John Kerr
Lord Kerr (diplomat, businessman) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | 1942-02-22 Grantown-on-Spey, Scotland, United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | British | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Member of | Bilderberg/Steering committee, European Leadership Network, Justice for Kurds, Königswinter/Speakers, Trilateral Commission | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Not to be confused with the John Kerr whom the CIA termed "our man Kerr" in the Australia/1975 coup d'état.
John Olav Kerr, Baron Kerr of Kinlochard is a Scottish politician and former diplomat, now Deputy Chairman of Scottish Power and a crossbench member of the House of Lords. He was a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe that first drafted what became Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force in December 2009.[1]
Contents
Diplomat
John Kerr was British Representative to the European Union from 1990 to 1995, then British Ambassador to the United States until 1997.
He joined the Foreign Office in 1966 and was posted as Third later Second Secretary to Moscow in 1967; Second Secretary (Econ) Rawalpindi/Islamabad 1969; First Secretary 1971; FCO 1972; Private Secretary to the PUS 1974; Counsellor and Head of DM Division HM Treasury 1979; PPS to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 1981; Counsellor and Head of Chancery Washington 1984.[2]
Brexit is reversible
In November 2017 on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Lord Kerr said the EU treaty allows the UK to change its mind up to moment of leaving:
- “At any stage we can change our minds if we want to, and if we did we know that our partners would actually be very pleased indeed. The Brexiters create the impression that is because of the way Article 50 is written that having sent in a letter on 29 March 2017 we must leave automatically on 29 March 2019 at the latest. That is not true. It is misleading to suggest that a decision that we are taking autonomously in this country about the timing of our departure, we are required to take by a provision of EU treaty law.”
Kerr was asked to clarify whether the UK could still halt Brexit even if a date was set on the face of the EU Withdrawal Bill:
- “That’s what I’m saying, one should bear in mind that it is always possible at a later stage to decide that we want to do something different. It is entirely up to the Prime Minister to set a date for our departure. My point is quite a different one. These decisions are taken entirely in this country, they have nothing to do with the treaty. As far as the treaty is concerned there are lots of options. There is a provision to seek some extra time for negotiation and, much more important, there’s the ability at any stage to take back the letter that the Prime Minister sent to President Tusk on 29 March 2017."
Kerr was asked about David Davis’s view that the EU Referendum result was an “irrevocable moment”. He replied:
- “The David Davis quote I would offer you comes from 2012 when he said:
- ‘A democracy that has lost the right to change its mind has ceased to be a democracy.’
- “I’m not a politician. I’m just the guy who wrote the treaty telling you what the treaty means.”
Kerr claimed that circumstances had changed since the referendum:
- “It is open to us to argue that the terms as they emerge are not quite the ones that we were led to expect: that the costs of coming out are rather different from what it said on the side of the battlebus; that the complexity of coming out was not entirely explained and the effects of coming out on, for example, the NHS or jobs, these things are not what the electorate knew about at the time. If new facts emerge one is entitled to change one’s view, as Keynes said. I’m not today arguing for a second referendum, I’m saying if we wanted to have a second referendum there is nothing in the treaty, or in the attitude of EU partners, that would prevent us taking the time to have one.”[3]
Connections
John Kerr is a member of the Bilderberg Steering Committee.
Related Quotation
Page | Quote | Author | Date |
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Australia/1975 coup d'état | “There were a number of points of tension between Whitlam's government and the United States intelligence apparatus. Whitlam had close ties with the United States, in 1964 receiving a "Leader" travel grant from the U.S. Department of State to spend three months studying under U.S. government and military officials.
