 |
Home |
|
What's New |
|
Speeches & Articles |
|
Newsletter - Jul 2012 |
|
Biography |
|
Diary |
|
Contact Information |
|
Photo Album |
|
Parliamentary Highlights |
|
Publications |
|
Links |
|
MEPs' Transparency |
 Visit the Freedom Association website |
 |
|
Straight Talking - September 2011 second edition Roger Helmer's electronic newsletter from Strasbourg Please feel free to distribute this newsletter, or to quote from it. It is primarily written for Conservative Party members and activists in the East Midlands, but may also be of interest to others concerned about developments in the EU. If you receive the newsletter second-hand and want to go onto the e-mail list (or if you want to be deleted), please e-mail me on . Alternatively you can subscribe with this form. The euro crisis Peter Oborne, Writing in the Spectator, says: "Very rarely in political history has any faction or movement enjoyed such a complete and crushing victory as the Conservative Euro-sceptics. The field is theirs. They were not merely right about the single currency, the greatest economic issue of our age — they were right for the right reasons. They foresaw with lucid, prophetic accuracy exactly how and why the euro would bring with it financial devastation and social collapse." But a 2002 booklet (quoted by Jeff Randall) written inter alia by our now Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (sic), Chris Huhne, said: "Opponents of the euro have forecast disasters which have in fact never happened and which always looked most unlikely ...Euro-sceptics constantly underestimated the competence of Europeans and their ability to organise things properly". Ho Hum. Compare Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writing in the Telegraph (Sept 26th): "Sorry Deutschland. History has conspired against you. You must sign away €2 trillion, debauch your Central Bank, and accept 5% inflation, or be blamed for ruin. That was what the euro always meant. Didn't they tell you?" Cameron “betrayed” MEPs on Strasbourg This was the headline on a Bruno Waterfield story in the Telegraph on Sept 26th. As you know, we are required to have twelve Straz sessions a year, but as we take a holiday in August, which means two sessions in September -- even though there's clearly not enough on the agenda for two sessions (this by the way is why there's a second September newsletter). You'll recall that this madcap commute costs you -- the taxpayer -- around £200 million a year (plus an extra 90,000 tons of CO2 emissions, if anyone cares). You may also recall that both we and the Lib-Dems had a manifesto commitment to stop it. This was the only agreed point on the EU in the Coalition agreement. My colleague Ashley Fox managed to get the parliament to vote to roll two Straz sessions together, saving one week's visit. The French government is taking the parliament to the ECJ, to try to get the decision reversed. Our government could have made representations on behalf of the parliament, but it failed to do so -- apparently on Foreign Office advice to be nice to the French. After all, there may be somewhere else we need to go and bomb together. The French themselves have no hesitation in pursuing their national interests at Britain's expense -- for example over financial regulation and the proposed financial transaction tax. But we wouldn't dare to upset them. There's a word for this attitude -- pusillanimous. I feel particularly let down by our Foreign Secretary William Hague on this. He used to be billed as a eurosceptic, but he's not prepared to rock the Strasbourg boat, despite a manifesto commitment to do just that. Euro currency saved! A fortnight ago, I devoted a whole short newsletter to the eurozone crisis. We'd had a session of the parliament in which, for the first time, it seemed that the EU's leaders had realised the enormity of what they'd done. They kept mouthing the old platitudes, and calling for solidarity, more Europe (and euro-bonds), but their hearts weren't in it. Fear stalked the Hemicycle. They knew the game was up. But we reckoned without Superwoman -- or as you and I know her, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the reunited and resurgent Germany. She and French President Nicolas Sarkozy got on the phone to Athens, and Poufff! All the problems went away. The future of Greece within the eurozone was assured. The clouds cleared. Skies are blue over the Parthenon. And they all lived happily ever after. You do believe in fairies, don't you? As a footnote, recall what Lord Lawson said recently: "The single currency is amongst the most irresponsible political initiatives of the post-war era". As usual, he's right. Late News: As I write (Sept 27th) it seems increasingly likely that the rescue deal may unravel. Greek citizens are refusing to accept new taxes and more austerity, while anger is growing in Germany about being the donors of last resort. Watch this space. The new scepticism My former MEP colleague, now Daventry MP, Chris