Hustles in Brussels

iDay

2012-02-09T12:44:00.001Z

My esteemed colleague Trevor Colman has released this video today laying out the reasons against EU membership and discussing what would happen if the UK left. It has already created a buzz in the House of Commons and in Brussels.
It's a great watch and I believe contains essential arguments that really should be publicised.

Maastricht 20 years down the line

2012-02-08T11:37:00.003Z

Yesterday was the 20^th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty. On 7^th February 1992 the European Economic Community laid the foundations for becoming the bureaucratic beast it is today. Common Foreign and Security Policy was adopted, as well as the creation of Justice and Home Affairs. The EEC now extended into military and judicial cooperation. But perhaps most ironically, Maastricht also led to the creation of the currency of Europe.

A mere two decades later, the Eurozone is on the brink of collapse. How timely that next month the clock ticks down on Greece to address its public finances. Twenty years to the exact day the treaty creating the Euro was signed, Greek leaders have been told they must enforce austerity measures or risk losing a new bail out which could prevent the country from defaulting on March 20^th when the current loan matures.

Greece must now demonstrate they will satisfy terms laid down by the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known collectively as the troika, ironically a Russian word once used to describe the supreme officials of Communist states. Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult for Greece to enforce spending cuts, leading to job losses and slashed budgets, with full democratic acquiescence from both Parliament in Athens and the Greek public.

In effect, EU chiefs are edging Greece towards the exit door. They are willing to risk a default and then eject Greece from the euro if Athens refuses to comply with demands insisting that the eurozone is now strong enough to fight against the risk of contagion. Both Merkel and Sarkozy are talking to the press about "time running out" and the French President has even argued that the South Mediterranean member state would get "no community money" without reform.

It seems to me that Greece is being made a scapegoat and enabling the two big economies to flex their muscles. Of course, the Greek crisis was spawn of irrationally high unsustainable public spending under a new currency where vast sums could be borrowed at such low interest. But who set those rates, and who benefited from them? Germany of course. Then when the house of cards came crashing down after the credit crunch struck in 2008, all fingers pointed towards Greece and their woeful borrowing track record. Nobody seemed to comment on the fact that a single currency spread across such diverse economies without fiscal integration and with one common interest rate could not in essence actually work.

NowGovernments across the EU are struggling to assimilate into domestic law savage measures dictated by Brussels; measures that, in effect, will soon be underscored by the new fiscal compact signed last month by 25 member states which essentially criminalises budgetary indiscipline as determined by the European Court of Justice. Finally the Euro members are building fiscal integration, but are essentially closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. As a result, Greece, who indeed was reckless with spending in the boom years, will effectively be left in tatters and expected to pick up the mess.

It is now widely held that Europe cannot cut and grow. Thus far austerity measures have led to deepening recession. Focus on growth is needed to pull southern European states back into competition, yet ironically the stranglehold on trade and working flexibility imposed by EU competition rules and social policy written twenty years ago prevent growth-enhancing investment taking hold.

Twenty years ago the UK negotiated opt outs which could be argued as having prevented us from becoming like Greece ourselves. As a nation we run quite a high structural deficit, that is, we spend far more on public services than we can logically afford. However the pound is strong, enabling us to borrow at rates that we can pay back. As a result, the Labour Government ran up incredible debt, leaving the mess to be sorted out today, but because we were not a euro member the tidy up is not one hundred per cent dictated by Brussels and we did not collapse when Ireland went down. Equally opt outs in social policy mean that we can in some areas be more flexible if we decide to "work our way" out of recession. Despite strikes over pensions and wage freezes, we are not witnessing the sort of uprising that has taken place in Athens. Then again, our austerity measures are not being drawn up by essentially an entente of foreign governments and supra national powers. We are also not part of this new compact, which although by law cannot be an EU treaty following the UK veto at Christmas, in all but title, is. Essentially when we said before Christmas "no" to EU law criminalising cerrtain percentage budget deficit, due to a lack of unanimity, the law could not be passed. Instead what has happened is 25 out of the 27 member states, that is, everyone bar us and the Czech Republic, have clubbed together to forge a treaty that will be governed by the European Court of Justice and whose negotiations and administration will take place within EU buildings. In essence, they went ahead and made the treaty anyway, calling into question the legality of its operation. But what are we to do? The highest court of appeal on such issues IS the ECJ. Are we to approach the Court of Justice and ask them to examine how lawful they are? What about when decisions made between the 25 members of the entente have an impact on Britain, via the single market, or through financial services reform? We are in a highly precarious situation that will at some point in the future rear its ugly head again.

This week Greece has been forced to accept an additional 15,000 public sector job cuts, which still fail to satisfy the demands of the troika. It has been reported that the Greek Finance Ministry is now examining the economic consequences of leaving the Euro, following on from the not so discreet rhetoric being issues from France and Germany.

Unsurprising then that this milestone anniversary for the EU has been kept so quiet

The Non-Treaty-Treaty Veto U-turn Thingey

2012-02-03T13:35:00.004Z

This week has seen plenty of dicsussion about David Cameron’s treaty “U-Turn”. In fact I was a little startled to not see the matter picked over on Question Time last night but one assumes the BBC hadn't picked the right members of the panel for that.

The Prime Minister has revoked his original standpoint of blocking a new compact observing tighter fiscal regulation and budgetary control governed by the European Court of Justice. That is now going ahead, but without the involvement of the UK or Czech Republic. What does this mean? Well before Christmas the UK vetoed a new treaty which would effectively see economic governance enforced to all 27 members of the EU by Brussels. Apparently we do not have a new treaty, due to the veto, and so instead 25 out of the 27 member states have drawn up an "intergovernmental pact" which is supposedly separate from EU jurisdiction (as we blocked it - you see, any new treaty has to be ratified by all member states) yet the European Court of Justice will preside over it and the meeting will take place within the governmental buildings of Brussels. In essence, they have I would propose illegally sidestepped the knotty issue of the fact that an EU treaty of fiscal governance was blocked, and gone ahead and effectively made one anyway. This poses the question of how a 25 state intergovernmental pact can use the jurisdiction of an institution of the 27 member state EU without it in some way being regarded as an EU treaty. It also leaves the UK vulnerable to decisions made under this new entente which could affect the single market or financial industry in the City of London as we are not part of it. Now I'm not suggesting I'd want us to be part of it, far from it. Instead we have been told that if new regulation encroaches upon UK sovereignty, the legality of the agreement will be called into question, which would effectively mean appealing to the ECJ to pass judgement on its own lawfulness. It is a strange situation that until put into practise, remains pretty hard to fathom. What is clear is that the EU is prepared to work above the law which it writes itself and bend the rules whenever it feels like it if not all parties are appeased by the decision making.

So when will this not-a-treaty-treaty come into force? Well Nicholas Sarkozy has stated that France will not ratify the new “treaty” until after the French Presidential elections, with his main contender, Francois Hollande, suggesting he would demand a rewrite if he were to gain power. This means the 25 member state agreement will not even be put into place until after the start of May, yet the Eurozone is likely to stumble quite dramatically before this legislation can seriously send out a message of calm to the markets. The initial bail out loan to Greece is set to mature on 20^th March with the possibility of an uncontrolled default looming large. The bubble of toxic debt currently hovering over southern European Euro countries could burst when Greece fails to start paying back the loan and with potentially disastrous consequences. If this were to happen, how much would the UK be dragged into the mess?

I have addressed two letters, one to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and one to Edwina Hart, the Welsh Government Business Minister, asking whether any contingency plans or impact assessments have been prepared for euro collapse and whether any public money has been set aside to rescue businesses should the single currency come to a timely end. We have heard how the UK Foreign Office has prepared a rescue strategy for British nationals if a collapse of the single currency leads to social uprising across Europe, but what about the equally pressing possibility that shockwaves from another crunch could smash against UK shores?

I am concerned that Welsh businesses are implored to trade further afield than the EU, especially with the fantastic links we have with the Commonwealth, yet the rhetoric from the First Minister’s Office suggests a vain clinging to the ideal of the EU as some kind of saviour for Wales. After all, if the single currency goes down, anybody who relies on trade with the countries involved will be equally damaged. So have Welsh businesses been encouraged to slough the bonds with Europe and look elsewhere? I have heard little to this end. Instead all we continue to hear are members of the political elite still championing the EU as of some kind of irreplacable benefit to Wales. The usual reasons, trade and regional funding, are constantly echoing around newspaper columns, but in truth, we can see how in fact the trade links established with the EU are the reason many businesses should be starting to panic, while recent damning reports confirming what I have always said about EU Cohesion Policy are coming to light.

It is interesting how recently the myth of structural funding has been overturned. For years Cohesion Policy has been championed as the greatest benefit for Wales of EU membership. Even though parts of West Wales are net beneficiaries of the funding, overall, Wales, like the UK as a whole, pays far more in to the pot than is ever returned. In fact, I have often argued that Cohesion Policy is essentially Brussels saying to Wales ‘You pay us millions, we will give back 65% and tell you how to spend it in return for you publicising how generous the EU is’. It’s simply propaganda funded by extortion.It would of course be far better for us to manage our own regional spending, but propagandist nationalists would suggest Westminster would leave us high and dry and only Brussels can be trusted to make sure we get a fair deal. Really? It is silly to believe this just to fulfill a patriarchal agenda when it is clear that this would surely not be the case. In Scotland and here in Wales the forces for independence vainly cling to the idea that membership of the EU in their own right would be the way forward, after all, the benefits of being part of the British pound and receiving money via the Barnett Formula from Westminster would need to be replaced with another pot of cash. I think not. If one can see how easily the UK can be defied when it suits the EU, imagine the rollocking smaller states would get from Brussels. Plus the EU would control the North Sea Oil, the whole of the Welsh farming industry, would force us to sign up to Schengen, and make all businesses stick to their frankly inept and dangerous working and competition laws which would render us wholly uncompetitive and wholly dependent upon Mother Brussels for everything (which is of course, what they want). Plus with a whole contingent of new members lined up to join, our needs would be increasingly disregarded. It is also part of EU law that any new member states must sign up to the Euro, a rather chilling prospect I think you will agree. Plus I can't see member states like Spain sitting back and letting Scotland, or potentially Wales, sign up to the EU independently when it has such problems with the Basque separatists and those who want to see an independent Catalunia. If Brussels were our look-to government and not Westminster, I would imagine people would soon grow sick and tired of the amount of legislation and control being filtered down from Brussels when the dream was to have a Wales standing on her own two feet. I would also imagine if that were the case England may well decide to break away from the EU and grow in wealth and freedom until the disparity across the Severn would be unimaginable and everyone was regretting not sticking with the devil we know.

However let's not go too far with this line of thought. The more pressing concern is what is going to happen over the coming months to the economy.

The unravelling narrative of the Eurozone crisis is far from over and I would venture to suggest that across the continent the public are becoming wearied and justifiably concerned about the direction what was once a simple free trade community has recently taken. What is left unaddressed however is whether public opinion alone can democratically overturn the burgeoning powers the EU bestows upon it’s self. Given the recent move in Brussels to compose an essentially illegal “treaty” one would suggest that democracy is slipping further and further away from EU conscience. Only time will tell how long this delicate balance between an increasingly agitated public and a wilful supranational superpower can last.

Propaganda Funded By Extortion

2012-01-25T13:31:00.008Z

It can be hard trying to convince certain Welsh people about why leaving the EU would be so beneficial for Wales. So often they will call up the millions given to Wales through Cohesion Policy and suggest Brussels has really helped impoverished Welsh communities develop in the wake of huge industrial closures.

I try to explain that even so, we'd be better off if we handled our regional funding ourselves, but there must be something mesmeric about the swathe of blue plaques dotted on a handful of new buildings, positioned in some of Wales' most idyllic locations and prominently displayed on hoardings for events and occasions that makes people think "look at all the stuff Brussels is paying for". [Incidentally here are Brussels rules on blowing their trumpet]

Well finally, it's been calculated that Wales would be better off out of the EU. A recent report by Open Europe examined the costs of cohesion contribution against the value of regional funding in the UK. As a whole, the UK pays far more in than it gets back out. But this is not something that we didn't know before. For hardline Welsh nationalists, what matters is that West Wales is nonetheless a net contributor, and some cynics would suppose that if regional funding was governed by Westminster, greedy London would no doubt leave Wales high and dry. Perhaps therefore that at least for Wales, it's a good idea to stay in the EU. Even better, think some Plaidists, Wales should become a member in her own right.

Well thankfully the Open Europe report and some number crunching reveals that Wales is in fact a net contributor.

West Wales gains 40p for every £1 but balanced with the contribution made by East Wales of £2.90 for every pound, Wales overall pays £1.65 for every £1 received.

Cohesion Funding is often championed as the reason why being a member of the European Union is of benefit to Wales. I am delighted to see that this myth has finally been busted.

Cohesion Policy is essentially Brussels saying to Wales

‘You pay us millions into a central pot, we will give back 65% and tell you exactly how to spend it but you must then say how kind and generous the EU is’.

It’s simply propaganda funded by extortion.

Croatia's EU Membership - Started as it will indubitably go on

2012-01-24T09:55:00.009Z

And so it would appear Croatia will be the 28th member of the European Union, given that the bloc ratifies its application, which I think we can assume is a given.

News reports told of an outright majority but is this really the case? Well, as is often true of referenda, especially those associated with EU membership such as in the case of Ireland back in 2005 and of course in 2009 when the referendum was famously re-held in order to garner the right outcome, there is always another side to the story.

It was reported that while 33% of those voting chose NOT to join the EU, double the amount, 66% of the turn out, voted in favour of EU membership. So where's the grey area?

Well, first of all, it would appear Croatia had more voters than citizens.

According to the latest 2011 Population Census, Croatia has a total population of only 4.29 million, yet according to the Electoral Commission it has 4,504,765 voters over 18 years of age eligible to vote. Now that is a quickly ageing and expanding population!

Also, given that most Croats abstained from the referendum, resulting in record low participation of only 43%, even if all those who turned out voted in favour of EU membership, it would still represent a minority.

Conveniently however the Croatian Government changed the constitution just prior to the EU referendum revoking the rule that invalidated a referendum unless at least 50% turn out was achieved.

At the first-ever referendum held in Croatia in 1991, the turnout was 83.5%, of which 94% voted in favour of independence. So what stopped people running to the polls this time around?

Very often people are dissuaded from polling their opinion when they consider the result a foregone conclusion.

Prior to the vote on EU membership, Croats, like the Irish before them, were subjected to a massive propaganda campaign with the Government spending huge amounts of public money on a Yes campaign while the No campaign was pitifully unfunded. The European Commission also ran its own very expensive Yes campaign, enlisting state enterprises, celebrities, corporations, while State TV aired pro-EU adverts for free, Croatia Post delivered 2 million leaflets as well as the city of Zagreb placing free EU advertising on trams.

In theory the referendum campaign was restricted to a four week period however the hugely financed Yes campaign was already spending tens of thousands on pro EU advertisements on radio and television. In fact one newspaper, the Vecernji List Daily reported on the 10th August that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and EU Integration paid for more than 13,000 radio adverts and 2,300 TV adverts across 80 radio stations and 6 national and 15 local TV stations all in the months of June and July. This wave of propaganda only increased in cost and breadth over the following six months in the run up to the referendum.

The message was EU Prosperity or isolation and poverty. Some reports even suggest that days before the vote, Foreign Minisiter Vesna Pusic threatened Croatia's 1.2 million pensioners that they would lose their pensions if they voted against EU membership. At one polling station in Zagreb, accounting for several retirement homes with 1,100 pensioners, 80% voted in favour of EU membership.

Whether you accept these reports as valid depends upon your desire to believe them or not. This is what makes referenda very tricky subjects unless clear legal permaters are drawn up, regarding turn out, or legality of not voting, and governance of the funding of campaigns.

From my point of view and considering the two cases in Ireland where public opinion was neatly sidestepped when it appeared it would not validate the EU's wishes, I would tend to imagine that dark forces were at work. Especially considering the first time Croatia was questioned on EU membership, a resounding 94% voted against joining the EU. Given the EU's recent track record and the single currency crisis, plus new legislation that demands any new member sign up to the Euro, it is hard to see how the population has suddenly changed its mind, without some very not-so-gentle persuasion. It may not have been a very large turn-out, but it certainly was a mammoth turn-around.

Dear George

2012-01-17T13:09:00.005Z

Now the EFSF has been downgraded as a result of the recent ratings slash of France and Austria and 7 other EU member states it would appear to me that the Eurozone is headlong towards obliteration.
How can Greece expect to avoid default when the initial loan matrues on 20th March? With the bail out fund essentially halved by the downgrade, just where is the money other than subsumed within an imploding black hole that threatens to consume the entire European economy if leaders continue to simply cut cut cut and use thimbles to bail out a stricken cruise vessel?
It is apparent now that the crisis cannot be resolved and as I have argued for a long time, a more sweeping, schismatic approach needs to be taken if Europe is to rectify its ills.
With it in mind that the red letter day fast approaches and the bailiffs are poised in the wings, I have addressed George Osborne imploring him to tell of what sort of reinforcements are in place to present British interests in the wake of a catastrophic downfall and break up of the single currency. I will also write a letter to Welsh Government Minister for Business Edwina Hart asking her what her department is doing to prepare welsh businesses for a possible fall out in trade. I was alarmed to read a statement from the First Minister's Office suggesting Wales seeks to broaden trade ties with the Union, when financial experts from Ernst and Young are imploring the UK to trade further afield to prevent a return to recession.

Anyway, below is the letter I will send to 11 Downing Street today.
With any luck we will get a prompt reply and have insight into whether the government really are protecting British interests.

Letter to George Osborne

Dear Chancellor

In response to the recent downgrades of both France and eight other EU member states and most recently the European Financial Stability Facility I am deeply concerned that the UK and its constituent countries have made preparations for what is now looking like inevitable fiscal disaster across Europe.

It is a growing probability that Greece will default on debt repayment when the current loan matures on March 20^th. This of course would likely lead potential investors to lose confidence in the Eurozone and alongside the near halving of the bail out fund as a result to the EFSF downgrade, would lead to a spiralling downfall that could occur extremely swiftly.

The escalating urgency of the situation is without doubt apparent yet I adhere strongly to the sentiment that it is not the UK’s responsibility to bail out stricken single currency nations, as I hope you would agree.

However it is imperative that all of the United Kingdom’s constituent territories prepare for a break up of the single currency and mitigate the impact of fall out from ongoing crises within the Eurozone which may cast reverberations across global markets. It is with regards to this matter that I contact you today.

I would like reassurance that Britain is prepared for the worst when it comes to the future of the single currency and ask that you outline the preparations that have been made to ensure UK industries and markets are protected from ongoing problems on the continent. There has been suggestion that the UK Foreign Office has drawn up preparations for executing evacuations of British nationals if the single currency break-up leads to social uprising. However I have heard little of how British businesses, banks and investments would be safeguarded and whether public finances would be summoned to prop up the private sector in the event of a catastrophic fall.

I would also wish to question how Britain would react to potential future Irish default given the implications it would have on the UK after underwriting a significant tranche of Ireland’s debt.

Please would you also reaffirm commitment to resolutely standing against the notion of the British taxpayer bailing out single currency members, either directly or as a contributor to the International Monetary Fund.

