forced quarantining; to medical examinations, including requirements for proof of vaccination; and even to the forced medication of individuals. It is not just when a pandemic has already been declared that those powers might be invoked: the WHO claims these powers when there is simply the potential for such an emergency.
As John Redwood aptly put it,:
To colleagues who like this treaty, is the easy answer not that we will, of course, remain members of the WHO, read its advice and accept that advice where we wish? Why should we have to accept advice when the WHO may get it wrong, and we can do nothing about it because it decides, not us?
Danny Kruger pointed out:
Global threats that defy borders require global co-operation, and it is certainly true to say that this country was not sufficiently prepared for the pandemic when it broke out, but I do not believe that the lack of readiness was due to a lack of international co-operation. Indeed, the degree of international co-operation was astonishing. The lack of readiness was in the ordinary business of contingency planning by the British state — the security of supply of equipment, capacity in the health service and our ability to support the vulnerable and the isolating. That is where we were not ready.
In fact, we could say that in a crucial respect the U.K. was prepared. We thought that we knew what we would do in the event of a pandemic. We would introduce targeted isolation and targeted protection of the most vulnerable — the application of personal responsibility, not mass lockdowns, which were not part of the plan — but we threw that plan aside immediately, and we went for exactly what everybody else around the world was doing. Or almost everyone — never forget plucky Sweden.
Justin Madders, Labour, was very worried about conspiracy theories, e.g. “referring to the WHO as ‘globalists’ that ‘drain our resources, serve our enemies, and continue working to establish a global dictatorship over everyone and everything.’ That sentiment is clearly ludicrous, as is the reference to the WHO being owned by Bill Gates or the Chinese Government.”
Worryingly, whatever the motivation, ‘globalists’ is surely correct as is the major financial input from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and the Chinese Government. He went on to mention “descending into the dark world of conspiracy theories that suggest that vaccines do more harm than good”. He might want to reflect on Table S4 of Pfizer’s own six month Safety and Efficacy report!
Read the next speech by Sir Christopher Chope, who has done a detailed dig into the current Director General of WHO, at whose discretion WHO can declare an emergency or even a potential emergency. Tedros Ghebreyesus’ past as a senior figure in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front does not make for reassuring reading.
Although not strictly relevant to the topic of the WHO treaty, Preet Kaur Gill, MP for Birmingham, Edgbaston made one very important request to the minister which has been largely overlooked, namely that:
Advances in gene editing mean that virologists can more easily modify viruses to be deadlier and spread more quickly, increasing the security risk posed by bioweapons and bioterrorism. Will the Minister comment on our concern that the biological weapons convention currently remains very weak, with little funding and only four staff, compared with the 500 staff for the chemical weapons convention?
Most worryingly, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, does not appear to have a full grasp of the proposed changes in the regulations. When asked by Esther McVey, “Can the Minister reassure my constituents who are concerned that the Government will concede sovereignty and hand power to WHO? Can she give reassurances that that will not happen?”. She replied: “Yes, absolutely I can. The speculation that somehow the instrument will undermine U.K. sovereignty and give WHO powers over national public health measures is simply not the case.”
How does Ms Trevelyan explain the removal of the word “non-binding” and the replacement of “should” with “must”? Just check out the proposed changes. The potential reach of the WHO is summed up in this graphic.
If the changes go ahead as proposed, then all signatories will be tied under international law into a straightjacket of groupthink. As Danny Kruger rightly said: “Never forget plucky Sweden!”
Dr. Ros Jones is a retired Consultant Paediatrician with a special interest in neonatal intensive care and paediatric HIV. She is a member of the Health Advisory and Recovery Team (HART), on whose website this article first appeared.
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Whatever the IPCC may decide, big non Western countries (soon to be joined by the US) have no interest in prioritising emission reduction. As these countries (including the US) are the source of about 80% of global GHG emissions, emissions will continue to increase. And there’s nothing the rest of us can do about it.
No, no! Russia, China and India are fully signed up to Net Zero. Honest!
I’m sure xi Jinping signed any agreements asked of him.. and then walked away giggling
(As we ought to!)
The UN classifies India and China as ‘Developing Countries’ and therefore not part of the restrictions being demanded. The fact that the two biggest ‘poluters’ are effectively allowed to emit whatever they want, puts to bed that this is ‘scientific’ in any way. Climate Emergency, my arse…
Why wouldn’t they be “fully signed up to it” when they are absolutely aware that this entire hoax, from it’s inception, had been designed to destroy “the West”?
Statements are easy to find from Maurice Strong, Christiana Figueres, Otmar Edenhoffer and others, that IPPC’s aims have little to do with the Environment but rather to destroy Capitalism.
India and China are both “developing” countries who, despite space programmes and nuclear weapons, unashamedly hold out the old begging bowls!
All these people want is money, money and more money. At least the reasonable ones, ie not the Eat more plant-based fast food to save the planet!-faction.
But there’s so many silly brain washed naive virtue signalling idiots out there as well.
People can join, support and become active with ReformUK if they wish to do something to stop the Net Zero madness.
I think we can make a reasonable guess into which way this is going to go!
IPCC will become the global leaders in attribution, too much is at stake for the Alarmist narrative for it to be anything else!
Britain, as it follows the commands of Mad Ed Miliband will just become world leaders in economic suicide and societal collapse. And yes, we will win that race to the bottom, about the only race we can win!