Heaton-Harris, along with Andrea Leadsom and George Eustace, have set up a new group at Westminster for 2010-intake Tory MPs who are concerned about Europe -- which is practically all of them. I'm not sure it has an official name, but I've seen it referred to as the Open Europe Group, which seems as good a name as any. At the inaugural meeting on Sept 12th they'd expected around 80 to show up, but in the end over 120 were there. I imagine Chris desperately looking around the Palace of Westminster for extra chairs. There have been suggestions, primarily but not solely from those terrible chaps at UKIP, that this new group has the tacit blessing -- even the encouragement -- of the Whips (I must ask Patrick McLoughlin). The conspiracy theory suggests that it's the leadership's attempt to channel eurosceptic sentiment on the back-benches into a vocal but harmless talking-shop. But after ten years together in Brux, I know Chris a bit better than that. If the Whips think they're in for an easy ride, they may be surprised. So far the demands of the new group have been modest -- parliament to vote on the appointment of judges to the Strasbourg Court, and a new "red-card" system for member-states to challenge the Commission. But I expect more substance will follow. Certainly the mood in Westminster -- and in the country -- is turning more euro-sceptic by the day, as the euro-zone implodes. Cameron's game-plan on the EU? Cameron knows that his back-benches -- and the country -- are looking for action on the EU. My bet is that he and Hague will have asked the foreign office (and UKREP in Brux) what they could get away with, and will have been told that a little more flexibility on the Working Time Directive (WTD) might be negotiated. And perhaps even a softening of the proposed financial regulation which would do so much damage in the City. But clearly that's not enough. Minor concessions on the WTD won't even get us back as far as John Major's famous opt-out's at Maastricht. We had an opt-out on social policy and the WTD -- or thought so, until the ECJ decided that the WTD was not employment policy, but Health'n'Safety. We want:
And one other thing we want: An In/Out Referendum. Now. Party Conference Fringe on Windfarms The TFA's "Freedom Zone" (TFZ) has become a key feature of the Conservative Party Conference in recent years (some people say it's the real conference -- you'll certainly hear more lively and contentious debate at TFZ than in the main Conference Hall!). This year it's at the Bridgewater Hall, Lower Moseley St, just a stone's throw from the main conference -- but you don't need a Conference Pass to come to TFZ. We have an excellent meeting planned at 10:15 on Monday Oct 3rd at TFZ, with Matthew Sinclair of TaxPayers' Alliance (I've reviewed his excellent new book "Let Them Eat Carbon"), and my good colleague Struan Stevenson MEP (Scotland), who has campaigned robustly against the lunatic green policies of the SNP (and myself). It promises to be an important meeting. If you're concerned about wind farms, please be sure to come along. Our unwillingness to act on Camp Ashraf Throughout my tenure in the European Parliament I have been approached by numerous groups concerned about human rights abuses in various parts of the world. Many of their concerns come as news to me but too often its difficult for me as an MEP to influence them. One such group, however, has been lobbying members for some time over a situation which we are more than in a position to influence. The National Council of the Resistance of Iran has been meeting with many MEPs over the past few years in order to raise awareness, and hopefully get something done, about the situation in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. Ashraf, as far as I can tell, was originally established as a base for Iranian dissidents opposed to the Mullah's régime in Iran. There are some three thousand people there, including women and children. Originally offered American protection in Iraq, they are now being severely persecuted by the Iraqi government. They are denied supplies, including medical supplies, and have been repeatedly assaulted by Iraqi forces, with many injured or killed. The Iranians say they are terrorists, but that is simply black propaganda. Now the Iraqi government has decided to shut the camp down and have its inhabitants relocated either to Iran (a suicidal decision) or another camp in Iraq where they are susceptible to further attacks. There is a moral obligation on the Allies who overthrew Saddam Hussein to protect these Iranian dissidents and to ensure they safety, if necessary finding them a safe haven. I am happy to support widespread efforts by MEPs to promote this goal. The Spanish Property Scam Readers will be familiar with the Spanish property scandal, where hundreds of UK citizens, and thousands more from across the EU, have purchased properties in Spain with due diligence, taking appropriate legal advice, only to have their ownership rights overturned