WHILE a feeble UK Parliament has abdicated its prime democratic responsibility by showing itself only too willing to subjugate the people of this country to capricious rule by the World Health Organization (WHO), on the other side of the Atlantic opposition to this world take-over by private interests is increasing amongst Republican members of Congress.
The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations has incorporated into its budget proposal for 2024 a number of cuts to ‘wasteful spending’, which include ceasing to fund the WHO, the UN’s regular budget plus 18 of its bodies, terminating US government involvement in the World Economic Forum (WEF), and a ban on government ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ programmes.
The Bill also includes a prohibition on funding for any gain-of-function research. There are reportedly around 1,000 biolabs in the world, and the US funds most of them. Three hundred are located within the US, whilst the most dangerous/illegal work is outsourced to other countries.
According to Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Republican member for South Carolina Ralph Norman is one of Congress’s most vocal and active opponents of US involvement in the WHO, and believes the Appropriations Committee proposals constitute a positive step, but that a lot more work needs to be done to see the Bill passes through the two houses of Congress without having its wings clipped, or facing a presidential veto. However, it may be an important strand in a multi-pronged strategy by a growing coalescence of Republican lawmakers to cut off US funding to the WHO and officially withdraw from its jurisdiction. Congressman Norman told the CHD newsletter, the Defender, ‘We’ve got to disassociate ourselves from the WHO . . . This country is in danger of losing its sovereignty. We cannot let this happen by staying in the WHO.’
Biological weapons expert Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, remarked that the Committee on Appropriations is the one that counts in the House in terms of overall funding, therefore this is a good first step, but the US needs to formally rescind its participation in the WHO Constitution/treaty, otherwise it remains a contracting party and bound by it. He added that Congress has the constitutional authority to do this.
The good news is that there is a flurry of congressional activity in this regard and several Bills have been proposed: WHO Withdrawal Act, No Taxpayer Funding for the World Health Organization Act and No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act.
The WHO Withdrawal Act, proposed by Andy Biggs, Republican congressman for Arizona, so far has the most support, with 49 co-sponsors.
Added to this, Chris Smith, Republican congressman for New Jersey, who is chair of the House Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, has announced congressional hearings on continued US membership of the WHO and involvement in the pandemic treaty and IHR amendments under negotiation. He, Ralph Norman, Andy Biggs and other members of Congress spoke recently in support of defunding and exiting the WHO at a Sovereignty Coalition press conference.
Professor Boyle suggests that if the WHO Withdrawal Actwere attached as a rider to the budget resolution or other resolutions that Biden cannot veto, ‘that should be sufficient to protect ourselves from the WHO totalitarian police state, along with the cut-off of funds’.
Independent journalist James Roguski adds that the WHO Withdrawal Act would repeal the 1948 joint resolution through which the US joined the WHO, which, he opines, ‘should have been declared unconstitutional 75 years ago’.
David Bell of Brownstone Institute called the WHO ‘a servant of private and corporate interests’ which has adopted ‘a programme of centralised, authoritarian management that has everything to do with the profit of its sponsors and very little to do with public health. No democracy should hand over power over its people to private and hostile interests, or support organisations that are bent on impoverishing people for the benefit of a few’.
In our 650-member House of Commons, 50 per cent larger than the 435-member US House of Representatives, half a dozen Conservative MPs attempted to alert their colleagues to the dangers inherent in the WHO treaty and IHR amendments during a debate in April on a petition for a referendum.
Sir Christopher Chope, Andrew Bridgen and Danny Kruger laid out copious reasons why the UK’s alignment with the WHO’s ambitions was unnecessary and highly damaging, from the power to order border closures, school closures, requirements for proof of vaccination, to enforced medication; all on a whim of the WHO declaring a ‘potential’ emergency.
John Redwood asked the obvious question why on earth it made sense to cede powers to an international quango, effectively disenfranchising Parliament. Sally-Ann Hart raised the same spectre that a legally binding WHO pandemic treaty would overrule the UK’s ability to legislate for its own policies. Esther McVey referenced ‘the transfer of power away from democratically elected nations and the rights of the individual into the hands of the WHO, an unelected and largely privately-funded bureaucracy’.
The burning question is why are not more of the remaining 99 per cent of MPs supporting these voices?
