MAGNA CARTA: A BRITISH PROPAGANDA TRIUMPH by Michael John Cummings

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Most Americans recall the Magna Carta or “Great Charter” from their grammar school days. With his signature, we were told, King John, a tyrant of blessed memory, was prohibited from the arrest of free men without cause, taking property without due process and denying justice to those arrested. The US tour of the document will end in Boston in 2016. Down through the ages Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers have ignored the Magna Carta principles whenever it suited them and never more so than in Ireland. The document and its intent may be steeped in myth but its propaganda value is immense.

The British Library promoted its display of the Charter under the humble title “How British Documents Shaped Today’s World ” with handouts asserting that the Charter “…is widely considered a cornerstone of constitutional government in England and the U. S.” Professor Justin Fisher, Director of the Magna Carta Institute of Brunel University in London claims the Magna Carta is still relevant today ” … shows that nobody is above the law …and establishes the rule of law as paramount.” The American Bar Association is hosting exhibits of the Magna Carta in America under banners claiming “Magna Carta: 800 Years of Democracy” and “Magna Carta: The Enduring Legacy.” ABA President, William Hubbard, was no less laudatory claiming the Charter “made possible precepts like the U. S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the framework of justice.” U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch described the Magna Carta as “…the first draft of codes that now stand at the heart of our system of justice.” England’s lawlessness in Ireland has demonstrated how ludicrous and absurd this hype has become. Why the necessity for the propaganda accompanying this tour?   Feeding   gullible Americans this tripe about British democracy, justice and the rule of law discourages U. S. politicians from inquiring into their 30 year murder and bombing campaigns in the North of Ireland.

As a historical artifact the document is hard to beat. The original is an 800 year old sheepskin with Latin text and the seal of King John and signatures of Stephen Langton, the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, and those of English warlords the British euphemistically like to call Barons. Even this novelty is unimpressive if you consider that the Irish governed themselves by the Brehon Laws formalized in writing in 700 A. D. some 500 years before the Runnymede rendezvous in 1215. They were remarkably progressive and included gender equality, divorce, criminal punishments which favored restitution and did not provide for capital punishment. Up until Britain’s Penal Laws of the 17^th century, Brehon Laws were observed for much of Ireland beyond the Province of Leinster or the Pale. The British rulers at the time determined that the Brehon Laws were not “compatible with crown sovereignty.” As author Dan Jones put it in his book Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty, the claims of the Magna Carta’s contributions are “…either myths or half truths.”

Such is the regard the British have for the Charter’s principles, that Prime Ministers have always used arrest without charge, trial without jury, internment, imprisonment without due process and murder or extra-legal execution in Ireland.

Other ‘Magna Carta Moments’ include:

• Early in the 1970s England’s hirelings set off bombs to get the Irish Government to pass a law that pretty much shredded the Magna Carta. In 1974 they  delivered bombs to loyalists for an act of slaughter unequalled in the history of Ireland: the no-warning bombing of Dublin and Monaghan shopping centers which killed 34 and injured and maimed 300.
• The admission that British soldiers had no reason to kill 14 people on Bloody Sunday but no prosecution of the soldiers.  Similarly, British security services conspired to murder lawyers (aka officers of the court) Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson

But no one was to be held accountable to the rule of law.

• Authors Paul Larkin (A Very British Jihad), Anne Cadwallader (Lethal Allies) and Sir John Stevens (Stevens Inquiry) have all extensively documented the lawlessness and collusion in murder of innocents by British security services but there is obstruction of justice by the government and no effort to uphold the rule of law. The precise language of the Charter is “nor shall he [the King] proceed with force or send others to do so except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the rule of law.”

Prime Minister Cameron is doing his part by spelling out UK objections to the European Human, Civil & Political Rights provisions and is amending the accountability provisions of the British Ministerial Code for government Ministers. His first draft ELIMINATES references to abiding by international law, Treaty obligations and the administration of justice. Indeed the Committee on Administration of Justice in Ireland depicts  Britain as creating an elaborate “apparatus of impunity” to shield its cruel malevolence from the rule of law.

Americans hardly noticed Britain’s corrupt use of the US-UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty and disregard for the Belfast Agreement by requiring archive records of Boston College in an attempt to interfere in Ireland’s election. The purpose of the Treaty was to expedite the certain prosecution of international human trafficking, narcotics smuggling and terrorist activities. Britain had a more useful purpose and didn’t care if the request was lawful.

So convincing was the hype over the Magna Carta mystique that its display in China was moved from a University setting to the more limited access of the diplomatic mission so as not to give too many people ideas about democracy and the rule of law. The Xi government needn’t have worried. The Chinese people are somewhat familiar with Britain’s disregard for law, treaties and human rights. In a speech last year commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall Chancellor Angela Merkel stated: “It is important citizens can believe the power of the law and not the law of the powerful. Laws must function as guardian of principles.”

Let others believe all the hyperbole about Magna Carta. Americans should know better!