It is a deep concern of mine that devolved governments have been consulted and advised on how to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone. I am writing to the Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science in the Welsh Government Edwina Hart to determine what measures she has taken to ensure her department prepares for the worst. Have the relevant devolved administrations been consulted on the matter and are you reassured as UK Chancellor that businesses and investments across the UK are sufficiently protected?

I was alarmed to hear a statement from the First Minister’s Office suggesting Welsh businesses should seek to expand trade with the EU at a time when many experts have advised that the UK slough trade with Eurozone countries in favour of trading with the wider world.

Please could you outline any strategic implementation that the UK Treasury has thus far coordinated with regards to safeguarding British interests in the event of the break up of the single currency and also clarify future intentions of the British Government to protect British business and investment against a financial crash in Europe?

Faulty Implants due to EU Boob

2012-01-12T13:52:00.007Z

The debate about whether people should or should not get implants removed on the taxpayer has conveniently taken the heat away from asking serious questions about HOW the PIP implant that potentially poses a major health risk, entered mainstream circulation in the first place.

In some respects, I support the private health clinics who say they are not the ones to blame for the health scare, after all, they were told that the implants used in the procedures were safe so why would they imagine otherwise?

In fact the buck stops not with the clinics, or British regulators MHRA but in France where the implants were deigned and manufactured, and with the EU, who allows national regulatory authorities to grant their companies and products a CE (European Conformity) mark as guarantee of quality, but then forbids the MHRA from conducting further checks in order to protect British patients. The MHRA is forced, under EU law, to permit the import and marketing of anything with a CE mark, disabling regulatory bodies here from having any jurisdiction over EU manufacturers.

French authorities only shut down PIP after a staggering 40,000 British women had been fitted with the faulty implants, suggesting that in fact covering the cost of removing the implants should come from our Gallic neighbours. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and a British designed and manufactured product was putting French health at risk. Can you imagine Sarkozy NOT demanding that the UK government shoulders the bill? Exactly.

From this boob one should hope that in the future British authorities be allowed to make quality control checks on imported CE marked products. It is another example of where broadreaching, homogenised legislation is damaging to the UK, and until we are fully out of the EU, there will be more stories like this to come.

No surprise at latest Turner of events

2012-01-10T13:21:00.008Z

Whatever Brussels touches turns into disaster, rather like a kind of Anti-Midas.
We have seen Common Fisheries Policy destroy marine stocks and encroach upon the seas of developing countries, trawling their waters and stripping whole communities of a means of sustenance.

Common Farming Policy led to stockpiling milk, leading to artificially high prices. Farmers are effectively paid by Brussels rather than by the consumer and only after jumping through hoops, rather than having the freedom to farm and sell their produce at proper prices and maintain and healthy and free agrarian industry. Seeing what has happened to the single currency, can you imagine how severely food supply and self-sufficiency would be rocked should a bio catastrophe or drought hit the European farming sector? I dread to think.

Of course the Eurozone is an utter, utter disaster and is heading directly towards even deeper crisis as Eurocratic egos cannot face relinquishing the keystone project of the single currency or admit defeat.

Now proposals to tax financial transactions have been slammed by Ernst and Young for potentially creating a £95 billion abyss in EU public finance at a time when quite frankly the European economy is crippled by the single currency albatross nobody is prepared to slaughter. It's common sense that a tax levied on banks making financial transactions only in Europe will cost Europe dearly. It can only work if the rest of the world agrees to something similar. But the EU is desperate to get their hands on cash from somewhere and are left with the difficult situation of either having to go to the German taxpayer and potentially alienate the one stalwart voterate of the block or find international investment to plug the trillion euro hole that has emerged like a gaping apocalyptic chasm, and unsurprisingly, nobody wants to cough up. The Chinese have turned their backs, stating that Germany is the only country that can rescue the common currency, and other than that, few international buyers are really up for solving the debt crisis of a bungling Union.

2012 has started much in the same way that 2011 trundled along, with inconclusive crisis talks, insubstantial commitment to solve the problem and pie in the sky solutions that say more about inter-state grievances than any clear direction to grab this issue by the scruff of its neck. We've had more rhetoric from France seeking any way to attack "anglo saxon" capitalism, hence proclaiming they will steamroller through a tax on the City of London. But hold on, was it really anglo-saxon capitalism that got us into this mess? It is convenient to point the finger at bankers, and nobody is saying they didn't play their part in the global financial crisis, but what is keeping the Eurozone stuck in fiscal quicksand is no longer the credit crunch but for a large part underscored by the sort of unrealistic, idealistic and potentially disastrous socialism that blighted Communist Russia.

There is even a storhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gify today on the BBC that I could hardly bare to read, about Greek parents abandoning their children due to the severely troubled economic times being faced in the member state. Why it is almsot like the beginnings of Holodomor. When the common currency is leading to heartbreaking poverty on this scale it is time to let go of political ideals and admit defeat. It all chimes of the sort of blind arrogance of a political elite who wish to impose plutocratic ideals on the populace, regardless of the fall out.

It makes you want to put your head in your hands and simply yell out "how on earth did they let it get this far?"

Current rumours have reverted back to suggestions that Greece may be ousted from the single currency. Merkel and Sarkozy warned that vital rescue funds would be held back from Athens unless Greece completes a deal over the size of losses that will be imposed on private investors, with the German leader branding Greece a "special case" suggestive that rules may be twisted to allow a swuft departure of Greece, thus sparing the German taxpayer the financial if not the moral onus of rescuing the failing mediterranean economy. For while the southern states of the Eurozone may have ended up in a quagmire of overspending brought on by sudden access to low interest rates and the possibility to spend more than they could ever hope to accrue, Germany flourished due to riding roughshod over interest rates to suit her own booming manufacturing economy and has come out on top not just due to the German work ethic, which is evidently commendable, but due to sheer bloody dominance of the single currency. There is surely some burden to shoulder there, as the Chinese press has rightly pointed out.

One thing is for sure, if 2011 was a year that rocked the boatm perhaps 2012 will either see the whole vessel capsize or a man thrown overboard.

What becomes of the broken currency?

2011-12-20T10:59:00.001Z

In 1973 when Britain joined the European Economic Community the slogan was “common market or bust”. How ironic that sounds today. The crisis rocking the Eurozone is now so severe that the IMF has publicly stated that only an internationally coordinated bail out could prevent the globe being rocked by depression.

It is beyond embarrassment for the member states of the Euro area which regard the single currency as a cornerstone of their project. It has now reached a level where not only other member states may be sucked into the quagmire of fiscal misery, but the entire interconnected Gordian knot of global financiers.

It is unsurprising that the media is choked with opinion on David Cameron’s decision to veto the EU tax and budget pact. Its architects claim it is the only way forward in rescuing the Euro and guaranteeing the stability of every member state.

But what is essential to remember is that the proposals put on the table during that summit would do little to actually solve the crisis. The burning question of where the Eurozone would find at least a trillion Euros to prevent the currency union disappearing down a financial sink hole still remains unanswered.

We’ve had criticisms that Britain is now isolated and without power. Responses across the continent have done little to disguise the bitterness and vitriol many member states feel towards what they perceive as reckless, self serving betrayal. We have deeply frustrated France and Germany by blocking the legally viable option of unanimity to allow the changes to be enforced. A move by Brussels to sabotage our veto would involve changing laws in order not to break them and as such would be incredibly dangerous.

There have been rancorous demands for retribution, from stripping our rebate (which would leave the UK as the single highest contributor to Europe) to sabotaging any free trade agreement Britain may attempt to forge were she to exit the Union. Yet much less than losing influence, in many respects we hold it. Any attempt by Brussels to scrap the rebate would spark fury in the UK, potentially triggering our withdrawal, and threats made in anger to embargo trade would equally hurt the remaining member states and would do little to help the EU’s reputation on the international stage.

Even though it may have ruffled feathers in Europe, we are legally entitled to protect national interests and must be allowed to do so. To undermine our say would call the entire democracy of the EU into question.

Under this latest pact EU financial supervisors could govern the City in London. It is a coveted prize, to seize control of the place where 75 per cent of Europe’s private investment is dealt, potentially imposing taxes to siphon off much needed capital. But technocratic control would see banks quit London for Zurich, the effects of which would have a devastating impact on us. London’s financial services industry accounted for a £35 billion trade surplus in 2010, and contributed £54 billion in taxes as well as representing 2 million jobs.

The most repeated criticism is that the UK has lost its seat at the negotiating table, and thus decisions that affect us will no longer being taken in consultation with us. Some commentators suggest the Eurozone can enforce the policies anyway, rendering the veto entirely in vain. Yet the European Court of Justice states that changes to EU institutions must be subject to assent by all member states influenced.

A general consensus is that Britain wants one foot in the EU and one foot out. However we are not alone. There has always been a two-speed Europe, simply by the fact that 17 member states are in the common currency and 10 are not.

In Finland, Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic there is also widespread resentment of the demand that tax and budgets are controlled by Brussels, and quiet support of the UK stance. Even the French newspaper Le Monde confessed that the “Brits are not part of this euro crisis. And they have no responsibility for the failure of its institutions to resolve it.” Perhaps if we are isolated, it is for the best. After all, it is better to be on the docks waving goodbye to the Titanic.

German MEP Alexander Graf Lambsdorff suggests the EU “refounds itself without Great Britain”, suggesting “Switzerland is a model towards which Britain can turn”. Thereby it could trade freely with the bloc and cooperate bilaterally on important issues without being a member state subject to European law. As a result of autonomous cooperation, Switzerland is able to trade in a much freer environment. She has the highest wealth per adult in the world, was voted last year as being the most competitive country on the planet, and was listed as having the second highest quality of life globally.

Whatever comes to pass, the next few months are critical. Even without the UK veto, this pact could never solve the crisis. Whilst it may signify a willingness to prevent it happening again, it is rather like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

There will likely be more summits acting as stepping stones to complete political federation allowing all debt to be subsumed within one massive economy. In essence, this would be amalgamating the Eurozone into a single country rather like the USA. There is growing consensus that this is the only solution if the single currency is to be saved. However, such a bold decision will likely be made in increments to prevent public backlash.

UKIP MEPs have been arguing for years that a single currency without full fiscal union simply cannot work. We have been labelled doom mongers, political Luddites and even extremists for holding the view that, as it is today, the EU is much more than a common market of ten European countries. Instead, it is too powerful, too reckless and incongruous with both public opinion and political sense.nIt is high time people felt free to come out of the shadows and speak out against Europe. It’s high time we had a Referendum.

Tragic Loss for Wales

2011-11-27T17:10:00.002Z

The loss of Gary Speed is an utter tragedy. He was a superb footballer and later in his career a fantastic manager. I wish to send my condolences to his family. He will always be remembered as one of the true gentlemen of football, a credit to his country and an invaluable contributor to Welsh sport. I am shocked and devastated by this news.

Comparing stuff with Downton - well, it's the current trend

2011-11-10T13:24:00.007Z

Did you see the series finale of Downton Abbey? More happened in one hour of television than in decades of popular soap operas.

Finally there was "the kiss" leaving many of us to wonder what the no-doubt feel-good Christmas Special will be about now Matthew and Mary have hooked up (and regretted it miserably all in one episode) AND Mr Bates and Anna married and spent a romatnic conjugal night in a secret suite kindly decorated by the soon-to-quit Cora look-alike who's been snogging old Lord Grantham in side rooms, before old Bates was carted off by police. With the speed in which the plot line moves on, one imagines Matthew and Mary will have a Christmas wedding and spend most of series three tackling marital issues in the changing post war society of the swinging twenties while trying to secure the Grantham lineage in a few steamy scenes.

It was lucky that flu was so voracious though. It worked well to move various narratives and sub-plots along. Although did anybody else think it had the epidemic alacrity of the Ebola virus? One minute Lavinia was wandering down stars to see her betrothed tonsil-deep in Miss Mary, the next she was spluttering her last breaths as Lady Grantham's profuse sweating and nose bleeds persisted over the course of two gripping will-she-or-wont-she nights.

Apparently the actual Spanish Flu lasted from June 1918 to December 1920 spreading to the Arctic and remote Pacific Islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, or more than 3% of the world's population, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. The virus preyed upon the young and strong, turning a healthy immune system into a corporal civil war where the strongest fighters were cuaght up in a battle that turned against their own bodies.

Ok, so how was I planning to draw parallels between this and the EU?

Where there's a will there's a way.

The first cases of influenza were registered in the U.S., just a the collapse of Lehman brothers signalled the start of the global recession. The flu then spread around Europe before getting to Spain. The pandemic received it's nickname "Spanish Flu" because of the severity. Germany, Britain and France all had media blackouts on news of the flu that might be seen to lower morale and did not want to disclose information about disease and the number of deaths to their enemies.

The Euro crisis, first striking Greece, and spreading virulently from Ireland to Portgual has now reached Italy, deemed to large to bail out. Meanwhile Germany and France continue to insist that the Eurozone will be alright in the end, despite the fact that the latter's economy could well be next in line. Huge efforts have been made to cover up the extent of deficit in these major economies, to calm the world's markets and silence the enemies of the Eurozone who hage already called time on the stricken common currency project.

The Greek crisis is small fry compared to what is now looming in the wings and is preparing to sweep over the cast of Europe with the same narrative upheavals as Spanish Flu in Downton. Greece makes up just two per cent of the EU economy compared to Italy who was the eighth largest economy in the world last year, or the fourth largest in Europe.

Indeed so ferocious is the contagion that France and Spain could be the next to suffer. Some might argue that Spain's economic fate was written since Portugal contracted the debt disease bringing it to Iberia.The borrowing costs to France have soared to over 3%, almost half way to the dreaded 7% hypothesised doom that Italy has recently achieved.Perhaps just like the Spanish Flu, by the time contagion hits Spain it will have reached it's most virulent and deadly.

German experts have slammed the European Central Bank for buying Spanish and Italian debt, putting Germany precariously at the head of the pack when it comes to calling the shots and starting to revert to self interest, something which when adopted by a nation with as much economic might as Germany, could be quite hard to counter.It is interesting then to remember the founding goal of the European Union was to prevent another German war with her neighbours after 100 years of devastating conflicts. Even today it would seem the unenviable task of the EU is to again diminish the power of a reunified Germany.

So what for series three of Downton? We all know how history plays out from now, and considering series one started with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and has hurtled in 14 episodes to the Spanish Flu reaching UK shores in 1920 it is conceivable that a new head to head with Germany could be on the cards for the already battered and beleagured cast of the Abbey. And this time, the war really could be brought to the Grantham estate as World War II brought bombing attacks onto UK soil.

As for us? Well it looks as though Germany are getting rather wearied at playing the coy and well meaning big brother role. At the recent crisis summit in Brussels, hoping to secure the one trillion euro rescue package to save her embattled currency, Angela Merkel warned "No one should believe that another half century of peace in Europe is a given - it's not. So I say again; if the euro collapses, Europe collapses"

I would rather take this comment as scaremongering. After all, it's more than likely now that the Euro will collapse, and hopefully the EU along with it. However whether we will all start turning arms on eachother seems to me a rather far fetched concept used to scare member states into jumping to attention.

But then, after all, who knows? If there's one thing we have learned from history, and from Downton Abbey, it's that however predictable the majority of the narrative it, there will always be the unexpected twist in the plot that takes us all by surprise.

2011-10-25T11:02:00.003+01:00

Monday should have been a schism in the modern political history of Britain. It should have been the catalyst for a new chapter in politics and inter-territorial relations. I say it should have been, because it wasn’t.

When the Coalition Government pledged a new form of governance embracing direct democracy and established e-petitions they should have known membership of the European Union would be mooted.

Perhaps in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, with ongoing bail outs and economic reverberations keenly felt in our own markets, people are more disillusioned with the European project than ever before. With Polski Skleps opening on a large number of commercial streets, perhaps there is an increasing perception of unjust competition for jobs with migrants from other EU member states, causing people to demand a rethink.

Yet I do not think this is what really underlies the call for a referendum. People in Britain are by nature far from hostile to their European neighbours, or economically egocentric.

Instead it is simply due to the Government’s track record of failing to heed the vox populai on Europe that the public are clamouring to be heard.

It was back in the 1970s that the UK held its first, and only, referendum on membership to the then European Economic Community. It was a free trade organisation. No Parliament. No common currency. Just a few years later Harold Wilson promised a referendum that never came, and again in ‘83, Labour pledged to withdraw from the EU in the following Parliament, but lost the election.

A decade later European leaders signed the Maastricht Treaty creating the modern day European Union. Denmark and France were the only member states to put it to a vote.

In 2004 Tony Blair promised a referendum on the European Constitution Treaty and all three main political parties promise referendums in their general election manifestos the following year.

France and the Netherlands held referendums and rejected the proposals, causing the European Commission to repackage and rename it the Lisbon treaty after only minor concessionary changes. In Ireland, after the public voted against Lisbon the Commission demanded a second referendum and poured millions into the campaign

The UK signed it without recourse a public vote and the High Court rejected calls for a judicial review into the legality of the ratification.

This week’s debate represented 37 years of defying public opinion and reneging upon promises, allowing power to be passed to a foreign body that today makes 75% of our laws.

Do not buy the argument that it’s because the timing isn’t right. The debate over whether to hold a referendum did not make a given date a condition. It merely called for a promise that has for so long been broken to be enshrined in law so that for the first time the public would be given a say.

The fact that public opinion has been unscrupulously ignored should anger all voters, whether pro-Europe, or Eurosceptic. The argument is not about whether the UK should or shouldn’t be in the EU. The argument is whether you the electorate get to decide.

It is hard to fathom why the Conservative and Labour Parties operated a three line whip. Only one Lib Dem MP voted for the motion and all three Plaid MPs opposed it.

Roger Williams Lib Dem MP for Brecon & Radnor and Glyn Davies Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire both voted that you should be denied a say.Read the full list of MPs who do not sign up for democracy here.

Last time I checked, ‘democracy’ was defined as a form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives, coming from the Greek terms “demos” (people) and “kratos” (power).

Gaddafi

2011-10-20T15:21:00.002+01:00

If the reports are to be believed and Colonel Gaddafi has indeed been killed in Sirte it will represent the dawn of a new day for Libyans who have suffered under his regime for more than forty years.

However it is in many respects a shame that he was not brought to trial in The Hague and his cronies may well now seek to flea prosecution on the global stage.

We must not forget that Gaddafi was not only a tyrant but also incredibly calculating and was able to woo his foreign counterparts who then allowed him to remain installed as a dictator for the four decades he ruled over Libya.

Come on Wales!

2011-10-14T16:01:00.002+01:00

It is actually a sorry thing that I am not in Brussels tomorrow to watch what should be an exhilarating match as Wales take on Les Bleus in New Zealand.
As a nation we are so incredibly proud of our rugby, and to be in the finals of the World Cup would surely put Wales on the map across the globe.
As people across Wales set their alarms for an early start on Saturday I want to echo their cheers of support and cry out a resounding

COME ON WAAAAALES!

Every toe and finger is crossed.
This really could be, I hope and pray, our time.

Evidentally Turkey is not just for Christmas

2011-10-07T17:11:00.005+01:00

I was recently invited to write this article for Public Service Europe. It raises interesting questions over who is working in Brussels, and how democratic a system is being employed.

Although I find there to be countless examples of why the EU flies in the face of democracy, I attempted to keep this item contemplative rather than empassioned, raising the key issues that I believe many readers would find interesting.