After coming to power, Whitlam quickly removed the last Australian troops from Vietnam. Whitlam government ministers criticised the US bombing of North Vietnam at the end of 1972. The US complained diplomatically about the criticism. In March 1973, US secretary of State William Rogers told Richard Nixon that "the leftists [within the Labor Party would] try to throw overboard all military alliances and eject our highly classified US defence space installations from Australia". In 1973, Whitlam ordered the Australian security organisation ASIS to close its operation in Chile, where it was working as a proxy for the CIA in opposition to Chile's president Salvador Allende. Whitlam's Attorney-General Lionel Murphy used the Australian Federal Police to conduct a raid on the headquarters of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in March 1973. CIA Chief of Counter-Intelligence, James Angleton, later said Murphy had "barged in and tried to destroy the delicate mechanism of internal security". Australian journalist Brian Toohey said that Angleton considered then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam a "serious threat" to the US and was concerned after the 1973 raid on ASIO headquarters. In 1974, Angleton sought to instigate the removal of Whitlam from office by having CIA station chief in Canberra, John Walker, ask the director general of ASIO, Peter Barbour, to make a false declaration that Whitlam had lied about the raid in Parliament. Barbour refused to make the statement. In 1974, Whitlam ordered the head of ASIO, Peter Barbour, to sever all ties with the CIA. Barbour ignored Whitlam's order and contact between Australian and US security agencies was driven underground. Whitlam later established a royal commission into intelligence and security. Jim Cairns became Deputy Prime Minister after the 1974 election. He was viewed by US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and defence secretary James Schlesinger as "a radical with strong anti-American and pro-Chinese sympathies". The US administration was concerned that he would have access to classified United States intelligence. Whitlam instantly dismissed ASIS chief WT Robinson in 1975 after discovering ASIS had assisted the Timorese Democratic Union in an attempted coup against the Portuguese administration in Timor, without informing Whitlam's government. Whitlam threatened to reveal the identities of CIA agents working in Australia. He also threatened not to renew the lease of the US spy base at Pine Gap, which was due to expire on 10 December 1975. The US was also concerned about Whitlam's intentions towards its spy base at Nurrungar.” | Wikipedia | 2022 |
Events Participated in
Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
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Bilderberg/2004 | 3 June 2004 | 6 June 2004 | Italy Stresa | The 52nd such meeting. 126 recorded guests |
Bilderberg/2005 | 5 May 2005 | 8 May 2005 | Germany Rottach-Egern | The 53rd Bilderberg, 132 guests |
Bilderberg/2006 | 8 June 2006 | 11 June 2006 | Canada Ottawa | 54th Bilderberg, held in Canada. 133 guests |
Bilderberg/2007 | 31 May 2007 | 3 June 2007 | Turkey Istanbul | The 55th Bilderberg meeting, held in Turkey |
Bilderberg/2008 | 5 June 2008 | 8 June 2008 | US Virginia Chantilly | The 56th Bilderberg, Chantilly, Virginia, 139 guests |
Bilderberg/2009 | 14 May 2009 | 17 May 2009 | Greece Vouliagmeni | The 57th Bilderberg |
Bilderberg/2010 | 3 June 2010 | 6 June 2010 | Spain Hotel Dolce Sitges Barcelona | The 122 guests met in the Hotel Dolce Sitges, Barcelona, Spain. |
Bilderberg/2011 | 9 June 2011 | 12 June 2011 | Switzerland Hotel Suvretta St. Moritz | 59th meeting, in Switzerland, 129 guests |
Bilderberg/2012 | 31 May 2012 | 3 June 2012 | US Virginia Chantilly | The 58th Bilderberg, in Chantilly, Virginia. Unusually just 4 years after an earlier Bilderberg meeting there. |
Bilderberg/2013 | 6 June 2013 | 9 June 2013 | Watford UK | The 2013 Bilderberg group meeting. |
Bilderberg/2014 | 29 May 2014 | 1 June 2014 | Denmark Copenhagen Marriott Hotel | The 62nd Bilderberg, with 136 guests, held in Copenhagen |
Bilderberg/2015 | 11 June 2015 | 14 June 2015 | Austria Telfs-Buchen | The 63rd meeting, 128 Bilderbergers met in Austria |
Bilderberg/2016 | 9 June 2016 | 12 June 2016 | Germany Dresden | The 2016 Bilderberg meeting took place in Dresden, Germany. |
Munich Security Conference/2010 | 5 February 2010 | 7 February 2010 | Germany Munich Bavaria | An anti-war demonstration outside described it as "Nothing more than a media-effectively staged war propaganda event, which this year had the purpose of justifying the NATO troop increase in Afghanistan and glorifying the continuation of the war as a contribution to peace and stability." |
Munich Security Conference/2011 | 4 February 2011 | 6 February 2011 | Germany Munich Bavaria | The 47th Munich Security Conference |
Munich Security Conference/2013 | 1 February 2013 | 3 February 2013 | Germany Munich Bavaria | The 49th Munich Security Conference |
Munich Security Conference/2014 | 31 January 2014 | 2 February 2014 | Germany Munich Bavaria | The 50th Munich Security Conference |
Munich Security Conference/2015 | 6 February 2015 | 8 February 2015 | Germany Munich Bavaria | "400 high-ranking decision-makers in international politics, including some 20 heads of state and government as well as more than 60 foreign and defence ministers, met in Munich to discuss current crises and conflicts." |
Munich Security Conference/2016 | 12 February 2016 | 14 February 2016 | Germany Munich Bavaria | The 52nd Munich Security Conference |
Munich Security Conference/2018 | 12 February 2018 | 14 February 2018 | Germany Munich Bavaria | The 54th Munich Security Conference |
References
- ↑ "The Treaty of Lisbon fact sheet" (PDF).Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ The Diplomatic Service List (1989), page 226
- ↑ "Brexit is reversible even after date is set, says author of Article 50"