If anybody of influence in the any of the pro-EU camp reads this, why not ask Corbett if he will take on UKIP's No. 2 on the Yorkshire List, Jonathan Arnott? Parts of their previous debate are up on YouTube where Arnott undoubtedly come across as the guy with his heart and mind in the right place opposed to Corbett's dodogy politico soundbites.
Going further though, why not throw UKIP's brilliant MEP Godfrey Bloom in there with Labour No. 1 Lindsay Macavan? Why not UKIP No. 3 Jason Smith vs. Labour's No. 3? Why not have these debates all over the country? Why not put the debate in the public, out there, in the run up to next year's elections? Corbett is a staunch defender of the European Union when inside their HQ and when behind a keyboard, why not in front of people, why not on TV?
Let us have the debate in Yorkshire and then all over the country: UKIP vs. Labour. Euro-realist vs. Europhile. Patriots vs. Politicians.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Selective Hearing
One of Corbett's latest blog entries is spent hyping up an upcoming "European Festival" where members of the public will be able to meet Labour, Tory and LibDem MEP's (how ever will the public be able to tell the difference?).
Described as part of the "2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue" it features a whole splendid day of entertainment. The question is; why? Is "Europe" now a culture? A country?
The event is apparently "free and for everyone" which begs the question; why is the UK office of the European Parliament paying for such a "dialogue" day when the British people are making their thoughts very clear in every opinion poll there is?!
Described as part of the "2008 European Year of Intercultural Dialogue" it features a whole splendid day of entertainment. The question is; why? Is "Europe" now a culture? A country?
The event is apparently "free and for everyone" which begs the question; why is the UK office of the European Parliament paying for such a "dialogue" day when the British people are making their thoughts very clear in every opinion poll there is?!
Lock him up.
If anybody has ever read old Corby's blog, they will notice how incredibly defensive he is of the pro-EU position. More recently though, as the pro-EU camp has realised the desolate state it is in following the Irish no vote, Corbett has gone into overdrive with all common sense and logic brushed aside.
As far as Corbett seems to be concearned, it's fine for British teenagers to get sent to foreign countries like Greece where they can be held for 18 months without trial and he even goes as far as to criticise UKIP who vehemetly oppose the European Arrest Warrent.
Well, we know one bloke we'd all like to see locked up in a foreign country, but it isn't Andrew Symeou..
As far as Corbett seems to be concearned, it's fine for British teenagers to get sent to foreign countries like Greece where they can be held for 18 months without trial and he even goes as far as to criticise UKIP who vehemetly oppose the European Arrest Warrent.
Well, we know one bloke we'd all like to see locked up in a foreign country, but it isn't Andrew Symeou..
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Stab, gut, cut head off.
No, not Corbett himself (though one can sometimes be tempted), but the arguments that Corbett and his colleagues constantly push. Below are just a few counters to the europhile sentiments that Corbett and the three old Parties attempt to trick the public into believing at every opportunity:
“Just 9% of new UK laws come from Brussels, according to the House of Commons Research Department”
This myth comes from Standard Note SN/IA/2888, which states that 9% of statutory instruments come from the EU.
1. Statutory Instruments don’t include any EU regulations, which become law automatically in the UK without passing through the UK Parliament. The EU has switched emphasis from directives to regulations in order to bypass national parliaments. Under the proposed EU Constitution, regulations would (correctly) be known as European Laws.
2. Statutory Instruments are often trivial, or are used to ‘switch on’ or ‘switch off’ other pieces of legislation. They may cover issues local to just one area of the country, for example bus lanes in Oxford. These can’t be compared to EU regulation.
3. The Standard Note itself points out that the 9% figure isn’t the correct one. It quotes Denis MacShane (then Europe Minister) saying “It would entail disproportionate cost to research and compile the number of legislative instruments enacted each year in the UK directly implementing EU legislation. The picture is complicated.”
4. The German Parliament admits that 80% of new legislation in Germany originates in Brussels.
“Leeds City Council employs more staff than the European Commission”
Very misleading. The European Commission employs roughly 40,000 staff, most of whom are lawmakers. Leeds City Council employs teachers, social workers, park rangers, street sweepers – surely these can’t be compared to bureaucrats!
Across the EU, hundreds of thousands of government staff have to implement Commission decisions. In the UK, the Environment Agency, Customs & Excise and other government departments are responsible for the implementation.
In addition, at any given time there are tens of thousands of lobbyists in Brussels lobbying the Commission.
“The EU accounts may not have been signed for 13 years in a row, but this is because member states haven’t administered budgets properly. The money is then reclaimed the following year.”
1. A few examples from the Court of Auditors report:
(Page, Paragraph)
(92, 5.9) 40% of payments tested by the CoA showed claimed fields were larger than the real fields.
