US exports tea party movement to UK and elsewhere

It might come as a surprise to some Americans, but the tea party movement is not just an American phenomenon. Tea party activists are hearing from people all over the world especially Europe, keen to learn how to get involved. Even the notoriously apathetic Italians have begun their own movement.

But for Americans most amusing and fascinating is that the British, the country against whom we threw the original tea party,  have gotten in on the act. The Freedom Association, an organisation, that has been pushing for liberty for decades is helping the effort. www.tfa.net/tea/ “The Tea Party Movement in the UK” has 1383 fans already on Facebook and they have barely started.

An event has been planned for London next month with a list of liberty minded speakers. And over the year more are planned.

“Tea Parties are being planned for Boston (naturally) in July, Torquay (September) and Birmingham (October). Details will be announced in due course.”

One of the speakers at the small initial event last October was Dan Hannan MEP. The standing room only event was so successful that people were turned away. bit.ly/9wnww3

Dan Hannan, who co-authored the high successfully liberty manifesto The Plan with Douglas Carswell MP,  has just recently launched bit.ly/9CxKwR the Direct Democracy project. bit.ly/cQa3aE

The group calls for things like “open primaries” for selecting candidates for Parliament. Direct election of local sheriffs and a “Grand Repeal Bill” to get rid of laws unnecessary and burdensome.

“By allowing more say in the governance of their own country and their own community, citizens would be empowered to make the decisions important to their own lives.  And by creating more accountability, the sitting parliament and the government would be required to act responsibly and in the best interests of their citizens.

While much of their “mission” is specific to the UK, most of the 15 proposals would be welcome to the ears of your average American tea partier. The are overall goals of localism and the repatriation of power from the EU to London. They call for power to be returned to the people and decisions to be made at the lowest level possible.

It would not surprise anyone that Hannan and Carswell frequently refer to and quote great American thinkers on liberty from Revolutionary times to present day. They seek to re-introduce those ideas that made America great to the “mother country”.

The tea party movement in the US has reminded many freedom lovers all over the world of their duty to following generations to reduce the tide of statism and bureaucracy that seeks to subsume every country.