But will the living standards of Miliband suffer?
This depends on how early he manages to get out of the country. Once the masses of global majority immigrants with scant – if any – command of English in London get cold and hungry, ie, start dying of starvation and hypothermia, they’ll find someone they will hold responsible for that. Hunger revolts ended Xi’s great Corona musical. They’ll also become the Ed stone marking Miliband’s final resting place.
This lot are running into a brick wall called reality, where governments such as ours are coming after ever greater tax takes and one of the causes, is their obsession with Nut Zero…..people then start asking questions and looking into the reasons and when they see the people/organisations behind this thinking are babbling bollox, rather than serious science…..but enjoying a very comfy lifestyle……they get very unhappy, very quickly……
Plus the IPCC may well be thinking we better start backing off, because President Trump is coming to town, to run a government that is also flat broke …but has a new governmental dept, whose job is to savagely cut expenditure, everywhere…….and who is the UN’s biggest contributor…yup the US……Good luck babbling scientific bollox to Musk….while flying all over the world, to wherever the next COP is, on a private jet, all on the US’s ticket.
No, IMO it’s much more sinister than that. They are aware the Global Warming narrative is stalling. So they now need to recognise the role of weather modification is playing so they can use it as an excuse. “Oh look at that, Gates projects to block out the sun is working and that’s why there’s been no global warming. But we still need the measures, it’s only being suppressed because of the measures we are taking and there can be no taking the foot of the accelerator.”
I fully expect we will see this very argument being made “by the other side” within the next year or so.
Anything that has to be agreed by 195 politicians will be useless, and wrong, just by the laws of human behaviour
Dear Humans Climate’s not your fault
Agreed but they will continue to constantly blame us all [especially if you are the “wrong” colour] for having the temerity to have been born and I am heartily sick of it.
If you go to the main IPCC website and look under “Reports” you will find that in the AR6 (Synthesis Report), under “Longer Report”, the main body of the report has been removed… All you get is “The file you are looking for cannot be found!!”
I’m guessing that was where this inconvenient morsel of sanity was to be sought and destroyed??
I noticed a recurring theme on Dews GB News when discussing the climate’; these days they seem to have two people in agreement on the climate, only disagreeing on how fast to drive off the cliff. But they both believe in MMCC. This is no different to the BBC. I sent them a bit of my mind calling them a disgrace etc.
They are captured. They are afraid.
So rain dances do work.
Here’s a challenge someone should pose to Professor Betts: Proove that you’re aware of all factors influencing the weather by accurately predicting the weather on next Saturday in a town of your chosing for the next 52 weeks.
Professor Betts doesn’t give a shit. If challenged, he quotes from the 100% political “Summary for Policy Makers”, even when this in flatly contradicted by the IPCC’s scientific findings.
The IPCC is a global warming activist group and nothing to do with science. They only look for human causes for global warming and ignore any inconvenient papers. They screech that everything must be peer reviewed while rushing to include convenient propaganda papers ahead of review. They include NGO propaganda as Donna LaFramboise showed in her book. And where else does a summary get published months before the report it summarises and when available shows all sorts of lies in the summary.
Remember that CO2 does not equal climate. It equals wealth. —–The countries who emit the most are the wealthiest for obvious reasons. China and India and other developing countries grow wealthier by using fossil fuels and therefore emitting more CO2.—-So remember the words of Edenhoffer of the IPCC who said “One has to free oneself from the illusion that climate policies are environmental policies anymore. We redistribute the worlds wealth by climate policy”.—-This is why Marxists like Miliband are so focussed on giving our money for the purposes of “Climate Justice”. They are globalists that believe in World Government where the wealth is spread out. —-Climate Change gives these people the ideal opportunity to indulge in this communism.
President Trump’s landslide win makes these zealots redundant. Nobody cares.
Weather is chaotic, climate is mathematically chaotic. Without any input from human’s, weather patterns and hence climate will change ie evolve without any attributable source other than where we are now is not where we’ve been before. Forcings can be identified but effects only attributable in the present as counter effects will then occur in the chaotic evolution eg sun gets hotter, more water evaporates and more clouds cause reduced warming might be a scenario.
If human input is then considered it will certainly change the evolution of the weather/climate system but how could one attribute a particular event or set of events or patterns to man made vs natural?
That assumes there is no catastropic event which breaks the system eg ateroid collision. Are the IPCC suggesting that man man made CO2 will cause a catastrophic break to the system? What?
How could a chaotic, evolved system be defined as a baseline against which human perturbations could be measured? The climate go forward baseline can’t be defined because it is chaotic. No matter how powerful a computer is used, the initial conditions can’t be defined precisely and calculated rounding errors will mean the calculated evolution will stray significantly from reality. That’s implicit in the definition of mathematical chaos.
Also change happens slowly and any evolving patterns can be mitigated as they start to embed. eg Sea level rise, build defences and new builds on higher ground. Don’t build on flood plains. Take advantage of changes both good and bad and don’t worry about their origin.
Build effective sustainable energy sources as technology evolves and natural resources eg hydrocarbons dwindle.
DON’T PANIC! And stop using climate to scare folk.
Only the Trump administration can stop this madness by throwing the Paris accord into the Seine. This climate cult scum needs to stop.