Here it is:

If complaints already exist about the level of legislative intrusion Brussels has on domestic governance, then imagine the consternation that could be felt with the revelation that such legislation is not only made by those 26 other nations who are members of the EU, but equally by a raft of other countries that are not.

Recently the Turkish Government appeared to gloat when they publicly announced that Turkish officials will be “shaping the EU’s future politics and legislation”. However they were not referring to finally being granted the membership that is so widely debated. Instead they were referring to the signing of a “memorandum of understanding” for the secondment of Turkish officials at the European Commission. The action, entitling Turkish foreign officials to steer policy alongside civil servants in Brussels, was ratified in Strasbourg at the end of last month by Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagis and Vice President of the Commission in charge of Inter Institutional Relations and Administration, Maros Sefcovic.

Turkish professionals with be employed at the Commission as “Seconded National Experts” - a scheme that allows applicants, usually from the EU member states, to work for the European Commission on secondment, while still receiving pay from their employers alongside generous subsidies from the EU. However the scheme also extends to non-EU member states, with Brussels labelling the recent agreement with Turkey a “milestone” for EU relations.

Turkish bureaucrats will work alongside Eurocrats in policy making and the implementation of EU politics, meaning effectively, Turks will have a role in shaping the EU agenda.

The majority of domestic laws, often estimated at around 75%, emanate from Brussels. To learn that Turkish officials will also be instrumental in creating legislation, despite Turkey not being a member of the Union, reveals what many may perceive as a democratically bankrupt and unaccountable lawmaking process. Laws affecting Britain can be developed by Turkish officials with no accountability to the British taxpayer and with questionable adherence to British interests.

As a candidate country for EU membership, Turkey is increasingly working within and alongside the EU. This is despite the fact that Turkey has been occupying a large part of Cyprus, a full EU member state for years and has been linked to potential security risks.

Alongside a customs union with the EU, which significantly increased the volume of trade between Turkey and EU member states, and EU foreign direct investment in Turkey to a tune of around €9 billion per annum, Turkish officials will now have SNEs in Brussels who will “work alongside Commission officials, helping to achieve the strategic objectives defined by a Directorate-General or Service for the benefit of EU citizens.”

Many would argue that increased cooperation between the EU and Turkey is no bad thing. However, without elected representatives in Parliament it is questionable whether they should have influence in the Commission.

It is not just Turkey given the privilege of having EU civil servants. A job advert for the EU Institute for Health and Consumer Protection stated that officials were wanted from “Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovnia, Croatia, FYR of Macedonia, Iceland, Israel, Montenegro, Serbia, Switzerland, and Turkey. Applicants of other nationalities cannot be considered for this specific call.” Indeed European law would likely prevent such a job advert being placed by a UK company that wished to specify that only certain nationalities apply.

Without doubt in a bid to pave the way for these other nations to eventually join the EU, work both on the ground in third countries, and within Brussels by third country nationals, is something about which the Commission remains tight lipped in the public sphere.

Yet it would appear that Turkey was calling somebody’s bluff by announcing their new found powers within the corridors of Brussels.

While civil servants across Europe are threatened with redundancies, pay cuts and pay freezes due to austerity measures, it is surely a bitter pill to swallow to learn that officials are being appointed from a wide range of non EU countries and also enjoy handsome remunerations on top of their pay.

Most importantly, I believe it is essential that the voting public are made aware of such contracts. After all, as an organisation that purports to be democratic, transparency and accountability should be the cornerstones of EU operations.

As The Grip Tightens

2011-09-30T10:25:00.002+01:00

The news this week has left me reeling.Turkish officials been given a hand in drafting EU laws governing Britain. Civil servants from Ankara are being sent to work on policy matters alongside Eurocrats in Brussels. The European Commission already makes upwards of 75 percent of our laws. We now learn that some of them are to be written by Turks despite them not having membership of the Union.It is outrageous that laws affecting everybody in Britain can be written by Turkish officials who have absolutely no accountability to the public and won't reflect the interests of the UK.

On top of that levels of suspected fraud and other "irregularities" in the European Union budget have risen by 25 per cent to £1.6 billionm representing a cost to British taxpayers of £233million. Fraudsters stole at least £415million from Brussels projects in 2010, a figure that is only the tip of the iceberg.

In Parliament this week President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, openly backed the Tobin tax for Europe in his State of the Union address. In the past the idea of a tax on financial transactions has been rejected by the European Commission on the ground that it would damage Europe, reducing GDP and raising unemployment. But this opportunity to rob from the City of London, who in spite of EU laws has grown successfully over decades, to fund the errors of the Eurozone is a disgrace.

Perhaps the most worrying item in the news this week is a report that the European Commission has threatened to take legal action against Britain if ministers do not water down rules limiting foreigners' ability to claim benefits. Taxpayers could end up handing out £2.5billion to EU nationals, including out-of-work "benefit tourists." Levelling out welfare across the Union means one thing alone: with our generous system, Britain will be the destination of choice for workshy from across Europe.

On top of that, think tank Open Europe estimates some 30,000 young workers will lose their jobs in the UK due to new European Union employment rules due to take force this weekend. The Agency Workers' Directive could put 28,000 young workers' contracts at risk by making them too expensive to keep on.

Go on, treaty yourself!

2011-09-12T11:22:00.003+01:00

There's an undercurrent of debate in Brussels at the moment as we reconvene in Parliament about how decisions made to rescue the Eurozone (again!) will affect the dotted i's and crossed t's of the various treaties of the EU.
Whilst Mr Cameron is to be found, head buried in hands, praying that his bogus "Referendum Lock" (cue hand gesture with interlocked fingers, lifted meaningfully up and down like some kind of manual portcullis) will not be dragged out from the annals of "Most Pointless Legislation Ever Promised" it would seem his right hand man, Gorgeous George, cannot help himself when it comes to cheerleading deeper integration, as long as it doesn't include us! (meaningful glance of reassurance at Dave, now sweating profusely and wringing the portcullis hands).
Up jumps Bill Cash
"But you SAID that any Treaty change and we could pick and mix what we wanted and didn't want" the veteran Europhobe whines.
Nick Clegg grinning smugly "Oh, silly Billy, but we NEED the EU to be one big happy family. Let's not go spoiling that!" (thinking nervously that any treaty change would indeed need to be ratified by all 27 members while the vultures from the Express and Mail circle the carrion of the Eurozone as it is picked over by the Union's finance ministers, waiting for a glimpse of fresh meat)
Meanwhile Iain Duncan Smith making an appearance on Andrew from Mars adds his two bit that he personally is very much in favour of repatriating powers, but those ghastly Liberal Democrats will have nothing of it.
Over in Brussels, Herman Van Rompuy is sitting in a high backed leather swivel chair stroking a long haired white cat, his scheming eyes glimmering behind metal rimmed glasses, as his henchmen bustle around him spreading out maps entitled the United States of Europe, in blue and gold letters, with the UK tippexed out.
Somewhere in the background is the echo of a ticking clock....

Franco-Saxon Fiscal Union?

2011-08-22T14:36:00.008+01:00

The phrase two-speed Europe has been bandied about in recent weeks, and it seems even the most optimistic commentators have started to pluck their heads from the sand and brandish claims that fiscal and federal union is the only thing that could save the Euro.

For a long time, people like me have claimed that you simply cannot have a common currency without the homogenisation of economies, harmonising taxation and spending and thus surrendering a great deal of sovereignty. That is why it is vital the UK never joined the Euro, and it is why the currency has suffered so significantly in the global financial crisis. Yet when we were saying this even just a year ago, we were labelled doom mongers, trying to scare the public that the EU was more ambitious than it really was, that no one was trying to undermine domestic power and there is no need to force the Eurozone to club together and become more than just an economic bloc, but in all respects other than name, a federal superstate. Now everyone is proclaiming how it is essential these moves are made, as if they too had been stating the obvious for years and were also jeering at the Commission everytime another bail out was awarded which would have as much efficacy as trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble.

Now, all of a sudden, the two Eurozone powerhouses, France and Germany, in the wake of the portent of economic federalisation, called an urgent meeting to establish a Eurozone government.

This new government would be made up of heads of state that will meet when necessary and will elect a stable president for two and a half years. The man they have in mind is (somewhat laughably) that famous European figurehead Herman Van Rompuy. Who? Oh, you've forgotten him already! You know, that chap who was elected President of the EU...

The establishment of this government to oversee national budgets and taxation and so forth will require changes to domestic constitutions over the coming years, and it will be interesting to see whether voters are consulted. One imagines if they were few would lean favourably towards the proposition of further intrusion upon national powers, so as is often the case with the EU when it comes to unfavourable voxus populai, one imagines there will be no recourse to public opinion. Not really democratic, but afterall, when it comes to the EU, what truly is?

It will also be interesting to see how other Eurozone countries respond. After all, the proposals amount to them handing a large amount of budgetary power over to France and Germany.
Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy are optimistic that they can persuade all the eurozone nations to pass these domestic amendments by summer 2012, which is highly unlikely.
Yet also these agreements have failed to solve the problem. International markets are wondering what will happen if Italy requires a bail out. The EFSF currently contains 440bn euros which would be a long way off enough to save Spain and Italy if there economies deteriorate. Yet actually growth in Germany has slowed to a painstaking place and actually stagnated in France, so where they could seek additional funds in the Eurozone is unclear. For the same reason the German and French leaders also refused to issue eurobonds, meaning underwriting European debt using their own taxpayers' money, by acting as guarantors. Eurobonds would have allowed weaker economis to borrow at the same costs as France and Germany, but would ultimately have led to huge public outcry by French and German citizens who do not see it as their responsibility to rescue the economies of their common currency neighbours.

The negotiations therefore are looknig at long term solutions of establishnig a tighter knit Eurozone but does not resolve the real problem today. This is surely to be expected. Since the outbreak of the recession the Commission has sought opportunities to push for deeper integration, often championed by France and Germany.

Casting my eyes back over speeches last year and in 2009 it's interesting to see how words I said over 12 months ago that were shouted down are now being echoed by the IMF to the ECB to the BBC. Take for example this speech:

"What is the future of the Euro in the light of the problems in Greece, and for that matter, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland? It must be of some reassurance to the UK that we never joined the Euro. It seems promises of strength through solidarity couldn’t be further from the truth.

The problem for the 16 nations in the eurozone is who pulls the purse strings. With little fiscal coordination, and no treasury, membership to the Euro is by no means an elixir for good economic health.

It turns out that when all turns sour, they take the opportunity to seize greater control while you’re on your knees. We must wait to see how Greece will react to becoming an economic protectorate of the European Union and whether it will bring civil unrest. Is this really the European Dream? Who is next ? Spain? Portugal? Italy? Or Ireland?"

Evidentally, all the countries above slipped into economic turmoil.

Similarly I said last year that

"Ideological clinging to the euro will see monetary problems resurface in boom time and bust.

A single currency only works in tight knit federal environments. Perhaps, with this being the Commission’s ultimate intentions, they have put the cart before the horse."

I hope now people will begin to see that Eurosceptics are not extremists, right wing lunatics, heretics, scaremongers or ill intentioned. Perhaps we simply have common sense, which clearly means no common currency!

If only it were all one big funny joke...That we could laugh at

2011-07-19T15:54:00.002+01:00

A cruise ship full of English, French, Germans and Italians, started sinking in the middle of the Med. The captain radioed for help, but the ship was sinking fast meaning passengers would have to jump into the sea and wait to be picked up. As he grappled with the impending disaster, he sent his Second in Command to give the passengers the instructions. Five minutes later he came back looking anxious. "What's wrong?" the Captain asked. "They all refused to listen" replied the Second. So the Captain went off to do it himself. He came back five minutes later. “Ok, done!” he stated. "How did you do that?" exclaimed the bewildered Second. "Well..." started the Captain "...I told the British it was traditional, I told the French it was fashionable, I told the Germans it was an order and I told the Italians it was forbidden!"

I like this joke. It certainly raises a laugh in Brussels. Perhaps what makes it so entertaining is the underlying truth in the words, a truth that underlines why a fiscal and federal union in Europe will never work.

Nevertheless, the EU remains unfailingly committed to their project. The ongoing crisis in the Eurozone is indicative of that. Greece should have been allowed to leave a year ago. The calls for the Commission to follow this course of action are getting louder and louder. Greece are set to default on repayments. Portugal needs a second bail out and has just discovered a €2 billion black hole left by the outgoing Government. The new leader Pedro Passos Coelho has told the nation that his government will not tolerate any interference by Europe. Italy are teetering on the edge of oblivion, their Minister of Finance stating rather emphatically that “If I fall, Italy falls as well…If Italy, a country too big to be rescued, falls, then the euro falls too!” Spain is also on the brink of collapse meaning the Eurozone’s third and fourth largest economies are set to go bust, which would surely cast the rest of the world back into recession. It’s no laughing matter. The only thing that stands between the Europe and solvency is EU vanity. Under no circumstances will the Commission admit the common currency has flunked or permit a return to former domestic currencies. There is a saying in Brussels that the EU has decided it is no longer correct to "spend a penny" - the new expression is to "Euronate."

Over the summer I will be taking time to get around as many fairs as possible to listen to people’s grievances. As always, I am especially keen to hear from farmers of their concerns about forthcoming changes in the Common Agricultural Policy. With compulsory greening of policy bound to bring a more red tape and a baseline freeze that will stop subsidies keeping up with inflation, farmers are right to be very concerned. To many people not in the agricultural sector, it’s hard to understand the broad impact European policy has. Hold on a minute, there’s another joke to explain:

You have two cows. Socialism: The state takes one and gives it to someone else. Communism: The state takes them both and gives you the milk. Fascism: The state takes both and sells you the milk. Capitalism: You sell one and buy a bull. European Federalism: You have two cows which you can’t afford to keep as milk is imported from member states with cheaper labour. You apply for EU aid to subsidise your cows and are given just enough to keep them. You sell your milk back to a government owned distributor who then puts it on the market at the low price that drove you to need subsidies in the first place.

One thing that can cheer us up this summer is looking forward to Wales having a football team in the Premier League. Whoever you support, Swansea’s promotion is fantastic for the country as a whole. There are also hints that Cardiff City Stadium, Parc Y Scarlets and Rodney Parade, as well as Liberty Stadium, could be full of stars. No, Malky Mackay has not signed Ronaldo, nor has Nigel Davies or Darren Edwards coaxed Dan Carter to play fly half. Sports grounds and team kits across Wales will all have to be adorned with the EU ring of stars if the Commission gets their way. Sadly however it’s not a joke, although I’d very much like it to be.

Top of Form

Nessun Dorma!

2011-07-11T16:05:00.004+01:00

Nothing induces insomnia quite like stress, so I can well imagine a bit of Nessun Dorma in Italy over these coming weeks.

Fears that the "Euro Contagion" were spreading like Ebola to Italy has caused the country's cost of borrowing to reach it's highest level in almost a decade, prompting a large sale of bank shares and a sizeable plummet in the stock market. The problem is being exacerbated by Silvio Berlusconi and Italy's Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti who allegedly, and perhaps somewhat operatically, emphatically stated “If I fall, Italy falls as well…If Italy, a country too big to be rescued, falls, then the euro falls too!”

As a result of the latest fears, officials from the European Central Bank know report that the current eurozone bail out funds are insufficient and suggest doubling the available money to €1.5 trillion.

The creeping insolvency is also stalking its way across the continent to Spain who thus far have remained astonishly free from talk of rescue packages. It will once again fall on Germany's shoulders, who have actually enjoyed a serious period of good growth, to wade in and pull her floundering neighbours out of the shallow waters. And so again the debate continues - full fiscal unity, or break up the Monetary Union altogether, and risk making the EU a laughing stock?
Even in the Financial Times commentators are dismissing threats that contagion would only spiral out of control should Greece leave the euro or default as utter balloney designed to promote whichever purported rescue plan is currently on the table. Yet most EU leaders are now beginning to embrace some degree of default as the only option for Greece.

Why simply employing Brits will not work

2011-07-01T11:19:00.005+01:00

And so the Government, well, Iain Duncan Smith, is going to announce that they will urge UK firms to employ British. Is this going to miraculously solve the problem of mass migration to the UK? Well if you consider the fact that since May this year EU migrants are now entitled to claim benefits after just 12 months of employment in the UK, probably not. Either Brits will be on the dole, or Eastern Europeans.

Recent figures show that between 1997 and 2010, half of the rise in UK employment was jobs taken by foreign nationals. The unemployment rate of 16-24 year olds went from 79,000 to 895,000 in just three months leading up to this April. Clearly we have a critical situation.

Now we all now under labour droves of foreign nationals were welcomed into the UK. Cynics would argue it suits the party to have firstly, less employment available, and secondly, foreign nationals they can pledge to look after and win a few more votes. Whatever the case however it's relatively irreversible. You cannot start sending people packing without seriously disrupting their lives, and who can blame them for wanting to ake opportunities and start afresh if they think they are able to do so in the UK? You would, I am sure, if you were in their shoes.

So the Government has put a cap on skilled workers from outside the EU in an effort to reduce migration from about 200,000 a year to tens of thousands, or 21,700 to be precise. But most citizens of EU countries face no restrictions on working in the UK an restrictions are due to be lifted on Romanians and Bulgarians too over coming yeats. British firms, under EU law, are not allowed to discriminate against non UK employees, so IDS is simply talking about the paltry 21,000 people who the government can control. Compare that to the fact that the population has soared 470,000 a year under the migration boom, pushing UK population through the 62 million barrier or 3 million more than judt nine years ago, and you realise that 21,000 is a drop in the ocean.

But that's not the only problem A recent EU ruling has seen Turkish workers returning home after having worked in the Netherlands are entitled to receive incapacity benefits from the Dutch authorities for the rest of their lives. The landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice could pave the way for further legal strictures dictating that even when foreign workers return home, the British taxpayer would still have to fund them. In that light, it would probably be better if they remained here and at least contributed a small amount to the country's economy.

I don't like to simply bemoan Brussels. I also do my best to challenge them at every turn.

I recently wrote to the Commission asking:

From 1^st May, hundreds of thousands of migrants will be able to apply for full UK benefits after only three months of residency.

Welfare benefits such as jobseekers allowance, council tax and housing benefit will be available when previously migrants had to demonstrate a year of UK employment.

Since 2004, despite predictions only 13,000 workers would come, more than a million officially registered with 650,000 still here. The unofficial number could be far higher.

The change in rules also means more migrants will be able to claim welfare benefits for children still in their home country. Currently 32,000 children in Eastern Europe are paid maintenance from Britain.

The UK system is generous and in terms of currency value, far higher than domestic welfare payments in most EU countries.

A growing sense of resentment in many member states such as Germany and France reflects a public that is increasingly disenfranchised.

What will the Commission do to prevent EU migrants from moving to other parts of the Union to claim welfare?

What sort of restrictions will be drawn up to prevent widespread benefits tourism?

How will the Commission prevent mass migration of citizens from one part of the EU to another which could have economic impact on both the domestic and the recipient member states?

