Rodney Atkinson has been a successful linguist and linguistic theorist, was formerly a lecturer at the University of Mainz, Germany and a merchant banker in the City of London. He is the Founder of the Freenations website (visited by individuals and government institutions from over 100 countries) an occasional adviser to MPs and the proprietor of his own commercial property company. He is the author of over 100 articles and policy papers three internationally praised books on political economy: Government against the People (1986), The Emancipated Society (1988), The Failure of the State (1989) and three on the European Union, Treason at Maastricht (with Norris McWhirter CBE, fourth edition 1998) Europe's Full Circle (third edition 1998 also published in Yugoslavia and Poland) and Fascist Europe Rising (2001 also published in Yugoslavia). For the extensive all party and international praise of these books and other work see the websites www.rodneyatkinson. freeuk.com and www.freenations.freeuk.com/publications.html He was Referendum Party candidate in North West Durham in the 1997 General Election (5.2% of the vote) and the lead UK Independence Party candidate for the North East Region in the 1999 European Elections (8.83% of the vote). He has been a contributor to radio and television programmes on both sides of the Atlantic. He launched the cross party British Declaration of Independence in 1999.