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I'll bet Mike Freeman feels truly vindicated this morning. The news is that the Video Recordings Act - so suddenly and quickly introduced in the early 1980s - was never legal, because legislators failed to inform the European Commission.

While the DCMS protests that convictions still stand, I doubt whether that is the last word.

Will Videx make a comeback and Mike get compensation? Unfortunately, I doubt that, too. But stranger things have happened.

Well, yes; but the act will be re-tabled within three months.
So............ make hay while the sun briefly shines.

You mean rushed through again without debate? Without any MPs or Peers asking why and how it happened to come before them the first time a quarter of a century ago?

There is now a legal industry that ought at least to be consulted before it is just passed "on the nod". Perhaps a debate in the media might be the democratic thing to do? There's the intervening 25 years' experience of porn's legality in other EU countries to be taken into consideration.

Of course, you are probably right. There is too much apathy and a broad apolitical mood.

But then again, this raises the explosive question of why and how - 25 years ago, bear in mind - it was necessary to inform the European Commission (fore-runner of today's real sovereign power, the EU) about British law in order for it to be legal. This ought to shock most people.

I note the Latin motto - are you by any chance a lawyer?

Muffinman,

Read why I said it was illegal.
Mike Freeman.

Mike,

Everything you wrote is true - but that is not quite the illegality that has just been announced. The very narrow reason given is the failure to have informed the European Commission about it.

Your description of how the VRA came about is spot on. A moral panic was created and a conspiracy ensured the result.

But today, things are really interesting. New Labour is authoritarian and the Tories perhaps more libertarian. An election has to happen soon.

How can the most discredited parliament in living memory simply repeat the original exercise by rushing it through again without debate? More importantly, why should New Labour be sponsoring what was originally a Private Member's Bill by - as you point out - Margaret Thatcher's own PPS?

Do you think some/any of the current players in the industry have the confidence to go public about this? Who speaks for it?

Perhaps a letter to the Times is in order?

You see, that freedom you have supported so consistently has suddenly arrived - and no one was expecting it. If ever there was a time to act collectively, it is now.

Muffinman wrote:


> But then again, this raises the explosive question of why and
> how - 25 years ago, bear in mind - it was necessary to inform
> the European Commission (fore-runner of today's real sovereign
> power, the EU) about British law in order for it to be legal.
> This ought to shock most people.

Well, I suppose because it was a measure that limited trade. Such measures have the potential to be used for protectionist purposes, and therefore the Commission needed to be informed...

Muffinman,
Ironically the Williams Report was commissioned by a Labour Government.
and shelved by Thatcher.
If the Conservatives are now Libertarian now is the time to win public support and say that they are going to repeal the VRA 1984.
Mike Freeman.

The answer to any question as to why markets are restricticted is who is earning money out of it!
Mike Freeman.

Muffinman wrote:
> I note the Latin motto - are you by any chance a lawyer?

Good God, no. Just a cynic : -)
The above was the news-analysis.

Beutelwolf - you are right in suggesting that the VRA was a trade limitation measure.

According to the left-libertarians at www.spiked-online.com , "When the regulations were first brought in, there was a legal obligation to notify the European Commission, as required under the terms of EEC Technical Standards Directive 83/189/EEC . ....The Act attempted to criminalise selling video cassettes that were not certified by the appropriate authority (subsequently taken to mean the BBFC). ......this meant that audio-visual products from within the erstwhile Common Market would be stopped at Britain?s borders if they lacked the correct age-related classifications and labelling."

Thus the Act "introduced trade restrictions within Europe by banning imports of unclassified films".

So while in Britain there were "1,659 people prosecuted under this non-law between 1995 and 2007", another consequence was that the large legal distributors abroad, such as Scala, believing the VRA to be legal, were unable to address the British market.

Surely they would have a valid claim, under EU competition law, against the British government for illegal restraint of trade? Yet, perhaps not - if there never really was a VRA and it is "void", as Keith Vaz claims.

If Mike Freeman's description of Thatcher's conspiracy can be fully substantiated, then doesn't it suggest that not informing the European Commission was DELIBERATE? That it involved civil servants, too ("But Minister, why do you not want me to inform the Commission as required under EEC Technical Standards Directive 83/189/EEC?"). That it was, in fact, a giant bluff, which succeeded brilliantly.

So, for the past twenty-five years, shopkeepers and car-boot spivs have meekly paid their fines or done their time. Foreign distributors have written Britain off as a proper market and settled for doing cash business with independent smugglers. Meanwhile, a certain British entrepreneur has made a fortune advertising hardcore and delivering soft.

I suppose that last point echoes what Mike wrote - "The answer to any question as to why markets are restricticted is who is earning money out of it!"