They kindly responded, stating:

E-004473/2011

Answer given by Mr Andor

on behalf of the Commission

(17.6.2011)

Commission reports[1] on the transitional measures applying to workers from EU-8, which expired on 30 April 2011, and those still in force for workers from Bulgaria and Romania, show that the reason why most people move from a new Member State to an EU-15 Member State is to work there. These migrant workers have helped to alleviate labour shortages in sectors and occupations where demand cannot be met by workers from within the country. Intra-EU labour mobility has also triggered substantial economic growth in both the receiving countries and the Union as a whole. There is no evidence that it has led to a rise in ‘benefit tourism’.

The EU rules on social security coordination[2] provide that the Member States are to treat EU citizens who are not nationals on a par with their own nationals as regards access to social security benefits.

EU legislation on the free movement of EU citizens[3] aims both to promote mobility and to protect the legitimate interests of the Member States by ensuring that public funds primarily benefit those who contribute to them. It does this by making the right to reside for more than three months in another Member State conditional on being in remunerated (self-)employment or having sufficient resources to avoid becoming a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State. The latter is required to grant social assistance benefits to EU citizens in need who are not their nationals but meet the conditions laid down by EU law (and who therefore have a right to reside there) as it would to its own nationals in the same situation.

EU law therefore requires the Member States to show a degree of, but not unlimited, financial solidarity towards EU citizens who are not their own nationals. To protect the legitimate interests of the host Member State, it also allows the latter to take action to prevent EU citizens residing within its territory and who are not nationals from subsequently becoming a burden on the public finances.

[1] See ‘Report on the Functioning of the Transitional Arrangements set out in the 2003 Accession Treaty (period 1 May 2004–30 April 2006)’ (COM(2006) 48 final of 8 February 2006), which covers the first two years (2004-06) of the transitional measures for EU-8 workers, and ‘The impact of free movement of workers in the context of EU enlargement: Report on the first phase (1 January 2007 – 31 December 2008) of the Transitional Arrangements set out in the 2005 Accession Treaty and as requested according to the Transitional Arrangement set out in the 2003 Accession Treaty’ (COM(2008) 765 final of 18 November 2008), which covers the impact of free movement of workers in the context of enlargement during the first two years (2007-2008) of the transitional measures for workers from Bulgaria and Romania and a further review of the transitional measures for EU-8 workers.

[2] Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 of Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the coordination of social security systems, OJ L 166, 30.4.2004.

[3] Directive 2004/38/EC of Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC, OJ L 158, 30.4.2004.

Make of that what you will, but to me it sound like evasive waffle that is intent on not giving up. We must, must, must, leave the EU.

Cucumbers at Dawn

2011-06-03T10:32:00.006+01:00

It’s all getting a bit nasty in the European Parliament these days. In fact, MEPs are getting so hot under the collar there will soon have to be weapons scanners on the entrance doors to the hemisphere with burly Belgian cops sweeping metal detectors up and down the trouser legs of infuriated MEPs.

Ok perhaps not, but Spanish MEP Francisco Sosa Wagner’s strong words about Cucumbergate were accompanied by a threatening wave of his mean green cucumber cudgel right in the middle of the chamber!

The EU has been caught in the crossfire between Spain and Germany over accusations that the recent deadly outbreak of E-coli all began with Spanish cucmbers. As a result thousands of farmers in Spain had to destroy millions of pounds worth of crop. The EU, as compensation, has proposed donating £134million in aid, yet the Spanish are threatening legal action unless Germany reimburses their loss 100 per cent. This is one cucumber sandwich that the British will not be having with their tea.

Meanwhile Europe are also getting tough on taxation. EU chiefs are demanding direct tax powers which could cost families up to £200 every year. That’s despite the cost of bailing out our neighbours costing the UK over £12.5 billion, far more than has been saved by savage government cuts.

Cuts which, incidentally, the European Commission approve. The fact that the European Commission has come out and demanded Westminster should stick with their “Plan A” for budget cuts and tax increases suggests that we probably are doing the wrong thing. What with protests in Madrid, Lisbon and Athens over EU and IMF enforced austerity measures, as well as three failed Eurozone economies and many more ailing governments in the single currency, the Commission seem increasingly out of touch with their people and decreasingly less likely to give a hoot anyway.

In fact over the next six months the European Commission are unrolling the “European Semeste r” where they will demand member state governments submit national budgets and reform programmes for EU approval. Jean Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, has described the new European Semester as the beginning of centralised fiscal policy.

We will watch and wait to see whether Osborne is happy to dance to the Brussels beat.

The one thing that is desperately missing from this dialogue is the fact that actually, Eurozone countries should be able to leave the common currency and return to independent fiscal governance. Currently the ECB in Germany controls interest rates across the Eurozone, to the detriment of weaker economies and in part responsible for the collapses in Ireland, Portugal and Greece. I put this forward to Barroso in the last President’s Question Time.

Notice how he fails to answer the question and instead talks about how the Euro was not responsible for the world recession (well duh? But really, it was a massive contributing factor to the so-called euro contagion) and that he is sure Greece wants to stay in the Euro. Frankly, they don’t really have much choice given how endebted they are now to the EU and IMF. No wonder Brussels is doing their utmost to make sure the next IMF President is a European, and, surprise surprise, from France.

I also challenged Parliament over a little and at first seemingly unobtrusive amendment to a directive on HGV charges that plans to add an EU carbon toll. It is basically the first indirect tax to be levied by the Commission. Although the UK does not partake in the Eurovignette scheme, the government has been discussing joining in 2015, yet before that the Commission reserves the right to make their little “experimental” carbon charge obligatory. We all know that such costs are never fronted by big business and always land in the consumer’s purse, but what is worse is the fact that taxation powers should be discussed and passed by unanimous vote at Council level with all 27 leaders of the member states agreeing to the proposals.

This matter however has been slipped through Parliament as it “only relates to transport” which is an EU competence under the provision of the Lisbon Treaty. A sneaky backdoor way to introduce an indirect tax, because frankly, the Commission know full well not all member states would agree to such a policy.

Sneaky sneaky Europe.

Financial Crisis

2011-03-28T10:28:00.005+01:00

I know, I know

It must seem every time an argument is put forward about anything to do with politics it all boils down to money. But this is surely a reasonable expectation, given that the job of most governments is to collect and then spend the money of the people they purportedly represent in a manner they see most universally suitable.

Do not think just because you personally do not pay a direct tax to Europe that it’s not your money being spent. It is. And a whopping estimated £48million a day goes to Brussels from the UK.

Yet in Europe, the state of their own finances is atrocious. While they chastise Greece and Ireland for running up enormous deficits and have in the case of the former turned the country into little more than an economic protectorate, their own fiscal record is far from unimpeachable.

Not only has the Commission failed to have its annual accounts signed off for the past 16 years (and let’s remember their former Chief Accountant turned whistle blower was so appalled by what she had witnessed she signed up as a UKIP MEP) but when there’s allegation of serious wrong doing, everything is brushed under the carpet. Meanwhile they are standing with their begging bowl insisting that non Eurozone member states contribute to a bail out fund to rescue their pet project currency that countries such as the UK were wise enough to never sign up to.

More recently a sting by The Sunday Times revealed three MEPs willing to take money from planted bogus lobbyists in return for i ntroducing amendments to European Regulations. Out came OLAF from retirement (the European Commissions own Office of Fraud Busters) yet were then barred from the offices of the three accused MEPs by the Eropean Parliament in an utterly laughable twist to the plot, leaving everyone scratching their heads as to who has the legal entitlement to investigate bribery of this kind. Should the honour be bestowed on national authorities, or can the EU wade in and conduct their own investigation (whose credibility, I hasten to add, would probably be called into question anyway).

Yet Europe is keen to set up a financial services watchdog that will operate on a pan European basis and tell every financial institution in the 27 member states how to conduct their dealings. Whilst from the outside in the wake of a recession it may seem eminently sensible, let us not forget that this is the self same Union that insists on awarding itself a year on year budget increase despite openly acknowledging that purse strings need to be tightened. To quell the upset in The City, which effectively manages around three quarters of European and international financial transaction, former UK Financial Services Authority head honcho Verena Ross has been granted the title of Executive Director of the European Securities and Markets Authority, as if that is going to make the big banks less jittery about suddenly having a rule book thrown at them.

On top of these complaitns, Brussels just can't seem to stop spending their own money, so it begs the question how they will go about telling banks and member states how to spend theirs. £58 million is being thrown at a House of History Museum which is designed to show a fluffy and beautiful history of harmony and similarity across our beautiful 27 nation bloc. For this reason, the clock has only been turned back only as far as 1946 due to deep divisions in the interpretations of World War II. It has also been revealed that more than £80million has been paid by the Parliament to fnd spin doctors and the hugely popular EuroParlTV, which of the half a billion citizens it is designed to serve, attracts fewer than 850 per day.

And so that brings me to my final grumble. Ireland are needing yet more bail out cash and as predicted so does Portugal. The European Central Bank renewed its bond buying activites by purchasing €432millon government bonds, mainly from Portugal. Despite the huge spend, markets seem to have barely registered the bold move, meaning a full scale bail out is becoming increasingly inevitable. Germany, already the good Samaritan for Greece and Ireland, are likely to insist the IMF is approached, meaning, yes, you guessed it, the UK will be part funding the rescue of Lisbon. Not that we wont contribute to the European Bail Out fund, negotiations about which were plunged into despair as Lisbon fell off the bottom of the debt scale. However it has emerged that despite all of his tough talk, Cameron seems to have agreed for Britain to pay a whopping £7bn into the fund, on top of the £3bn we have already given to Ireland. It has also been suggested Greece may need to shake their tin towards the EU or IMF again in order to reach the targets laid down by the Commission, as will Ireland. And of course, as we’ve said all along, if Portugal falls, it’s only a matter of time before they drag Spain down too. Already Spanish regional banks have had to announce plans to be recpaitalised to the Spanish Central Bank. Three have already requested funding from the Spanish government’s own bail out scheme.

And then of course you have the straw that will break the camel's back as Italy shouldn’t hold her breath either. Another economy biting the dust could well plunge the whole Eurozone into a quagmire of inflation, deep division and signal the end to the common currency.

Just like centuries before, The Fall of Rome could be a massive turning point in European history.

Why we should love the Commonwealth

2011-03-17T14:43:00.005Z

Monday March 14th was Commonw ealth Day. On the same day the Guardian newspaper began a month long “Europe Season” while the EU Referendum Campaign celebrated its official start.

It got me wondering who are our global allies? Who do we look to in times of trouble, who can we relate to and who do we feel we have an obligation to support?

For years we’ve talked about a “special relationship” with America, but a series of perceived snubs, such as the Queen not being invited to the 65^th Anniver sary of D-Day hosted by Sarkozy and Obama have largely been regarded as proof of the changing nature of our transatlantic kinship. In fact, this has been outlined in countless blogs and articles, so entrenched are we British in seaking approval from America. Here is a particularly good account.

Should we look to Europe? We are part of a Union powerful enough to make supra-national legislation, yet have not signed up to the Euro nor Schengen Acquis. We are by and large regarded as the most reluctant member state.

Are our natural allies the Commonwealth countries that share democratic values and with whom we are most likely to compete in this year’s rugby and cricket world cups?

I firmly believe in maintaining trade links with Europe and ensuring peace. But the EU trades freely with 60 non member countries and is unlikely to refute a trade deal with the UK should we revoke our membership.

However I believe it is the Commonwealth in whom we should invest more energy. The 54 member nations cover all four corners of the globe and boast a spread of ethnicities, languages and diverse cultures. Yet we share a common tongue and interconnected histories. The Commonwealth is not a political union but an intergovernmental organisation based upon culture, sport, literary heritage and shared legal practices. Members agree to human rights and democracy but are otherwise mutually independent. Sixteen members recognise the Queen as their Head of State, thirty three are Republics and five have monarchs of their own. Diplomatic missions between Commonwealth countries are High Commissions rather than embassies, reflecting the view that they do not consider one another “foreign”.

The Commonwealth could be regarded as the mother of modern Unions, and contributed to the creation of what is now the EU. When France was refused membership in the 1950s she instead signed the Treaty of Rome with the founding nations of the then Common Market. An argument for European integration is the geographical proximity of its members. Europe has a tumultuous history underscoring the importance of guaranteeing continental peace. Yet by working across the Commonwealth we do something more important. We spread a relationship further than a continent. Should Europe ever enter into war with another country in the Arab Maghreb Union, could we end up with two continents at war? I support the notion that Europe must work together to maintain peace. But creating a federal Union leaves member states little flexibility and is perhaps less desirable for future global harmony than perceived.

Our relationship with former colonies is mutually beneficial and respectful, despite the British Empire being borne out of bloodshed and exploitation. We maintain links and forge partnerships with countries including Australia, Brunei, India, Jamaica, Kenya, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Singapore.

In these times of turmoil with the threat of a summer of uprisings, it is perhaps more important than ever to think bigger than Europe.

We are all born equal...Just some are born more equal than others.

2011-02-22T12:35:00.006Z

Sex discrimination. It seems to have had a bit of a resurgence in recent months. There was the Sian Massey comments which landed Andy Gray and Richard Keys with the sack from Sky (as well as a plethora of other rather less than erudite off camera statements made towards female co-presenters).
There is also an undercurrent of backlash against the increasingly sexualised images of females, especially in pop videos. Perhaps what we are seeing is the natural elasticity of public opinion and prudency through the ages. At any rate the Georgian era was a famously free period sexually in British history and was succeeded by the strict and prudish Victorian era. Perhaps the lengths of social freedoms are stretched to the max, causing an inevitable retraction when it is deemed things have gone too far.
Today's attitude towards sex and gender is an interesting one. It has gone too far, but across the spectrum. One thing that drives me mad is anti-discrimination legislation that serves only to put constraints on society or adversely favour on set of people over another. Positive discrimination can be, in my opinion, no better than negative discrimination.
But there are also times when an effort to level off the differences between the sexes, narrow the advantages enjoyed by either sex or create laws to completely remove any form of gender partiality actually becomes pure folly. You may remember back in March 2009 the EU supposedly banned the use of a number of supposedly discriminating words. In a bid to achieve full blown gender neutrality, EU speak outlawed words such as Mr and Mrs, Frau, Senorita, Monsieur or Madam. They banned MEPs from saying sportsmen and statesmen, instead pressing for the use of the words athletes and polticians.
Man-made became taboo (replaced by artificial or synthetic) as did firemen, air hostesses, headmasters, policemen and so forth.
Most recently whacky EU gender discrimination law has now stated insurance companies cannot change rates based upon the sex of the person either. So whereas women once enjoyed cheaper car insurance or smaller life insurance pay outs, everything will now have to be evened out. But insurance premiums are based upon probability, and surely it is down to calculations based on collated data that young men DO have more accidents, and women DO tend to live longer. To expect Mrs Adams, young mother and sensible driver dropping her kids off at school, to pay the same as Shane from the corner of the street with his lowered sump and new alloys is surely madness.
Discrimination is a topic that the EU just does not get. In one instance they are doing their utmost to erase it, yet they are also the greatest perpetrators of discriminatory acts. In one breath the term "Islamic Terrorism" has been banned, but the persecution of Christians across the middle east and North Africa has not been officially recognised, only that certain minorities have been victimised, no mention of the religion, please.
Christianity has also become the invisible religion in school diaries commissioned by the EU. The new books, which mark key dates for all other religions, including Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinudism, Chinese religions and Judaism do not even mention Easter and Christmas. Why?
As I said earlier in the article. Discrimination is discrimination, whether "positive" or otherwise.

Moovers and Shakers

2011-02-08T10:30:00.005Z

Potty thinking, but whose idea was it anyway?

Fellow UK MEP Julie Girling was on a rampage over her new theme du jour, Chinese Lanterns and was highlighting the dangers posed to livestock.

Perhaps little did she expect the ensuing debate that would burst forth over magnets put inside cows' stomachs.

Of course, to raise concerns over the growing popularity of what is basically a floating naked flame that could fall anywhere within a reasonable radius of the point of departure, you do not expect then for the Commission to pose the solution of implanting magnets in the stomachs of ruminants. But that is typical of the European Commission. You ask them what the answer to 2 + 2 is and they will tell you it is the same as 1+6 x 18-22 / 4 - 6 / 5. They are paid huge salaries of course, to no doubt "think outside the box"

Whilst I am not a supporter of blanket bans, especially not made by the Commission or anyone else in Brussels, Chinese Lanterns do pose a threat. But it is not only to livestock. Organisers at Glastonbury festival send out patrols to make sure the airborne incendiary devices are not floating over the swathes of canvas that accommodate the thousands of festival goers who buy hundreds of pounds worth of tickets to see their favourite bands, not involuntary pyrotechnical displays.

Similarly can you imagine the consequence of one of these lanterns homing in on an oil refinery, or petrol station? Or tumbling out of the sky onto an unsuspecting jamboree?

Cow magnets does not answer the question.

But that is where the argument ends. Although the proposition is of course ridiculous in the light of the Chinese Lantern issue (and here I will point out that I have not read Ms Girling's written question to the Commission but one must suppose it underlines the particular grievances of UK cattle farmers) it does turn out that Cow Magnets exist and have been used successfully to prevent overzealous ruminants from sufffering internal injuries from the plethora of metallic objects they ingest over the course of a lifetime of indiscriminate munching. And to take the argument any further would see legislation havig to be drawn up to prohibit the use of a myriad metal objects that sneak their way into the countryside.

Wir haben kein Vertrauen in Europa

2011-01-26T12:39:00.004Z

The cornerstones of a good relationship are trust, communication and fidelity. Without these, love alone is not enough to keep a marriage happy.

No, my blog hasn't been commandeered by an over zealous Agony Aunt, relationhip counsillor or spammed by a Thai registered company that is building up to redirect dissatisfied husbands and wives to a site selling suspect medicines.

I am instead referring to the buckles in the EU tracks that could cause the project to derail.

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a recent opinion poll has recorded German public sentiment towards the EU at an all time low. The findings of the survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute show that German citizens' trust in the EU has waned to what would democratically be a near critical level. 63% of respondents had "little or no trst" in the EU, representing a 51% increase since this time last year. Only a quarter had "large trust" in European integration, representing a fall of 37% ten months ago. Meanwhile some 68% of those questioned said they had little or no trust in the single currency.

So what's so urgent about these findings? Surely a similar poll canvassed in the UK would garner such results. But this we, and Brussels, have known for a long, long time. The shock factor here is that not only are Germans historically the EU's stalwarts, but also somewhat of a keystone of the whole project, the lynchpin of the Eurozone economy and the very broad shoulders upon which the weight of the Union's woes are carried. If Germany cracks, well, the whole Union is thrown into jeopardy.

I mentioned earlier, and with a deliberate piquancey, that public opinion was at a democratically dangerous level. Now I am not suggesting the Euro hardballer is about to take to the streets of Berlin and upturn blazing cars and stone police, a la Tunis. I somehow do not equate this with the Germanic poise that made this country such a reliable and effective European ringleader. But democratically, were politics socially reactive in the way that political philosophers believe they ought to be, if affect moved from bottom to top before translating into effect, well this would mean a cataclysmic shift in the shape of the Union. However, any grassroots discontent, as regarded in the equally stoic comportment of the British, is unlikely to even ripple at the bureaucratic level in the Bundestag, and subsequently, Brussels.

It is also thus pertinent to point out that only 4% of those surveyed could correctly answer the question "Who Is Herman Van Rompuy?"