by the Spanish Coastal Law or local zoning laws. Many Europeans have spent their life savings on a dream retirement home on the Costas, only to wake up one morning to find an eviction notice on the doormat and a bulldozer at the gate. The European parliament's Petitions Committee (on which I sit) has been batting away at this issue for a decade, with little to show for it, and the Commission has proved powerless to intervene. I most recently spoke on this issue in the plenary on Sept 13th. See my sixty-seconds' worth. Now we learn that the Spanish government proposes to run a "Spanish Property Road-Show" in the UK on October 13th -- 15th. There has been a suggestion that this activity is sponsored with funding from the Commission. I am separately approaching the Commission to demand that they should not fund such activity until Spain puts its house in order. I have also approached Europe Minister David Lidington asking him to use his good offices to get this show cancelled, and to make it clear to the Spanish government that they will not be allowed to promote Spanish property in the UK until they can give firm guarantees that property rights will be respected and contracts will be enforceable. Question: Why is Barack Obama like King Canute? In his acceptance speech following his election victory, President Obama promised that on his watch "the rise of the sea level would start to slow, and the planet would start to heal" (he forgot to mention that the Niagara Falls would run with wine and that everything he touched would turn to gold). But guess what? He's done it. Magic. In fact he's done better than that. Never mind "start to slow". Sea levels are falling. Earlier this month, the European Space Agency's Envisat monitoring, global sea level revealed a “two year long decline [in sea level] was continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year.” In August 2011, NASA announced that global sea level was dropping and was “a quarter of an inch lower than last summer.” See: NASA: 'Global sea level this summer is a quarter of an inch lower than last summer' Obama has not just slowed the rise. He's reversed it! There's only one problem. Throughout this period, atmospheric CO2 levels have continued to rise. So maybe CO2 isn't that critical to sea level rise after all. Quote of the month From Michael Gove, 2002 Land for peace is an ancient principle. There is a special place in history for all those who have given an extra mile of territory to avoid conflict. That place is called Munich. Hat-tip to Tim Montgomerie/ConHome for this one. Culture Corner: The poems of James Elroy Flecker (1884/1915) Isn’t Google wonderful? For a long time I’ve had a rather undistinguished edition of Flecker’s verse (Secker & Warburg, 3rd edition, 1947, 10/6d), but because I like the poems so much, I thought I ought to get a better copy. So I Googled “Fine editions Flecker Poems”, and within seconds I’d found www.abebooks.co.uk, which seems to be a specialist subsidiary of Amazon. They had a first edition, Octavo, Martin Secker 1923, London, bound in crimson crushed Morocco, with stunning end-papers, limited No. 88 of 500. I ordered it on Friday Sept 16th, and (despite a promise of two-to-four days delivery) it arrived in the post next day, on Saturday 17th, and I’m very pleased with it. Antiquarian books often have miscellaneous oddments inside. This one has a handbill from the Berkeley Athenæum, University of California, advertising an event priced at 25 cents. They had the “charming novelist” Geo. W Cable, who was to read from his own writings, “interspersed with Creole songs”. It’s dated Wednesday October 25th (at 3:30) -- but with no year reference. But judging by the style and pricing, I’d guess it’s from around the same year as the book -- 1923. It’s impossible to give much impression of Flecker’s oeuvre in a few words, but I’ll try. Flecker spent much of his tragically short life in the Middle East, which influenced his choice of subject matter. His “War Song of the Saracens” includes: And the Spear was a Desert Physician, who cured not a few of ambition And drove not a few to perdition, with medicine bitter and strong From “The Golden Road to Samarkand": Sweet to set forth at evening from the wells, when shadows pass gigantic on the sand And softly in the silence beat the bells along the Golden Road to Samarkand We travel not for trafficking alone: by hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known we take the Golden Road to Samarkand. And from “The Gates of Damascus”: Pass then, pass all! “Baghdad!” ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust ye back? Not I. ... And Son of Islam, it may be that thou shalt learn at journey’s end Who walks thy garden eve on eve, and bows his head, and calls thee Friend Conclusion That's it from Straz for this second September session. Please remember to visit this website, my blog at http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com, and follow me on Twitter: @RogerHelmerMEP |