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		Presentation at the Review Meeting Strasbourg - Tuessday 27th September 2005 Good evening Gentlemen. May I start by saying that I think we have widely divergent views of the problem we are facing. You see it as my problem. You expect me to show sufficient humility and contrition, and you may then, sooner or later, be minded to readmit me to the delegation. But it is not my problem. It is the Party's problem. And it is a continuing reproach for the delegation. I personally find my unattached position rather comfortable. I have four times as much information fund money as I had previously. I am just starting to run a £10,000 advertising campaign for myself and Chris Heaton-Harris in the East Midlands. If you continue to exclude me from the delegation, I have made it clear to the Chief Whip that I shall consider joining another group, where I could have up to €55k a year to promote Conservative principles in my region. As an unattached member, I have more speaking time, as you may have noticed. I have more staff support than I ever had before. And I have more access to parliamentary facilities. Most importantly, these recent events have generated a huge wave of sympathy and support amongst Conservatives across the East Midlands, and beyond. As the EU Reporter headline put it, "Expulsion makes MEP a local hero" -- and they are not wrong. So the problem is not my problem. But it is a problem for the Party -- which is why I am so anxious to resolve it. It has caused anger and dismay amongst Party members and activists up and down the country. It has attracted quite unnecessary negative publicity. It has confirmed the worst suspicions of many Party members about the attitudes of their MEPs. I should like briefly to review the circumstances that led to the present problem, not in the hope of changing your views, but to ensure that you understand my position, and the views of the signatories of the notorious Censure Motion. The issue of the Barroso holiday was widely aired in European media, especially in Germany. There was clearly a case to answer, or at least the media and the public thought so, which amounts to the same thing. Barroso was invited to come to the parliament and explain himself, which he repeatedly refused to do. The whole purpose, therefore, of the Motion of Censure was to force Barroso to explain himself, as we made clear at the time. It seemed to me then, and I still believe, that Conservative MEPs had not only a right, but also a clear duty to support this motion. You were wrong, Timothy, not to sign. You were doubly wrong to cave in to pressure from Poettering to have Conservative names removed. And most of all you were wrong to invoke the disciplinary procedures of the delegation to frustrate a clear manifesto commitment. You chose to line up the delegation with the Brussels establishment, in order to sweep aside any challenge to the probity and integrity of the institutions, rather than to do your duty in challenging evidence of cronyism and maladministration. As I say, I don't ask you to agree with me, but you must understand that this is both my position and that of the other colleagues who signed the Motion. It is also the view of Party members at home. I have spoken to hundreds in the East Midlands, and I have received messages of support from hundreds more. Not one -- not one -- has taken your view. Every single one has supported my position. And that includes my Regional Chairman and many of the East Midlands MPs. You made a number of particular criticisms. You pointed out that members of Sinn Fein were also co-signatories. But you never mentioned that Jim Allister of the Democratic Unionists also signed. If it's OK for a Paisley man to sign with Sinn Fein, surely it's OK for Conservatives? You complained that I "shared a platform with Nigel Farage of UKIP". Again, you did not mention that we were merely two out of eight on the platform, with MEPs from several parties and countries. Then, extra-ordinarily, you did exactly the same thing yourself, and with delicious irony, you did so on the same issue -- that of transparency in the institutions. Your photo-call with Farage is on my web-site. You criticised my use of the word "inappropriate" with regard to your behaviour in this matter. I agree that it was the wrong word. It was a gross understatement. But I selected it carefully so as to spare you embarrassment and offence. Clearly I was not careful enough. Let us now turn to subsequent events. After you suspended the whip, the Chief Whip wrote to me with two simple conditions for reinstatement. I responded, accepting his conditions without reservation. This clearly caught you by surprise, and was not at all what you expected or wanted. So you had him write again, imposing a long list of new and more stringent conditions. Again I replied, within 48 hours, accepting his terms. You then decided on a course of procrastination and prevarication. You insisted on delaying the matter until after the summer recess. You declined repeated requests for a meeting, when we might have sat down like civilised and grown-up people and found a solution. Then during your absence abroad, the Chief Whip has gone to quite absurd lengths to avoid any discussion, and to avoid replying substantively to e-mails. Now, however, you have finally succeeded in raising the barrier high enough to jeopardise a resolution of the problem. You have found a new condition which I am not prepared to accept, and it is that I should fulfil all the previous conditions on my own, unilaterally, without any guarantee that the delegation will readmit me in a timely way, or, indeed, at all. No one could be expected to accept such a condition, which is clearly why you imposed it. Throughout this process, you have not been seeking a solution. On the contrary, you have been determined to prevent any solution being found, and you have looked for every possible delay and obstacle and imagined sleight or misdemeanour. I have made it clear that I am prepared to accept the terms of the Chief Whip's second letter, but only on the basis of an agreed deal, with mutual and shared obligations, and an agreed timetable. You have asked me to report to you on "the steps I have taken to meet the conditions". Clearly in the absence of an agreed deal and an agreed timetable, I have taken no such steps. I am not here to apologise and explain. I am here to negotiate a settlement. However, let me deal with the Chief Whip's points, which fall into two categories. There are the general behavioural points, and there are the specific substantive actions. I do not believe that I have ever been in breach of the general behavioural points, and therefore no action is needed to bring me into compliance. The articles I have written have represented fair comment and debate, in a post-election climate in which our Party Leader has called for wide-ranging discussion. I would particularly point to Dan Hannan's recent article in a national Sunday newspaper in which he called explicitly for Britain to leave the EU. I have always stopped short of calling for withdrawal. Yet I do not see you taking any action against Dan. On the substantive points of an apology and an application to join the EPP, I have agreed, albeit reluctantly, to both of these measures, but only as part of an agreed settlement with an agreed timetable. In the case of the apology, I am very willing to apologise for any offence I may inadvertently have caused. I am, of course, not prepared to apologise for signing the censure motion, and nor are the other co-signatories. In the case of the reapplication, I cannot pretend that I like the EPP, nor that I support its policies, and I shall continue to argue against our membership. But since you made it a condition of readmission to the delegation, I am prepared to accept it. I am therefore here to set you a challenge. I am prepared to accept your conditions, however onerous and unpalatable they may be, provided they are part of an agreed settlement. But as I have made clear, my personal view is that you are not seeking a settlement, merely seeking a way to justify the status quo. It is up to you to prove me wrong. See also •  Timothy Kirkhope's letter to Roger •  Roger's Reply