2011-01-25T15:24:00.003Z

What is more surprising? The fact that Baroness Ashton has slotted herself nicely into some sort of legal loophole that prevents her from having to pay full tax or the fact that, despite being born and raised her, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs has not been to Blighty at all in her current capacity as an EU supremo.
Well, neither really.
We shouldn't be surprised that yet again EU fatcats have conjured up ways to keep their claws on greedy stashes of taxpayers money (lest we forget that it is you, the citizen of the EU who is paying her wage and you, the citizen of the cash strapped UK who will not benefit from her withheld taxes). We should also not be surprised that 10 Downing Street is the last place the Labour, Europhile sovereignty sapping High Rep would want to go, well, at least while DC is trying to prove to his backbenchers that he IS serious about placing a stranglehold on the UK-EU power shift.
(I do usually cross reference with the BBC here, that bastion of neutrality of course, who unlike every other media platform in the UK has not reported Ashton loopholegate, so here is the Telegraph's representation)
According to that article: her salary of £230,000 a year(£100,000+ more than Hillary Clinton) is paid at a reduced tax rate that begins at eight per cent and only rises to 45 per cent after an earnings ceiling of £70,000. While the reduced rates are automatic, EU officials can choose to give the difference to the exchequer in their home country, a political party or a charity, but most, including her, do not.
So when she next, along with her cronies, stands up in front of Parliament and argues why the EU needs more money, or finances should be driven into this project, or in that direction, I hope someone points out that she herself could be a bit more honest about the state of her personal finances and the hypocrisy of Eurocrats banging on about the need for more investment from member states, when ultimately, nobody benefits but them.
It has also been in the news recently that the EU are fining British councils a total of around £1bn for misuse of funds etc. This is from the organisation that for a 14th year in a row has not had it's annual accounts signed off by auditors. Worse still is the added insult that under the Localism Bill, councils will be made liable for many of the fines imposed on the UK for breaking EU rules. So that means unsuspecting citizens will see local councils closing libraries, cutting street lighting, not repairing roads, reducing services all because Brussels says we have not spent the money we recoup from our huge membership fees as they wish.
Yet again, the solution isn't hard to imagine...

Can Politicians actually do their job?

2011-01-11T15:09:00.003Z

The Welsh Assembly Government First Minister Carwyn Jones has called upon the public to help him do his job, it would seem. Much like the UK Government's window dressing PR push just after the 2010 election, the European Commission have invited citizens across Europe to put forward their ideas on how structural funds should be spent, applauded and promoted by our man in Wales.
Yet what doesn't quite connect here is that only a few months ago I made a speech to Parliament after going through the 5th report on Cohesion Policy where the future of structural funds and the Commission's intentions were clearly laid out.
In this document it was discussed that there would be a narrowing of policy where Brussels would have rgeater say in here money was spent. It seems a bit odd then that they are turning to members of the public to put forward their ideas. I would imagine the stunt is going to be as useful as the same exercise carried out by UK Government last year. Afterall, the complaints about health and safety have evidentally fallen on deaf ears. Just today I was reading how a Welsh school teacher has been sacked for allowing pupils to use a sledge on school grounds during the snow. He had brought in the sledge to demonstrate design adn technology and clearly thought it was a fun, hands on way to engage with the pupils and bring to life a subject. It is so disappointing that more and more health and safety encroaches on harmless fun.
In the news yesterday too was an argument brewing over who should pay for the port of Angelesey's £60m redevelopment. Westminster says it's devolved, WAG says it isn't. Is this what we should expect from now on? Matters are devolved when it suits WAG but not when it doesn't. Above all, it's highly embarrassing that Politicians go on air and show the voters just how inept they really are. Perhaps someone could file it as a suggestion to the European Commission who seem to have no idea all of a sudden how they wish to spend their structural funds.

What a mess Eur in now...

2010-11-30T10:20:00.006Z

Over recent months the EU has been in the news quite a lot. For a change.
But it's not good news, whatever spin you put on it.
All the critics of the Euro are now champing at the bit to say "I told you so" - but what good will that do?
The single currency could never work across such a disparate collection of states. In order for one currency to stand the test of time, economies must be put on an even keel, which means homogenizing various attributes of trading, lending and business across the board. In order in turn to achieve this sort of commonality, politics too and domestic spending must be equatable. In Greece the cause of collapse has been put down to flagrant overspends of public money and ludicrous under-taxing. In Ireland, it's the reckless lending of banks that have bled the country dry. Spain, Portugal and Italy, and now, so they say, Belgium, are also at risk of falling, connected by a now bitterly devalued currency that will find it tremendously hard to get back on its feet. Surely there can be no future for the Euro, as such problems will come round time and again unless a federal inter-country bloc is established. And it's not just UKIP who detest the thought of that. It goes against the public wishes of nearly every member state. Losing sovereignty is an issue, therefore, so is a single currency.
But this of course poses a problem for the EU, who ultimately want to see deeper integration, a centralised political state of Europe. Without the Euro, what else have the Commission got to justify an onslaught of common legislation? Some might say introducing the Euro before creating a federal state was building the trains before laying the tracks. Derailing was a guarantee.
So what will happen now?
Certainly the EU must cling to the Euro to justify the whole project isn't jeopardized. Even Van Rompuy came out with a sweeping statement to this tune. But clinging isn't as easy as it sounds. If Portugal falls next, the European Central Bank and EU reserves available for bail outs would just cover the costs. But if this happens, what about Spain, with a far bigger balance sheet? The ECB itself risks having to be bailed out and the only economy that could wade in and help is Germany, whose population is already calling for a return to the Deutschmark. Surely in a "democratic" institution, the vox populi should shine through?
Well we are yet to see that happen, on Lisbon, on monetary union, on all sorts. But the next round of national elections in certain countries could see a lot of anti European sentiment develop, and national governments less cooperative than the France and Germany of today who have negotiated setting up a crisis cash reserve for the next loose thread.
Below are some vids of what was a very busy week in Strasbourg. I think that rather than try to write about everything I spoke about, it would be easier to post the clips instead!

Gross misrepresentation

2010-11-16T10:18:00.002Z

You may have seen on the day or subsequent to publication an article in the Daily Mail suggesting I was wrongly claiming daily allowances by signing in to Parliament on the morning of Friday 12th November despite the fact I had a day of meetings to attend before I could leave for Wales.

I want to make clear that I work very hard with my staff to make any claims entirely transparent and in accordance with both the codes of conduct of the Parliament and what I believe is just. I do not and never will over-claim allowances or see paid expenses as a profit making opportunity.

The system in place has plenty of flaws.

I have issued a statement informing the press I am pursuing this matter. I do not accept the implications of what was reported in both the newspaper and by the programme which grossly misrepresented me as a politician and an individual.

The statement reads:

"I strongly refute the suggestion made by the Daily Mail on Saturday 13^th November 2010 and by the Channel Four Dispatches programme on Monday 15^th November 2010 to the effect that on Friday 12^th November 2010 I claimed my daily allowance at the European parliament improperly. I am currently seeking legal advice on this matter."

EU must be joking!

2010-10-21T10:40:00.003+01:00

On the same day that George Osborne delivered to the UK his package on cuts the EU voted to increase their budget by 6%. I can't think of one EU country not having to claw back lost taxpayer contributions that have been swallowed by deficit and similarly wish to reiterate that just weeks ago Brussels passed legislation allowing the EU to fine any country that fails to keep within stipulated limits of debt.

Rumour has it that within the budget increase is an augmented allowance for champagne receptions and limousines.

This is not just a drop in the ocean though. With the EU now making some 75% of our legislation, proposing direct taxation, demanding to scrutinise our budgets and setting up a Foreign Office power is becoming increasingly centralised while the nation states are being subsumed by relinquishing public services to afford massive debts. Whilst some countries have been worth bail outs from Brussels, others haven't, and of course, those that did qualify are all using the doom ridden Euro, the centrepiece of Brussels' federal display.

It's appalling that we are still a member of this ridiculously expensive club and what irritates me further is the Westminster Government being far too complicit in Europe's every whim. Isn't it about time Osborne suggests cutting the UK out of Europe?

If we left Europe there would be no need for cuts at all. Considering the £81 billion of savings George Osborne has outlined for the next five years, it's interesting to point out that our contributions to Brussels over the same period amount to £82 billion. Not only that but billions would be saved on not having to administer EU law, pay child support to EU migrants and provide employment and education for anyone from the other member states wishing to settle here.

At £45 million a day, that works out as £16 million a year. Multiply by five and what do you get?

£45,000,000 x 365 days = £16,425,000,000 per year

5 Years = £82,125,000,000

And those calculations don't even include the 6% budget increase Brussels has ludicrously secured. The numbers surely speak for themselves.

Fight For Funds

2010-10-07T12:12:00.006+01:00

It's not often I go with the begging bowl outstretched in Europe, but when thousands of jobs have been created under the auspices of an EU programme in Wales which is set to be cut in 3 years then I will do my utmost to protect my country.
Regional Development funds, structural funds, convergence, cohesion...It's all been in the press lately as it is becoming clear that East Wales could lose £280m worth of funding after 2013. Martin Shipton ran an article on it in today's Western Mail after meeting with us in Brussels yesterday. Regional Development funding accounts for a significant proportion of the very little the UK actually recoups from soaring membership fees. £280m that is therefore rightfully ours, in Wales, in the first place, given that the UK actually pays some £6bn to Brussels and will likely pay more year on year.
I have addressed the Budget Commissioner over the issue when he came to speak with my Committee on Regional Development. President Barroso recently visited Wales and was escorted around the Assembly on a Structural Funds Presentation. All the Welsh MEPs are working together to make sure that Wales doesn't lose out on the cash, and to guarantee transitory arrangements to protect us socially and economically if Brussels do decide to pull the rug from under our feet.
Below is video of me speaking in Parliament earlier today on the issue.

Keep your eyes on the press too, for they've got wind of the story, and for once, the EU is being reported.

Mandy Hand-me downs

2010-09-27T11:43:00.002+01:00

Disgusted I am at news over the weekend that Lord Mandelson is receiving pay from the EU for doing absolutely nothing. Two years after leaving the post as a commissioner, Mandy is among 17 former commissioners still receiving half of their former salaries. Not only that but it's £8,600 a month!
I mean really, how many other people leave a job and are still getting paid for NOT doing it two years later? It's not like Mandy's been hard up, on the dole, trying to get by from week to week. Even on this half salary he could pay the dole to around 15 people who really did need the support.
It sickens me that at the same time, I am fighting tooth and nail to make sure the EU doesn't pull the plug on funds to Wales which have been in place for years now and are responsible for thousands of jobs, because if the money suddenly disappears God knows what will be flushed down the sink and in what state Wales would be left.
This week a delegation from Welsh Local Government Authority are over in Brussels lobbying for protection of Regional Development monies after 2013 in East Wales and Barroso himself is coming over on Thursday to discuss Structural Funds (and enjoy the golf no doubt). While I am fighting to make sure men and woman struggling in Wales stay in employment, and demanding the UK taxpayer sees some return on the amount of money poured into this undemocratic organisation, it is galling to see the likes of Mandy still receiving 8 grand a week for having sold our country to Brussels.
I suppose his autobiography couldn't have sold that many copies afterall, because surely no one would suggest he was THAT greedy???

Frankenfish and Farce

2010-09-21T11:37:00.006+01:00

I've read today that apparently a new breed of GM salmon could soon be winging its way to Europe and could well be on a table near you very soon. The genetically altered specimen grows twice as fast as a normal fish and has been approved by American authorities as safe for human consumption. We already face encroaching widespread fish farming as Brussels' Common Fisheries Policy drains our oceans of stock, but the thought of genetically modified farmed fish makes my skin crawl.
GM crops are one thing, but man made fish is surely taking the laws of nature and totally ripping up the rule book. European legislation suggests each member state is able to decide how much they wish to use genetic modification, but does put a ban on cloning. However with the amount of meat and fish brought in from third countries via trade deals, and repackaged and sold in supermarkets, it is likely at some point the Frankenfish will descend on Europe. Chilling.

Meanwhile whilst we are facing cuts a plenty here in the UK, Baroness Ashton has the cheek to demand an eight per cent budget increase for her new EU External Action Service (read here "EU Foreign Affairs".) Not only is there surely no room to maneouvre for a so called external service when foreign affairs is supposed to remain a sovereign dependency, but whilst the rest of Europe scrimps and saves post recession, the good Baroness has thrown frugality out of the window.

I received a big cheer from the hemicycle today after once again pointing out to the wasteful Commission that few MEPs can see the worth in travelling all the way to Strasbourg once a month (or even twice, as it has been this month) to hold debates which could more easily and cheaply be conducted in Brussels. Why we transport thousands of staff with a cargo of trunks packed with documents across the continent to a rather grandiose building used but 12 times a year, all funded by the taxpayer, I surely don't know. It is an absolute farce and should really rile the hardworking citizens of Europe who are seeing public services cut, taxes raised, prices shoot up all under the watchful eye of the supposedly austere European Commission.

It's more a case of "do as I say" not "do as I do" and quite frankly it has to stop. This issue unites MEPs from all countries and parties, other than a handful of French whose country no doubt benefits from the monthly circus coming to town. I thought the Gallic trend was currently to evict workshy, tax-feeding foreigners? Perhaps not!

Publish Post

I am, and I'm not.

2010-09-16T10:59:00.002+01:00

Ok, ok, forgive us our sins oh mighty BBC!
To err is human, and being able to laugh at ourselves, well, that's something essential if you are to stay sane in the world of politics. There's always a scrum of journalists waiting for the smallest slip up.
My ever industrious press officer issued a statement on my behalf yesterday and missed the vital word "not"in the opening sentence. That is, she failed to put the not in "I am NOT standing in the leadership contest."
Yet the rest of the statement was typed to perfection and one would think the sentences that followed explaining my decision not to stand would have elucidated the fact that the exclusion of a negative in the opening sentence was a typo. It's surely happened to us all hasn't it? And the poor girl is suffering rather grizzly sounding aberrations of the cornea at the moment, leaving her somewhat partially sighted and struggling at the mercy of a computer screen.
To clarify the matter she quickly hurried out an amendment. By that time however the blogpost was almost at fruition, and it would be a shame to let a good joke go.
Thankfully we both find it funny.
But just to clarify
I am NOT standing.
Got it Betsan?

Betsan Powys Blog:
"Another race, another set of bookies' odds - this time the UKIP leadership, which John Bufton MEP is 5-1 on to take. But he's not standing. Or is he?
He's just released a statement in which "the MEP for Wales believes he must clarify that he is taking part in the leadership contest".
That's clear then. He is.
"While I am of course flattered to hear that I have received backing to be UKIP's next leader I must reiterate that I will not at this time be nominating myself as a candidate for the role".
So he's not?
As I type, the statement has just been re-sent: "Statement from John Bufton MEP on UKIP Leadership contest (with slight amendment)".
The "slight" amendment? "Not". Got it?

Last Post

2010-09-10T11:24:00.003+01:00

For years now people have been campaigning about the closures of local post offices. But rarely in the protests have you heard criticism of the EU.

Yes, successive Governments have stripped support away from the psot office. They've failed to help Royal Mail modernise as more and more licensing applications are done online, benefits paid directly into the bank account and so forth. The post office needed revolutionising and it just didn't happen.

But the real threat to the Royal Mail was the EU Postal Services Directive, which ordered under competition law for the delivery of mail to be privatised. Without this, the Post Office was left with no choice but to rely on taxpayer's money to stay open, money which over the years has been withdrawn.

I presented this argument to the European Commission yesterday stating:

"When the EU ordered the postal sector open up to competition it destroyed a vital British service. As a sovereign nation our post offices were run by Royal Mail and linked with national savings, licensing, welfare and pension collection to name a few.

In 1975 we had 25,000 post offices, now there are less than 12,000, despite a population boom. After being forced to sell off its profit making arm, post offices couldn’t stay open without government support. Thousands shut, stripping communities of access to vital services.

The EU postal reform says good-quality postal services should be available throughout the Union. That is exactly what we had.

“It’s a disgrace to strip Britain of an efficient public service merely to satisfy Competition law. Do you wish to privatise the NHS too? The UK must be allowed to fully opt out.”

In 2008, our Government commissioned an independent review of the Postal Service. The Hooper report warned that a forced restructuring under European law would be highly likely. That same author today is advising Westminster that the only option left for Royal Mail now is to sell it off completely.

Government support for post offices was withdrawn, causing widespread closure of vital sub post offices isolating whole communities from access to necessary services.

It’s another example of erroneous EU law interfering with a perfectly suitable British model.

Successive Governments in Westminster have let down the postal service by failing to move with the times and account for technological developments. But what this has done is leave the door wide open for Brussels to march in and destroy Royal Mail and the postal service sector entirely.”

Today, Richard Hooper, who authored the report in December 2008, will recommend the Westminster Government that a sell-off is now the only way to raise the money to modernise the service, threatening huge job loss and massive service disruption.

Time Away

2010-09-09T10:20:00.005+01:00

Summer recess gave people plenty of time to stew over the state of politics across Europe. It’s been a period of financial turmoil across the globe, leading to turning points in public opinion as nationalism has been pitched against internationalism. Aid to Pakistan only crept in, despite the flooding being one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the last decade, with many citing the impacts of the recovering global economy while others pointed the finger at the country’s international standing. What many voters seem to want to hear amid cuts, growing unemployment and escalating public debt is that charity starts at home. None more so, would it seem, than the Germans. Wearied by the weight of the Eurozone leaning upon German austerity for bail-outs, many Germans no longer want to be the piggy bank for the continent. Support for the European Union has plummeted to its lowest level across the continent. Greeks feel imprisoned in an economic stranglehold by Brussels, France has taken action over the country’s Roma population despite heavily furrowed brows in Brussels and Iceland, once a keen prospective member of the EU, has gone to war with Scotland over mackerel quotas, not only potentially decimating the North Sea’s population of the fish, but also their chances of entering the EU any time soon. So it is absolutely perfect timing for the budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski to state in a German newspaper that the UK rebate was no longer justifiable. Perhaps he was trying to soothe the embittered German public by suggesting the second biggest contributor to the EU would also be made to cough up more taxpayers’ money. But this is surely a fight he cannot win. Without the rebate, the UK's contribution as a percentage of national income would double that of France and be one-and-a-half times the size of Germany's. Already we have seen the rebate halved from 6 billion to 3 billion euro under Blair. Yet even with our rebate intact, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility the UK contribution is set to treble. The £3bn paid in to Brussels in 2009 will soar to a massive £8.2bn by 2015, despite many Government departments being asked to make cuts of up to 40 per cent. Not only that, a queue of poor countries knocking on the door to be let in to the EU, bringing with them roads that need resurfacing, town centres that need regenerating and millions of underpaid or unemployed workers with free passage to the UK will only exacerbate the levelling off of wealth across the Union.

But it’s not just direct cash payments and loss of jobs that has such a detrimental impact on our lives. Everywhere you turn Europe is casting a shadow over the way things are run in this country. Huge pharmaceutical companies are profiting from enormous price hikes on life saving medication, meaning essential drugs cannot be afforded by the NHS. EU laws that permit exclusive licenses to drugs manufacturers mean pharmaceuticals can hold the patents for specific drugs and place any price tag on their retail that they wish.

The working time directive is haunting the pages of the press again, with scores of UK doctors coming out against the impact the imposed 48 hour week has had on patient care. It’s suggested up to a quarter of junior doctors are leaving their training within 2 years, many to take up posts in other English speaking countries. The European legislation limiting individuals to a maximum working time has seen the NHS shake up rotas to make sure senior medics are on call during busy and stressful times, leaving junior doctors to work the majority of night shifts and weekends without proper supervision and guidance.

It’s remarkable to me that while high profile legislation such as the working time directive attracts media interest in retrospect, once the damage is done, very little is publicised prior to adoption, meaning rarely do members of the public get to protest against laws from Brussels before they are galvanised. Despite this, the European Commission, not content with media apathy, are seeking to revolutionise the President of the Commission’s communications staff to ensure Mr Barroso raises his profile across the Union. He will have a TV producer and photographer at hand 24 hours a day and a team of staff to monitor the blogosphere and quash any unpopular comment that may arise. All afforded by the taxpayer. The Commission will also pay journalists to follow Barroso on foreign trips. Yet this week in Parliament, the Commission has had the audacity to raise the issue of freedom of expression in the European media. It seems they are increasingly unhappy with certain state owned publications and insist that newspapers should be free from partisan patriarchs. That is despite having spent some eight million euros themselves on entertaining and “training” journalists, particularly in Ireland around the time of the illegal second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

http://vod.europarl.europa.eu/nasvod01/vod0409/2010/wm/VODUnit_20100906_21041600_21055300.wmv

Hard Times in Brussels

2010-08-10T10:49:00.004+01:00

The days of bank staff packing their desks into trays and leaving work for the last time under a flurry of camera flashes may be gone, but the age of austerity now approaches, with news that food, fuel and, well, pretty much everything, is subject to a price hike while pay is frozen and more public service jobs cut.
Meanwhile the front page of FT Deutschland reported yesterday that EU Budegt Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski has suggested he is to put forward a range of options for DIRECT TAX to fund the EU from September. Possible taxes could include a tax on bank transactions and a tax on air travel. He is also quoted as saying about the UK rebate that "the justification...is much less convincing than it used to be" adding that "If the EU had more of its own revenues then transfers from national budgets could be reduced." He cited Germany as a country hoping to reduce their contribution *unsurprisingly I may add, as she currently pays in the most and ahead of the UK, is the primary net contributor. She has also recently been stung as the emergency purse when Eurozone economies get into trouble.
But DIRECT TAX? Do I need to repeat that?
Bad enough that the Labour Government handed back around a quarter of our rebate, to which we qualified by paying in far more than we receive in return. If we forego the rest of the rebate we can expect to pip Germany to pole position on being the bank of Europe. Meanwhile, next year when Romanians are entitled to free EU migration we can surely expect to be handing over even more jobs to non UK workers while writing out the cheques to improve their roads and welfare. We'll soon see the mettle of Cameron's pledges on so-called Referendum Locks. It will be interesting to see how much he packs below his Tory Chastity belt.
And to make matters worse, we have busted the EU for even more frivolous waste. UKIP revealed all Brussels officials and politicians can get Viagra for free if needed and can even claim for Heroin replacement Methadone under the European Commission scheme. They are also entitled to penile implants. Official guidelines for claims read: "Treatments with Viagra will from now on be reimbursable." The document also says drugs used for withdrawal and narcotics treatments for addicts can also be fully reimbursed "at the rate of 100 per cent for a maximum of six months."
Hard times indeed.

EU and hot air, now there's a familiar blend

2010-07-12T13:48:00.005+01:00

It's the last week of activity for MEPs before Brussels closes down for the summer to reopen again in September, giving MEPs time to work in their constituencies. The dates aren't too dissimilar from school holidays, but wonder how many school children of today will be able to retire at 60 with a guaranteed, average healthy pension of £60,000, that's costing Britain some £135 million? So whilst they demand Europeans be realistic about having to work longer and retire on less, they make sure that they are exempt from this? Typical EU hypocrisy.

Meanwhile under EU regulations, foreign nurses can no longer be subject to competency tests in the UK, as this is deemed to breach EU law on the freedom of movement of workers. The Nursing and Midwifery Council have been told they will be SUED if the tests continue to be administered. This means thousands of NHS workers cold move to the UK and operate without prior checks on their fitness to perform in or healthcare sector.Rigoruous competence exams previously made sure foreign nurses were able to effectively treat patients in Britain according to our stringent healthcare rules. We have already seen a number of cases documented by the press where foreign medical staff have failed to diagnose and treat UK patients to the standards we expect, leading to huge downfalls in the delivery of care. I am not suggesting foreign medical staff are at all incompetent, bt they must be subject to the same watertight checks that apply to doctors and nurses that have been trained in the UK to assure patients of their ability to serve correctly.Without these tests it's even possible foreign nurses will no longer be required to show they have even looked after patients in the past three years It's frightening stuff.

And finally, if that's not enough hot air for you, it seems you may be producing your own if the latest imports approved by the EU end up on your breakfast table.
Camels milk from the UAE has passed the first stage of an EU approval to allow sale in British shops. The European Commission will send experts to assess milk producers in the Middle East in order to allow exports to EU countries as early as the start of next year, including camel chocolate, cheese, and ice cream. According to health experts, as well as its high mineral and vitamin content, research has suggested that antibodies in camels' milk can help fight diseases like cancer, HIV/Aids and Alzheimers.However I've also heard rumours that if it's not something you're familiar with, it wont half make you break wind...

Voting Crime

2010-06-16T13:28:00.003+01:00

Press Release John Bufton MEP for Wales

16/06/2010

***No Embargo***

EU DRIVING UK MAD!

Independent Drivers now laboured by un-necessary regulatory burdens because of EU hyper-regulation

John Bufton, UKIP MEP for Wales said today after a vote on the Bauer report:

“I’m really saddened that the Committee managed to get this piece of unnecessary regulation pushed through. The sort of bureaucracy being churned out by the EU is at the very least a gratuitous waste of time and money, and at worst a stranglehold on business and infringement of civil liberties.

“UKIP all voted to exclude independent drivers from this latest slice of EU over-governance. We are completely opposed to the uber-regulation coming out of Brussels and the barrage of laws made by a political class who know very little about earning a living in the real world.

“It’s absolutely disgusting that so many British MEPs voted in favour of these regulations, and would encourage those affected to challenge their local MEP on where they stood on this matter and who they believe they are actually representing – their constituents or the growing number of bureaucrats in Belgium.”

Notes to Editors:

Independent broadcast quality television and/or radio coverage of this story can be arranged free of charge via Quadrant. For TV interviews and other footage please contact Senior Producer Andrea Mott on 0032 (0) 496 381 402 or andrea-mott@quadrant.uk.com. For radio coverage please contact Producer/Journalist Georg von Harrach on 0032 (0) 495 205 801 or georg.vonharrach@quadrant.uk.com.

For further information, stills, or to arrange an interview with John Bufton MEP please contact:

Alexandra Phillips

Press Officer for John Bufton MEP

+44 7 888 66 7893

+4429 20 444 060

alex@johnbuftonmep.com

http://www.johnbufton.eu/“Hustles in Brussels” http://hustlesinbrussels.blogspot.com/

Cloaks and Daggers

2010-06-16T10:00:00.012+01:00

Another month, another Parliament in Strasbourg and another mass migration from Belgium to Eastern France of MEPs, assistants, lawyers, journalists and trunks and trunks of paperwork.
On the agenda for June is the Working Time Directive, this time manifesting itself in the sector of self employed drivers. The controversial 48 hour working week posited by the Commission has been kept out of UK law for the last decade due to a veto in the area of social affairs and employment. Yet following the accession of a new Commissioner for Social Affairs last year, there is pressure, particularly from the member states who have adopted the EU’s stringent policy on working time, to force the UK to kowtow to Brussels.
Extending the working time directive to cover self employed people is nonsensical. The policy is sold on the premise of protecting employee’s rights and therefore has no place in a self-employed framework. Yet the Committee would have you believe it was a matter of safety, disregarding regulation 561 which already covers driving time and is applicable to both large companies, small businesses and the self employed. This is instead a matter of advancing this unpopular legislation sector by sector.

Everything directly related to the business would be considered part of Working Time, for example, paperwork, maintenance and general administration. In large firms people are employed to do this, therefore administration time has no impact on driving time. Self employed drivers however must do their own administration and would find under the directive’s conditions little time left to do the driving itself.
I raised this issue in Parliament and will most certainly be voting to maintain the directive as it currently stands, and continue to fight against the expansion of the Working Time Directive, which acts more as a stranglehold on independent firms and arguably the right for people to choose the hours that they wish to work.

Also on the agenda this month is a discussion about the Schengen Information System. The Schengen Agreement was signed in 1985 between five of the ten member states of the then European Community: Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. It allowed passport free travel between those countries involved and to date consists of 25 European countries, covering a population of over 400 million people and an area of more than one and a half square million miles. The UK as well as Ireland opted out of the agreement yet we do however participate in the Schengen Information System, which is a network of some half a million computers across the EU which share data on people, their movements and so forth in a bid to tackle the heightened possibility for crime that naturally come with border –free travel.

Currently Romania and Bulgaria are gearing up to ascend to the Schengen information system. Yet the question is whether adding more computers and more countries to the pack would jeopardise security further. Around a half of all computers at some point are victims of hacking. The booty for a computer criminal wishing to access such sensitive data is of course of immense value, and the more systems linked in, the greater the chance of access. Similarly, the passport free flow of people is not only convenient for businessmen and tourists traveling across the continent, but equally serves a growing population of traffickers and international crime lords. In order to combat this risk, the amount our everyday lives can be policed would most certainly have to deepen. Can we really be sure these countries are ready to adhere to the sort of technical standards demanded by such a sensitive system? Who will afford the development of their own networks? The current Schengen Information System relies heavily on the efficacy of each member state in monitoring and then sharing vital information. There is a great deal of trust involved, not only to do the job properly in each country, but to handle the data collected with respect and care.
Even though we never agreed to be part of Schengen, the necessity to cooperate with the information system due to visa free movement across the EU, means your data, as well as the data of people in 26 other countries, is accessible to people from Norway, to Greece and soon to Bulgaria and Romania.

Add to that a rather slimy rumour circulating the continental blogosphere about links between Jose Manuel Barroso, Commission President and EFG, Greece's No. 3 bank controlled by Greek billionaire Spiros Latsis on whose yacht Mr Barroso holidayed in recent times, a sin that saw even that nine-lived Mandelson lose his job, prior to another resurrection. This bank has been seemingly profiting from the Greek bail out
and Greece´s richest private banker, one Mr Latsis, who holds a 40 per cent stake in the Greece- Eurobank EFG Group.

And so I proposed during question hour a very reasonable question, that of whether this friendship could cause a conflict of interest. But just like a year 7 pupil trying to chastise the Headmaster, I was strictly informed that my question's insinuation was out of order and didn't warrant any sort of reply. A very cunning, and simple way to avoid sharing the true facts, one might assume.

- Politically speaking... with John Bufton, MEP

2010-06-07T15:22:00.000+01:00

- Politically speaking... with John Bufton, MEP

A Tough Crowd, but they seem pleased enough

2010-06-07T15:19:00.003+01:00

I've linked through to an article< I did for Wales Home, a popular largely political website where I will now have a monthly column.

Similarly I write regularly in the County Times, (see the post above) the Mid Wales Journal, Wrexham Evening leader, Abergavenny Chronicle and Cambrian news. Rather than rehash those columns, I will simply refer to them using the blog. Apologies for not updating sooner, but as you can tell I have been kept busy scribing for other publications|!

Friends in London, enemies in Brussels?

2010-06-01T13:12:00.001+01:00

It seems we are still in the post election honeymoon period, with right and left wing newspapers desperate for ructions in the corridors of power at Westminster. But dig as they may, the Number Ten Press machine has so far successfully managed to hold the majority of criticisms at bay. But as soon as a sneeze goes unblessed a troupe of eager lobby reporters will splatter the pages with rumours and suggestions.

But perhaps they are barking up the wrong tree. A more fractious relationship is likely to be found in Brussels, where two sets of MEPs inhabit very different political groups in the European Parliament. Friends in Westminster but enemies in Europe makes little sense.

The Eurozone financial crisis is already causing ructions between Europhiles and Europhobes and rich and the poor member states, and could also see a face off between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Germany, always the stalwart of cooperation in Europe, are becoming increasingly vocal about bail outs and dependence on German prosperity. They do, afterall, have to host Eurovision next year!

The Greek bail out saw the invocation of Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty, which cites natural disasters and exceptional circumstances as justifications for bailing out an ailing member state. Greek fiscal flippancy rather stretches the interpretation and application of this legislation, and would likely require a switch from unanimous to qualified majority voting over future bail-outs. This would amount to a stitch up for countries without the Euro, outnumbered by Eurozone states 16 to 11. The question is whether this would demand re-ratification of the constitutional treaty, something the Commission would hope to waiver at all costs, and the event of which would place the pen firmly in the hand of William Hague. It would bring the main bone of contention for the Westminster coalition to the fore: our relationship with the EU. Cameron’s pledge to offer referenda on certain European legislation could well be put to the test.

Europe’s President, Herman Van Rompuy, has come out with rather spectacular comments about the nature of single currency, suggesting European citizens were ill informed that sharing a single currency was more than just making life easier when doing business or travelling abroad. In his own words he stated that “Being in the euro zone means, monetarily speaking, being part of one ‘Euroland’.” I hate to say we told you so, but we did.

But it’s not just the single currency that drags a country’s politics down into a common quagmire of Uber-governance. The £470billion in taxpayer-funded loans or guarantees is yet to quell the financial haemorrhaging of certain Eurozone countries and is having a knock on effect on Britain, shaving some £33billion pounds off the face value of British companies as the markets continue to bet against the Euro and our main trading partners. The old adage about putting all your eggs in one basket is startling apparent.

On top of this Britain is likely to face a new wave of EU migration as plans to pass visa free movement of Bosnians and Albanians are awaiting clearance from the European Parliament. Just as the new Government draws up plans on immigration, job creation and so forth, the likelihood of unpredicatable numbers of jobless eastern Europeans coming our way underpins the fragility of UK sovereignty in the face of an increasingly federalist EU.

However, there is also some more positive news emanating from Brussels this week. First of all, a victory on the situation of electronic identity tagging for sheep, the costly and complicated scheme forced upon farmers at a time when agriculture is suffering under the weight of recession. I campaigned long and hard to block the legislation, and then mitigate its affects after it was steam-rolled through. There will be a three year amnesty on cross compliance penalties to allow farmers to adjust to the new system. A small, but very important, victory for Wales.

And on the same note another success came in the news that proposals I fought on removing legislation allowing independent car repairers access to technical information have been scrapped. This means car manufacturers cannot use warranties to bind you to dealerships. Small independent garages must by law have access to all the data and parts they need to repair your vehicle. Without this important exemption in competition regulation for the motor industry, you would find yourself bound to taking your car to costly dealerships for repair where manufacturers could charge whatever they want for maintaining your vehicle.

Protecting UK interests in Europe is rather like practising your serve at the tennis club. Increasing numbers of shots are fired at a faster and faster pace, and all we can do is just keep slogging them out of court.

CON-DEM-NATION

2010-05-12T15:30:00.005+01:00

As the camera trained upon the two lecterns in the rose garden of 10 Downing Street, panning across the congregation of journalists in two seating blocks, one almost expected Mr and Mr Camerclegg to come bouncing up the aisle under a flurry of confetti to Mendelssohn's Wedding March.
What we got wasn't far off a Civil Partnership ceremony.
But the question is, how can a coalition of Lib Dems and Conservatives operate in Brussels when the two inhabit such diametrically different groups? Friends in Westminster, enemies in Europe, would not make sense if both purport to work in the interests of the country.
Add to that the fact that the Greek Bailout has seen the invocation of article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty, which cites natural disasters and exceptional circumstances as justification for a bail out (an intellectual stretch if you ask me) would also see the need to switch from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting over future bail-outs (a stitch up, considering Eurozone countries outnumber non-Euro member states 16 to 11). Surely this would demand re-ratification of the dreaded Lisbon Treaty, with the pen firmly in the hand of William Hague.
The bone of contention, battle ground and lamb to slaughter or Gaza strip of this coalitition is our membership of the EU.
But will we get a referendum?

Anarchy,,,Or something like it

2010-05-10T12:36:00.004+01:00

anarchy from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader" noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless" from an- "without" + arkhos "leader"

So this is it. This is what the punks of the eighties screamed for. The restless rumbling of an underbelly of discontent has broken through to the surface and caused constitutional breakdown in the UK. The voters said "no" to Government, and were left, leaderless and in the wilderness.

But here we are, heading to work on a Monday morning wondering when the election coverage will be over so we can have some "real"news back on telly, and God forbid another election be called, which would put the schedule for airing The Apprentice back yet more months.

If this were Thailand, France or even America, (actually, any other place in the world that is not The British Isles), there would at least be a restless crowd in coloured T-Shirts waving placards in Trafalgar Square. As it stands all the riots, petrol bombs, chants and mob rule are reserved for Athens, that cornerstone of Western Philosophy and the ancient home of Western Civilization, because people have been told their pensions will be reduced and they must start paying tax.

What's wrong with you, UK? We have no Government! Tear up your council tax bills, take a day off and go guffawing in the rare spot of sunshine we are set to enjoy this week, exploiting your Post Lockean civil liberties in our Constitution-less country!*

But something tells me this is not in the British psyche. And something tells me it never has been.

When Henry VIII drew up a whole new religion for the country for his own convenience, tore down monasteries, chopped the heads of his wives and ate so many swans his waistline demanded its own postcode, the good people of the country probably just stuck at digging their potatoes, shearing their sheep and postulating what the following week's weather had in store. Similarly when Queen Victoria demanded prudency be applied to lounge furniture, with every table and chair in the country forbidden from flashing a naked ankle, we all covered up like Quakers and continued to toil away at our work like boil in the bag kippers with nothing more than a mild grumble.

In fact, the most social outrage I have seen in recent years was over foxes.

So is the problem the Politicians, or is this just a reflection of a peculiar British mindset that regards Politics as a sort of ineffectual ceremonial production absent from the concerns or real life?

John Milton once observed that "Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; or no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them"

I guess therefore that Governance is an inevitability, as is, so it would seem, stability. Perhaps it is the product of centuries of Parliament, the creation of which witnessed the very last Civil War on British soil, that has led to the accepting apathy of the British voterate. We will have a Government. They will rule us. And life is unlikely to be very different from how it is now.

The irony in this observation is that, actually, scratch below what the papers tell us we think, and you will find an unidentified yet unerring trust in our Government. Yes, you read that right. Trust.

Because you know, and I know, that whatever sort of Government is formed from the wreckage of the 2010 election, death, disease, poverty, starvation, conflict and persecution are unlikely to be on the menu.

We are one of the only countries in the world that does not automatically label our police force as corrupt. One of the only countries where, although we may grumble about the NHS, we are safe in the knowledge that if we are struck down by a bus tomorrow, one thing we can be guaranteed is not receiving a massive medical bill in the post. One of the only countries where literacy is pretty much a social guarantee. One of the only countries where racism takes the form of a one-eyed, Oxford educated, Gruffalo lookalike who's allowed to appear on prime time TV and use the word "indigenous" with caution.

What I'm trying to say is, actually, the reason why this anarchy is slipping by unnoticed is because it has no place in Britain, whatsoever, in the pejorative sense.

So looking today at the European Commission's Eleventh Hour rescue package for the Euro, worth €750bn, of which Britain has ended up indirectly having to commit UK taxpayer's cash (it's rather useful that there's an election going on in the UK, without resolution, isn't it Mr Barosso?) it strikes me as even more appalling that the 27 member states are having to cowtow to Greek debt problems brought upon by poor Governance.

Look at us! We have debt worth more than Sir Elton John's wardrobe. We have no Government. We have the most overcrowded cities in Europe and a couple of million immigrants sponging up our spare cash. But we're able to hold it all together. In fact, falling apart hasn't even crossed our minds. Yet our European counterparts plot revolt in the playground the minute rumours start to flow about milk money cuts.

Do we really want to share laws, ideals and policies (and our cash!) with these countries, when we have demonstrated without celebration or expectation of praise that we are the most sorted society in the Western World, even in times of constitutional crisis?

It's like our mothers used to warn us, it does no good to be associating with a bad crowd. They will only drag you down to their level.

*Locke used the claim that men are naturally free and equal as part of the justification for understanding legitimate political government as the result of a social contract where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better insure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property. Since governments exist by the consent of the people in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, governments that fail to do so can be resisted and replaced with new governments.

Heavy Handed Governance

2010-04-27T15:25:00.004+01:00

I am again to take umbrage at the way Brussels want to rule with an iron fist.
Yet this time it's about a rather controversial topic - smacking.

You may recall I wrote about the EU ordering the UK to give prisoners the vote the other month. Well, the issue of smacking is not too distant from the controversies of corporal punishment in that it all boils down to so-called human rights an the UK's relationship with them.

Few naive Brits I would imagine perceive their country to be backdated, illiberal, even cruel or abusive to rights. I think a lot of people, foreigners included, would see Britain as one of the most tolerant, modern and liberal countries in the World. Yet a great deal of what is entrenched within the norms of British culture are now being overturned and dragged out into the open by Europe and condemned. Are we really an abusive country?

When it comes to corporal punishment, or "smacking" which seems to me a more apt label, people are split down the middle. Children's charities would say adults are better protected by law than children and that it should be a legal matter to outline that you must not hit a child. Some parents on the other hand would shudder at the possibility that they could be criminally charged for the way they discipline their child. And a great deal more would say, well, what is the point in even raising this as it is totally unpoliceable.

In fact, in Wales, the Assembly have already tried to pass legislation on smacking only to find it blocked by Westminster on the basis of devolved policy areas.

The UK are one of the only nations in the EU that does not ban smacking outright. The policy we have here is that it is outlawed in public spaces and schools but not in the family home.

Interestingly you will see that France, with it's big red landmass, does not outlaw corporal punishment at all.

For me, the question again boils down to, not whether or not we should be having the debate, but that it should not be up to another country or political body to tell the UK how to legislate in this area. The reason I say this is because so much of how we behave, what we consider decent, and how we apply legislation that turns particular actions into an offense is based upon culturally relative maxims. By this I mean what is good and right in one country is not perceived as good and right in another, and talk of blanket human rights are both infringing, dangerous and are best left to religion. Of course there are standards of behaviour and a standard of living we believe everyone is entitled to, but when particular "rights" start being turned into legislation, here is where we have a problem.

It is blanket rights that give most prisoners a more comfortable standard of living than the working man. It is rights that see rapists fight deportation, sex offenders ask to be removed from the register and migrants claim your garden shed as their home.

So what could be the downside of legislation on corporal punishment?
First of all let's not assume that children are all naive. There are many children and young offenders who would use such a ban against victims of crime, turning them into perpetrators of violence. False accusations would fly, costly cases and relationships between parent and child would be open to policing. Many parents struggling to deal with unruly children or immensely difficult situations could suddenly find themselves reported for child abuse.

Mild smacking is permitted under a "reasonable chastisement" defense against common assault in Britain. But contact that causes a physical manifestation, such as bruising, swelling, cutting, carries with a jail sentence of up to 5 years. But in the views of the Council of Europe deputy secretary, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, this constitutes reasonable violence against children.

Whether you are a smacker or not, whether you were smacked or not, whether you agree with smacking or not, it's a very difficult and sensitive issue where the rights of the child and protection of the parent's powers must be balanced. And Europe dictating our legislation from afar is the one clear way to make sure that such equilibrium is never met.

Embracing modern technology through necessity

2010-04-22T15:26:00.006+01:00

Apologies for a long period since posts. It's so unbelievably busy in UK politics, and trying to mix that with the Brussels agenda would mean needing 34 hours in a day!
It's been chaos and confusion with the ash cloud grounding flights and Parliament ballsing up this month's voting.

I've grilled Baroness Ashton over her views on the Falklands ahead of an EU summit with Latin America.

I've attacked the Commission over Common Asylum Policy.

And have opposed the transfer of millions of peoples personal and banking details from the EU to America.

And that's as well as radio, tv, election launch, magazines, papers and general political heave-ho.

So please excuse my absence, and rather than allow me to write an epic blog post of everything I have said or done, let the power of multi-platform media give you verbatim all of the week's action! Feel free to comment on what you see and hear

Cardiff Yacht Club sees it's best launch yet

2010-04-15T11:30:00.002+01:00

Yesterday we launched the UKIP Manifesto in Wales at Cardiff Yacht Club. Lord Pearson came across to speak, and I also had a little podium time.

Below is pretty much what I said:

How can they afford it all?

That’s the question being asked to all the parties.

They can’t.

They won’t.

Their promises are all empty.

Totally and utterly meaningless.

To pretend that the UK Government is the master of our country’s destiny is a deception.

Schools, post offices, hospitals, the law, the economy, business, trade, agriculture.

Everything in some way is connected to Brussels.

Westminster have so few powers left to enforce policy, it’s all just talk.

That’s why the central issue in this election must be membership of Europe.

UKIP are the only party to represent the majority view on this.

Repeatedly the British public show in polls and debates they do not want to be controlled by Brussels. Bearing in mind that the level of control the European Union exercise over us is heavily concealed, I am certain that figure would be far, far higher if the British Government had been honest with it’s people.

The Tories pledge to cut £6bn pounds of Government spending next year.

They will take this from your pay packet, close your local hospital, strip down the police, and lean on then taxpayer to not only pay off the debt, but happily accept this imposed frugality just after they’ve all been caught in Westminster unscrupulously filling their pockets with your money!

None of the parties are suggesting we would save £10 billion a year alone in EU membership currently affording schools, post offices, hospitals, new businesses, better roads, trade and agriculture in the other 26 member states.

You pay for all that.

Why are they giving your money to them, when we so desperately need it here?

Why should you, the British taxpayer, have to level off wealth across Europe, when you’re struggling to make ends meet?

That’s why the UK has never seen a referendum on Europe. We would all want out. But it’s not going to happen unless you vote UKIP.

Immigration.

Without doubt a key issue in this year’s election.

Under the labour Government, millions of people came to live in the UK, to enjoy a standard of living paid for by you. Every person living here, sending money back to their home country, is plundering the real economy, money earned and spent in Britain, like a constantly dripping tap.

The immigration policies of the other parties are like saying “we’ll monitor who comes in through the back door, but leave the front door wide open for anyone in Europe who wishes to come.”

They mean nothing at all while free movement of people in the European Union continues to see thousands file into the UK everyday looking to enjoy our higher wages, child support, free medical care, free education and all the other things our country has to offer.

Yes, we believe the UK is great and yes, lots of people want to come and live here, but it’s your country, but we won’t be able to support ourselves if the population gets much bigger.

That’s why we want a five year freeze on anyone wanting to settle here.

There’s not enough space.

There are not enough jobs.

There are not enough hospital beds, school places, social housing and money to go around.

We spend millions on translation costs, welfare support to children who don’t even live in the UK and have seen our national identity crumble at the mercy of political correctness.

Who are we?

What will we become?

We are told if we leave the European Union we’ll be nothing.

Who says?

We have the 6^th largest economy in the world.

London is the global financial capital.

We are a member of the G8 and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

It is Europe who needs us, not us who need them.

This is clear even by glancing at the Brussels budget: we put far more in than anybody and get far less back.

Westminster are giving your money to Brussels, who give it to people who live thousands of miles away.

I’m going to be totally straight with you.

It simply has to stop.

Some 120,000 directives from Brussels shape your daily life.

You won’t see any of these appearing in the manifestos of the other parties because there is absolutely nothing at all a UK Government can do if we don’t leave Europe.

The hours you work

The price you pay to heat your house.

The food you buy and eat.

Even the very laws that govern how you are expected to live are now made outside the UK.

It takes one judge in Luxembourg to overturn a British legal ruling and hundreds of years of British justice are reduced to nothing.

In truth, Westminster has about as much power as a corridor prefect in school.

The Headmaster lives in Brussels.

The true cost of the EU, per year, is around one hundred and twenty billion pounds a year.

That’s twenty times more than the Tories say they want to cut by dipping into your pockets.

If we left Europe, not only would we be able to control our future once more, every man, woman and child would directly benefit from all the money we could put back into the lives of each and every individual who contributes to life in the UK.

But we’re not a party that simply wants to leave Europe.

It is necessary to do this first and foremostly, but there are plenty more areas in which we represent the unrepresented.

We speak everyone who feels that nobody speaks for them.

We believe in selective education, nuclear power, an end to so-called devolution and unnecessary over governance.

We are committed to policies that would directly affect Wales.

Policies that will strengthen communities, enrich lives, protect individual interests and inspire the young.

Policies that actually mean something.

Take nuclear power. We have always been proponents of this highly efficient, advanced, renewable energy as opposed to inefficient, costly, unreliable and ugly wind turbines that blight the horizon.

It may have been fashionable to stick turbines everywhere but it was premature and silly.

Look at the announcement of a new power station at Wylfa? This will bring hundreds of much needed jobs to the area and provide renewable electricity for thousands and thousands of homes.

Now let’s look at devolution.

We are the only party in Wales that says no to the Welsh Assembly.

No to more jobs for the boys.

No to costly over governance and make believe democracy.

No to serving the political elite.

If almost half of people in Wales agree with us, why are there no Assembly members whatsoever supporting the views of half the country’s population, whom they are supposed to represent?

Because it means more money for them, even if it comes straight out of your pockets.

We would retain the National Assemblies but replace the representatives with local MPs from the same nation.

Most people in Wales are currently represented by around 8 elected politicians each with 20 more Assembly seats likely to be created under devolution plans.

This is wasteful and unnecessary governance, watering down politics and creating apathy when the general public don’t understand who represents them and how.

Our manifesto is straight talking, honest, clear and simple and we believe it speaks on behalf of the majority of people who say the policies of the three main parties bear little resemblance to the issues that matter to them.

We want to protect the lowest earners from jobs tax and encourage more people to leave the welfare state and find employment.

We want to get rid of the unnecessary quangos and the related non-jobs that define our economy and are under threat from Westminster cuts.

One in four people are paid directly out of taxpayers money.

It is a false economy.

We want instead to get these people into jobs in skilled manufacturing and business, created by scrapping EU red tape and attracting industries back to the UK.

We no longer make anything here, and that is a dangerous, post recession in a global economy.

We also believe we should shift focus away from Europe and towards the Commonwealth.

We would establish free trade with the 53 other commonwealth countries.

The Commonwealth has been shamefully betrayed and neglected by previous Governments, yet we share a common language, legal and democratic systems, account for a third of the world’s population and a quarter of all it’s trade, including countries like India, soon to be the world’s second largest economy.

We will be tough on crime.

Under the existing Human Rights Act the privileges of the criminal are often put above the needs of the victim.

This has got to stop.

By leaving the EU we can once again enforce strict and realistic measures for tackling crime and supporting communities.

We want to rebalance the law to protect people defending their homes, ensure life means life, double prison places, introduce boot camps for young offenders and allow national referenda on controversdial public law.

We are proud of the NHS and believe high quality healthcare should be available to all.

We wouldn’t cut frontline services but substantially reduce NHS waste and bureaucracy and the stranglehold of targets that jeopardise patient care.

We want to restore free dental checks and eye tests for every citizen in the UK.

We believe in a strong and varied education system, giving choice back to parents and students.

We would retain existing Grammar schools and build new ones, insist on higher qualifications for teachers, scrap the nonsensical target of getting half of all young people into universities when apprenticeships and professional training is better suited to a greater majority.

We would return to the grants system as opposed to loans that leave so many unemployed graduates in debt.

Our benefits system is out of control.

We want to simplify it and get people off long term welfare and back into work.

We also want to make sure welfare support goes to people who need it and people who can prove they are living in Britian.

By leaving Europe we could have a thriving agricultural sector, a protected fishing industry without waste and overfishing.

We could have open trade, exploring innovative ways to attract industries to the country that would become the backbones of proud and prosperous communities.

People in Britian have lost faith, not just in politics, but in their own country.

While so mnay people are clamouring to get in, more and more of us are becoming disenfranchised by remote governance from Brussels and self-intersted polticians in Westminster.

We pledge to put country before party.

We pledge to put the UK before Europe.

We pledge to put you first.

Think you. Think UK. Think UKIP.

Divide and Conquer? (or just waste money...?)

2010-04-06T13:04:00.009+01:00

It was reported over the weekend that the EU had plans to rename The English Channel under a regionalization scheme supposedly designed to phase out national borders and create replacement European ones. I say supposedly because with all things reported unfavourably about the EU, the tendency to exaggerate is far too strong for many journalists to resist. I'd imagine it's a by-product of such a slow moving, knotted, complex and outwardly rather dull institution that the top line of a story is never really that clear, and on occasion, needs a bit of editorial license to sex it up for the readership. Well, as per usual it's that potent mix of smoke, and fire, with this story.

Of course, the assertion that the EU wants to rename the channel makes an otherwise fiddly story interesting, but the real bones to a story on the INTERREGI programme is it's actual existence.To quote the Express, they stated that "Under a Government-backed scheme, bankrolled by British taxpayers, officials have been working on breaking down national barriers by creating new regions for Europe. Under the plan, a vast swathe of southern England was joined to western Belgium and northern France in 2003 to become the Arc Manche region of Europe.With the first map of the region being drawn up, the divide between the countries is being played down by giving the Channel a new name. "

Ok, so the channel being renamed is actually more of a third line element, and is actually part of some map being sent out to schools in the proposed region. Now this is the worrying element.
I have to believe that the EU do in fact want to regionalise the various member states, creating or rather forging more broadreaching unity through necessary legislative absorption. I don't think they would deny they want to see deeper integration and cooperation between countries, but in order to do so, artificial borders are now being stenciled across the continent, and projects based around the new regions are being afforded by the none-the-wiser taxpayer.

The problem is this: Where is this re-regionalisation taking us? Do they intend to carve up the EU and establish new states, much like they way in which Colonial Europe carved up Africa and assimiliated unlikely tribal neighbours within new national borders, still resulting in civil conflict in many parts of the continent. Is this just another stepping stone towards the United States of Europe? Undeniably so. But it is you, the taxpayer and European citizen, funding this project and all the while you are not being told about it, or asked whether or not you even remotely approve. The UK Government have approved on your behalf, in exactly the same way that Mr Brown claimed to represent us all when he signed the Lisbon Treaty. But perhaps more worryingly is the fact that the EU are taking their intentions straight to school level. While the adult world are being kept in the dark about many of the intentions and goings-on in Brussels, denied referendums, but are expected to foot the bill, our children are being told in school that this is how Europe is, this is how Europe will be and this is the right way to think. Propaganda (for want of a less obvious term) is being circulated among the next generation of voters already, the ones who are expected to take the baton of integration and globalisation into the 22nd century. And that's worrying. Surely at school level the future generations should be taught a balanced view. But in an education system where most 16 or 18 year olds leave school with almost nil political knowledge, and go on to take their cues from The Sun, or become apathetic non-voters, the zeal with which the EU is seizing the opportunity to flog a federal Europe to children is much like the Colonial's anaesthetising the natives with whiskey and religion.

I went online to find out more about the way the programme claims it operates at www.interreg3c.net Unsurprisingly all I got was a load of jargon under the useful title: What is the INTERREG IIIC programme?Apparently it's "one of the three strands of the European Community Initiative INTERREG III designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by promoting cross-border (strand A), trans-national (strand B) and interregional (strand C) co-operation...The co-operations under INTERREG IIIC gave access to experience of other actors involved in regional development policy and created synergies between "best practice" projects and the Structural Fund's mainstream programmes."
You'll be pleased to know that this whole operation requires that each programme zone (North, East, South and West) set up its own but similar management structure consisting of a Steering Committee , Monitoring Committee, Joint Technical Secretariat, a Managing Authority and a Paying Authority. That's a lot of jobs for an operation that the average Brit funding Interreg UK is not going to remotely understand. A scheme that is not even remotely necessary. And costs a huge amount of money.

But fear not, if you are seeking further information on what Interreg does in the UK, the not-so-useful www.interreg3c.net website rather comically directs you to www.interregiii.org.uk which at least goes some way to addressing our country's financial issues!

The Name of the Games

2010-03-25T10:05:00.005Z

In typical British style there was a shared feeling of surprise, faint bewilderment and an attempt at National Pride when it was announced London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. In typical French style, and to this day, our competitors for the rival bid across the Channel are still proclaiming "we were robbed". Whatever happened in the backroom to swing the votes in our favour was indubitably tied up with politics and rivalries, much like the Eurovision Song Contest, but at the same time, we must give credit to Lord of The Rings, Seb Coe who proved the UK were still at the front of the track and field.

But were the French robbed?
Well, in typical British style the celebrations lasted a day or so (topped off by that rather bleak performance by.......................) and after that all focus was turned to how much it would cost, who would benefit and how the spoils should be shared between all the nations of the British Isles.
The only thing that has perhaps prevented The Express from running a headline saying "Olympics to cost Brits £65,000 each" or something similar was the story that that 75 per cent of tickets a will be open to anyone living in the EU.
So just when we were warming to the idea that actually hosting an international event may be more than just a huge expense, we learn that actually, all those British Taxpayers at the bottom of the foodchain of olympic spending wont even have the privilege of buying tickets for the event. In fact, the French can just as easily hop across to London, enjoy the spectacle and return to Gay Paris knowing that they are no less out of pocket for the experience.
Why, then, if 75% of tickets must also go to people in the EU are 75% of the cost of hosting the games not afforded by Brussels?
I'm just waiting for an announcement that some or other event, or Olympic village or something will magically now have to be in Bratislava.
Organisers Locog however have set up a preregistration ticketing site hosted only in the UK in order to avoid a deluge of applications from the EU. Normally overseas purchases would go through the National Olympic Committee of that country but given that European competition law means EU citizens can access the British ballot, it also means British citizens can buy tickets from EU countries through their national Olympic committees, but really, this is not exactly likely to happen. People who register will be able to enter a public ballot more quickly when it opens next spring – although they are not guaranteed to win a place at an Olympic venue.
I urge you nonetheless to sign up. Registration will be open for the next 12 months at www.tickets.london2012.com or by calling 0844 847 2012.

A country that might not be digging so deep to attend the Games is Greece. The founders of the Olympics instead have a marathon task ahead of them to stay afloat and keep the Eurozone happy. But unfortunately for Greece they are being given very little room to manoeuvre while they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Surely the Greek people themselves would like a say on the situation? Rioting in Athens suggests that a Referendum should be on the cards...but we know how Brussels feels about them...

Britain could never debate the burka like France | Agnès Poirier - Times Online

2010-03-17T16:06:00.001Z

Britain could never debate the burka like France | Agnès Poirier - Times Online

A Face Off over The Burqa

2010-03-17T15:00:00.006Z

The reason I am dragging this subject back into the blog is because I was asked about the matter for a radio show just recently. Click here to listen to Eye on Wales in which I contributed.

Should we, could we and would we ban the burqa?
The French have of course brought up the issue, and I stumbled across this fascinating article on the Time Online which really spells out where Britain has gone with it's overdose of political correctness.

Written by French journalist Agnès Poirier, it reveals why on this occasion, we should be following their lead.

"The burka is not a religious problem, it's a question of liberty and women's dignity. It's not a religious symbol, but a sign of subservience and debasement. I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France. In our country, we can't accept women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity. That is not our idea of freedom.”

So spoke Nicolas Sarkozy in Versailles during his first state of the nation address to France's two chambers, the National Assembly and the Senate. He won rapturous applause and there is little doubt that an overwhelming majority of the French agreed with his every word. I say an overwhelming majority because this issue crosses all party lines in France. Republican principles of equality and secularism are so deeply grounded in the French mind that they belong as much to the Left as to the Right.

For someone like me, firmly on the Left, the defence of secularism is the only way to guarantee cultural diversity and national cohesion. One cannot go without the other. However, when I get on Eurostar to London, I feel totally alien. To my horror, my liberal-left British friends find such a position closer to that of the hard Right."

This point of view struck me as such an interesting truism I felt I had to cite it here. But interestingly the situation in France and the UK is not comparable. Across the Channel, the Burqa has been banned in state-run schools since 2004 and cannot be worn in hospitals or municipal offices or for that matter "anywhere where people interact as equal citizens"

Poirier goes on to say (and I am starting to like this woman more and more) that such a ban could never happen in the UK.

"When Jack Straw dared to state the obvious in 2006 by saying that the burka and the niqab were “visible statements of separation and of difference” before asking politely that women visiting his constituency surgery consider removing them, it provoked angry protests from Islamic associations and the British liberal- Left, always inclined, it seems, to defend the rights of liberty's enemies.

Seen from France, Britain's tolerance of extremist views looks at best naive, at worse dangerous: a recipe for trouble, division and painful soul-searching....If Britain's tolerance of political and religious extremism is often bewildering to the French, it also fascinates them. This tolerance does appeal to some French because of its sheer exoticism. French tourists visiting Britain for the first time, London in particular, are struck by what they perceive as a kaleidoscope of different ethnic minorities going about their day in their religious and cultural attire, cohabitating seemingly peacefully with punks and the half-naked: being free to differ.

What those visitors may discover later is that the price of this peaceful cohabitation lies in a constant bargaining of specific rights for specific communities in the name of cultural difference - the opposite of equality as understood in France. In France, public swimming pools would never allow women-only sessions to satisfy the demands of a minority. A public space is constructed for citizens to interact freely, and legislation written to remove the barriers of difference that separate them.

Seen from Britain, French principles of equality and secularism are often misinterpreted, and dismissed as authoritarian or prejudiced. But critics of the French approach don't seem to understand that secularism is neutral - the State doesn't recognise any religion in particular but protects them all, guaranteeing cultural and religious diversity by ensuring that one faith does not get the upper hand.

Can our two countries learn from each other? France could certainly try that very British tolerance and Britain could be more rigorous in arbitrating between the common good and the demands of communities. But our two systems are anchored in such different traditions and histories that we can only keep marvelling and staring in bewilderment at each other's approaches to social harmony; both of which are struggling to keep pace with the growing confidence of minorities who, once ignored, are now at the centre stage."

The fact that Poirier draws a conclusion that the British seem to pander somewhat to those minorities that impact upon the very concept of Britishness is interesting, and leads me to make this final point...

You never see women in the dictatorial, tyrannical, misogynistic cultures that promote the veil asking for the right to not wear it, for fear that stoning or flogging or domestic violence would ensue. The fact that Muslims in support of the ban hold it up as the right of that particular woman is as incongruous and hypocritical as people who suggest in some way that lapdancing, pole dancing, porn and the resultant objectification of women is in fact female empowerment. I think not.

ICE WAR!

2010-03-11T13:20:00.005Z

When the Arctic started to change shape, Russian explorers managed to navigate a submarine 4,200m below the North Pole where they planted their countries National Flag, reinforcing Moscow's claims to the Arctic. In an angry retort Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told Canadian TV "This isn't the 15th Century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say "We're claiming this territory"."Why are people getting their knickers in a twist over the planets most inhospitable territory? Because buried just below is an estimated quarter of the planets oil and gas reserves.

Several countries with territories bordering the Arctic, including America, Russia, Canada and Denmark, who have sovereignty over Greenland - have launched competing claims to the region. And so in wades the EU.

Current UN laws place territorial waters 200 nautical miles beyond their land borders. The North Pole is currently not regarded as part of any single country's territory, although the Russians claim Geologically, the North Pole is an extension of the Russian Coastal shelf, and is therefore part of their territory. The US and Canada are locking horns over the North West Passage, Russia and Norway are caught in a tussle over the Barents Sea and Canada are also trying to see off Danish claims to a small island just off Greenland.

Denmark, an EU member state since the start of Britain's membership back in the seventies, is Europe's best claim to the territory alongside Iceland, who are looking to join the Union next year and will no doubt prove very popular if she manages to wield any power up North.
Recent talk has seen the five key competitors for a slice of the ice talk about carving up the region based upon geography and size. Although I can't see America or Russia looking to share. What does Europe want? Well the Commission has been very vocal in issues such as biodiversity and ecological protection, read here the EU's favourite guise for political blackmail. But just under the cover of Green Good Will lies the real reasons why the Arctic is so in demand, and why Europe are so keen to stop anybody barging in and taking what they want by warbling about melting ice caps and nature.

What I worry about is what this sort of posturing will do. Although nobody is coming out on the subject, there is a lot of side glancing, snooping and plain chauvenism when it comes to claming the pole. And we've seen many a time before in history where such posturing can lead.
It is for this reason I grilled Baroness Ashton, former Secretary for the CND during the Cold War, over whether her first hand experience of the Arms race has taught her nothing over this race for resources in the Ice War.

The point is, why are we even caught up ion all of this? Do we want to be part of a group sizing up to Russia and America over Arctic rights? Whether we do or not, the point is, again, that it is not you or I making that decision.

More ironic perhaps is the conjecture by the EU that Regional Fishing Rights have been extended to the Arctic while they stop and figure out what to do, meaning like a German laying his towel on the sunbed at daybreak, Brussels has already decided upon fish quotas for the area before being able to claim any rights.

The problem here is being part of a Union that has Foreign Affairs at all. Any action taken by the EU would only undermine NATO and the UN, two global organisations who are supposed to be the circus ringmasters when it comes to these kind of knotty disputes. Surely any interest from Brussels would only aggravate relations with America, whose new President seems to have forgotten International tact and historical allegiances in his recent neutrality over the Falklands, and would surely send the wrong sort of message to our biggest not-so-friendly neighbour Russia. Lord knows what sort of affect Moscow's old satellite states queuing up to join the EU gravy train is having on the aging superpower anyway. But if they start heckling her over territory she believes is rightfully hers, then you've read it here first: I predict a riot.

Hold on to your hats boys and girls because we have an unelected soviet sympathiser, guided by a Dane, heading up an External Action Service coordinating foreign policy that nobody wants on behalf of 27 nonethewiser European countries, looking hungrily at that big floating fridge on top of the world.

Making Plans for Nigel

2010-03-02T16:31:00.003Z

It's becoming a familiar sight in our newspapers now, and is even creeping through into television and radio. I'm talking about the circus of opinion that comes in the aftermath of controversial comment where people from all walks of life impart their wisdom on who should be sacked, who should quit, who should retire, apologise, resign etc. Well, there just isn't enough Max Clifford to go around.

We had a mini media flurry in the wake of Nigel Farage's remarks to the New President of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy. Unsurprisingly in a meeting today with the head of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, he was asked to make a series of apologies. Of course in the meantime, commentators and columnists have all had their piece to say. Perhaps the most entertaining was Elfyn Llwyd on Question Time who stated that name-calling and personal attacks had no place in politics, then told Nigel he was a caricature of himself and a Little Englander.

The point is, Nigel has been making these speeches for years. Controversial and pithy they may be, but they rarely get filtered down to the Press. There have certainly been stronger comments than those aired against Van the Man. But comments like this are needed for exactly that reason - to shake the media out of their apathy and get real debate going over the EU. I expect the average man on hearing Nigel's outburst would have said "Well, who IS this Van Rompuy?" Not because he's not a high profile European figure, but because a lot of people wouldn't even have had a clue a President of the EU even existed!

In the aftermath, everyone was clamoring to suggest it was a bid to raise publicity before the General Election. But why should we complain either way? It got the European Parliament on television and now a few more people might go away and find out what this Van Rompuy says he wants and what their future under his leadership will be like. Because he wants some pretty dramatic changes, and even more worryingly, has the power to enforce them.

Nigel was given a chance to explain further on The Daily Politics today. A good programme but nonetheless with a limited audience. The most important part of the whole story is not the "damp rag" comment, but why this man's appointment has caused such outrage. And that is the part of the story which is being kept away from the public. The fact that there is a new unelected President of the EU, so that means MY President and YOUR President and the President of about 500 million people, on a salary bigger than Obama's, who has had bestowed upon him a wealth of power by the Lisbon Treaty - which our Prime Minister signed without asking his people if they even wanted it - who has dreams of a Federal Europe. This should all be sounding a bit Nineteen Eighty Four, because it is!

And I suspect Nigel's opinion is, if it means just two more people come to realise what this man has in store for their future as Europeans, then it was worth it.

Fishy Goings On

2010-02-24T15:16:00.008Z

You would have had to have had your head in the sand to not know how unpopular EU Common Fisheries Policy has been over the years. Well tomorrow in Brussels I will be tackling the Commission on the latest potential amendment to policy, which drags the every day hobby fisherman into the battle of the quotas. I'm backing Nigel's appeal to Commissioner Damanaki for sensitivity to Britain in the reworking of Article 47 Common Fisheries Policy which seeks to include recreational sea angling in the regulation and control of sea fishing.

I thought the whole point of quotas was to prevent diminishing stocks? European fisheries policy has been so unsuccessful in achieving sustainability, that 91% of fisheries are on course to be classified as "overfished" by 2015.

But the problem is how waters are being fished, not by whom. Indiscriminate trawling or long line fishing dredge our seas of marine life. But throwing dead fish that have already been caught and are good for the table back into the sea is surely the opposite of sustainability?

What is sustainable fishing however is recreational sea angling, enjoyed by around a million people in the UK and supporting as business thought to be worth around 2bn euros alone in tackle trade across the continent. Some 19000 people are employed in some 1300 businesses in England and Wales a result of the recreational angling industry [DEFRA Figs]

Recreational sea anglers catch and remove from the sea only what they intend to eat, leaving small young fish to develop and breed and throwing back what they do not strictly need. In some cases, they tag the fish first, contributing to conservation programmes. If the European Commission gets its way, they will be forced to land everything they catch, and count their quota against the national one. Recreational Sea Angling supports ecologically sound self sufficiency that, if practiced by more people, would lessen the demand that currently fuels the indiscriminate commercial fishing putting whole species of marine life under threat.

Common Fisheries Policy has always been prejudiced against the British fleet who are permitted to currently fish only 7% of the Channel cod quota and are permitted to fish only one fifth of the quota in our own territorial waters. Perhaps the Commissioner will see fit to favour the needs of harmless recreational fishermen in the UK in the same way as her predecessor showed open sensitivity to the needs of his own country’s fishermen when he opposed the ban on the sale of bluefin tuna, an industry that earns €100 million a year for his country Malta.

It pains me so much to go into the supermarket and see nothing for sale but foreign fish or farmed fish. It is staggering when you think that we live on an island, yet our fish is flown in from the other side of the world.

And now a past time that entertains some one million Brits is under threat for the sake of regulating everything. It is typical of the EU to regard unregulation as synonymous with "illegal".

But the EU's passion to destroy the fishing industry doesn't just stop with the 27 member states. The EU has been over fishing in West Africa, as part of its "Economic Partnership Agreements" for years. EU fishing vessels have sucked the oceans dry, leaving no big fish for the local fishermen to sell. The result is poverty and desperation, further fueling political instability in these countries and leaving illegal trades such as piracy the only option for out of work fishermen.

The fishing industry has dramatically suffered across the world. Above are pictures of the Chinese Fishing Nets in the Southern Indian State of Kerala, which despite being a huge tourist attraction, are failing to bring in the necessary stocks as the coastlines of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean still suffer the incredible damage caused by the 2006 Boxing Day Tsunami.

But what we are about to face in Europe is no man made disaster. It is the single handed destruction of an entire industry by erroneous EU policy.

2010-02-19T12:31:00.002Z

The mismanagement of money is in and out of the press like most hardworking people's money is in and out of their bank accounts. If it's not MPs expenses it's Council cuts, bankers' bonuses or the BBC.

The South Wales Echo reported today that BBC Wales has commissioned a bronze statue of late Welsh Rugby star Ray Gravell to stand in Broadcasting House in Llandaff. The article states that "BBC Wales has commissioned sculptor John Meirion Morris to create a commemorative sculpture of the late broadcaster, who died suddenly while on holiday with his family.He is to create a portrait sculpture as a permanent tribute to the Grav, from Mynydd-y-Garreg, near Kidwelly, portraying his later role as a broadcaster."

Now I think it's wonderful when we commemorate the great and good of our country, and the BBC certainly has a part to play in this. But their domain is broadcasting, not commissioning artwork for their foyer. But the real sting comes for those staff from News and Current Affairs who are either having to take voluntary redundancy or lose their jobs as BBC Wales downsizes two of its most valued departments. At a time when highly skilled, multi-experienced editors and producers who deal into delivering the news into our living rooms are being forced out of work due to a lack of money, BBC Cymru Wales Director Menna Richards sees fit to be buying busts as they go bust.

If you were to ask people across Wales, many of whom will never set foot inside BBC Wales foyer, whether they would prefer quality in the delivery of Welsh news and current affairs or a scultpure of a Rugby hero, I think you know what they would say. And whilst the BBC are cutting back on staff in departments that provide the people with Wales with information about what is actually happening in Wales, funding for programmes that get little audience share and the many expensive Welsh language shows that probably require more production staff than the audiences they attract do not seem to be under threat.

And moving on from the Beeb, the Independent today is telling us that our vital services are likely to take a hammering as local councils face a jobs cull in order to claw back millions in debt.

Again I have to raise the point that were we not paying so much into the European Union and helping countries like Spain build better roads, we may be able to afford to patch up the potholes that are blighting our highway after the recent bad weather. But the most frightening aspect of these cuts is where they will be made.

We're not talking roads. We're not talking translation services or gimmicky marketing departments or stripping down Quangos of their waste. We are talking about the minority services set up to protect and help the most vulnerable in society.

Taxation has it's origins in tithes, a ten per cent donation set up by the Chruch in the middle ages. The ten per cent was not so much of money but of crops or equipment - whatever it is that a particular village or town may need to store for hard times. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, such taxation was transfered to the crown. We would like to hope that when we pay thousands to the local councils, our money is not being used to pay the inflated salaries of execs who stumbled across their new-fangled, importantly titled quangoid job in The Guardian but affording teachers or careworkers or public services. But just like the EU, non-jobs are protected whilst service delivery is slashed, and we are all told what to do and when or face substantial fines when we put the green bin out on a wheelie bin day. It's enough to make your blood boil.

Welsh local government leaders are predicting between 2,000 and 4,000 job losses, including 400 in Powys and 300 in Cardiff. So if you live in rural Powys, don't expect your street lights to be glowing proudly anytime soon, and watch out for running into gaping craters in the roads as you drive around in the pitch black. And as for you Cardiffians, at least the Council want to cheer us up after all this terrible weather by planning to build a snowdome at the Bay. Perhaps local government officals all intend to line up inside and stick their heads in the ground when the really bad weather sets in...

A Greek Tragedy?

2010-02-11T15:35:00.007Z

Well we don't know yet, we'll have to wait and see, but it has been at least a tragi-comedy.

It is such if we don't have to bail them out, but if we do, public mood over here deserves to change with regards to the EU.
We can smile, or perhaps breathe a sigh of relief, as we have always staunchly rejected inclusion in the Eurozone, whereas it is in France and Germany's interests to not watch Greece go under. But apparently the Council, under Van Rompuy, has come to an agreement, although the details wont be revealed until probably Monday when the Heads of State sit down for a summit regarding economic and fiscal strategy in Europe.
So who is to blame? Well, everyone of course says Greece, who apparently covered up the true extent of their deficit in order to become a member of the Union. But look what has happened, one falls and risks dragging the rest down. At least if Greece were going solo, the problem would be contained in one country.
But what happens here will set a precedent for future behaviour. A bail-out is by all accounts "illegal" under European Law - Open Europe cover this really well. At first there was hesitation from other member states at rushing to Greece's aid, and help has only been forthcoming from those states-France and Germany- who would suffer the fall-out of a Greek fall-apart. So much for strength through solidarity. It goes to show that this Union to which we belong is more of a dead weight than an enriching co-operative, and is certainly no elixir for a good economy.

Throughout the recession Federalists would have had you believe that the only reason so many European countries haven't folded under the weight of all those red letters is because of the global bargaining power and economic strength the Union delivers. This week we've heard how Obama thinks the EU is all hot-air, and wouldn't attend the latest summit. Then the Greek affair has turned that on it's head and goes to show that, if anything, doubt has been cast over the value of the EU globally and speculation and caution have been tempered towards the other Eurozone countries because the single currency has no single treasury, no stringent development plan and no recognisable fiscal policy. We have also seen that, get it wrong, lose it all and fall to your knees and the European Union will only kick you while your down and take the opportunity to march in and turn you into an economic protectorate!

I wonder how we'd be doing right now had we not joined the European Union at all. Those countries that are flourishing and are set to grow over the coming era are historically more likely to call upon Britain than Europe, as a whole. Our Commonwealth ties should serve us very well as we progress into a new era of socio-economic development. India has one of the world's fastest growing economies and already trades with us separately from the EU. Oil fields have been found offf the coast of Ghana (not to mention the Falklands of course) - and already the Chinese,who have always shown great trading interest with Africa, are offering to provide the technoloy to drill it. Why we follow around France and Germany and fund the development of their lesser continental friends rather than standing on our own two feet and using all the trade relations and opportunities centuries of history enshrine, we'd rather sit back and lose out all for the sake of creating a better Europe.
We may not have been the most fair or ethical country in terms of our practices in trade and foreign affairs. We have a lot of apologising to do. But the UK was mighty due to attitude, industry and innovation and can be once again. As for Greece, perhaps they kept in mind the concept expressed by their very own Socrates in Plato's Republic and sought a Philosopher to take control in times of crisis...Haiku-writing van Rompuy certainly channels Karl Marx.