(93, 5.14) In Hungary and Slovakia, farmers may have been punished because of false claims by their neighbours because of the management system.
(94, 5.21) 11.4% of Italian suckler cows either didn’t exist or weren’t suckler cows. But the figure in Slovenia was nearly half. Meanwhile, over one in ten special beef premium cows in Malta didn’t exist or weren’t premium, one in five in Italy, and over half in Slovenia. See Graph 5.4 (p. 114)
(94, 5.25) Olive oil grants are worth €2 billion. All cases tested found errors or overpayments, and also revealed two cases of suggested fraud.
(213, 10.18) The Committee of the Regions has failed to reclaim money from several members who had fiddled their claims
(216, Table 10.2) There remains a backlog of untaken leave by employees across the institution, which can be swapped for cash. This previously identified liability (which runs into many millions) remains on the books.
Also, MEPs’ second pensions continue presently to be illegal, and remain an unfunded liability.
2. If any money is reclaimed, it’s claimed back from governments – not the recipients of the grants. This means that the member state has actually paid twice over – once in membership subscriptions, and once when the money is ‘reclaimed’.
“It doesn’t matter that the European Commission isn’t elected. The Council Of Ministers is elected, and that’s responsible for new policies.”
The Council of Ministers transfers power to the EU Commission. Richard North’s blog deals with this issue:
“Does the Council maintain an oversight over how those powers are exercised? No.
Has the Council any power to call the Commission to account over the way it uses its powers? No.
Can the Council remove or modify those powers, if it is unsatisfied with the way the Commission is performing? No.
Does the Council even have the power to ask the Commission for information on its performance? Er… No.
So what is the Council? In effect, it is a transfer station. On the basis of proposals from the Commission, it handles the process of taking powers from member states, packaging them up and shovelling them into the Commission, for them never to be returned.
Does it ask the electorate in advance - through an election manifesto - what powers it should hand over? No.
And is any record kept of which particular ministers vote for what, so that they can be taken to task by their electorates, if they vote the wrong way? No.”
“Britain trades more with Holland alone than with the entire Commonwealth”
1. The EU records Holland as the destination even if goods are shipped through Holland to other countries, including the US. Huge containers in Rotterdam are considered to be trade under EU rules. This is known as the “Rotterdam Effect” and hugely distorts the amount of trade that we really conduct with non-EU nations.
2. EU tariffs and single market membership make it hard for the UK to trade competitively with the Commonwealth. EU withdrawal will sort the problem out.
“We need the Common Fisheries Policy for conservation because fish are endangered and they don’t respect national boundaries”
1. Fish don’t respect European Union boundaries either. It’s pointless having a single fisheries policy covering the UK, Greece and Eastern European countries at the same time.
2. 50,000 tonnes of cod are thrown back into the sea dead each year. This is because EU quotas only allow fishermen to catch one type of fish. By the time they realise they’ve accidentally landed cod, it’s too late. They’re heavily fined if they sell the fish, so instead they dump them back into the sea – dead. 24,000 tonnes of cod are caught legally each year; 50,000 tonnes are dumped.
“The Common Agricultural Policy used to account for 70% of the EU’s budget. Now it’s less than 30%.”
1. The EU budget has increased dramatically; of course the proportion spent on the CAP has decreased!
2. With EU expansion, the proportion is set to increase to 50% again.
“When the Labour Party campaigned on EU withdrawal in the early 1980s, they lost spectacularly.”
1. In the early 1980s, the EEC was not as advanced as the European Union is today. We hadn’t signed the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Consolidated Treaty or the Nice Treaty. EEC withdrawal in the early 1980s was a lot less palatable to the electorate than EU withdrawal is today.
2. In that election the Labour Party also proposed protectionist trade quotas, unilateral nuclear disarmament, sustained borrowing followed by tax hikes, restricting multinational companies, building new coal power plants, repeal of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act and re-nationalisation of industry. So they blame the EU??
So, the question is; do you think the europhile argument is dead in the water, or already being cooked in the pan?
“Just 9% of new UK laws come from Brussels, according to the House of Commons Research Department”
This myth comes from Standard Note SN/IA/2888, which states that 9% of statutory instruments come from the EU.
1. Statutory Instruments don’t include any EU regulations, which become law automatically in the UK without passing through the UK Parliament. The EU has switched emphasis from directives to regulations in order to bypass national parliaments. Under the proposed EU Constitution, regulations would (correctly) be known as European Laws.
2. Statutory Instruments are often trivial, or are used to ‘switch on’ or ‘switch off’ other pieces of legislation. They may cover issues local to just one area of the country, for example bus lanes in Oxford. These can’t be compared to EU regulation.
3. The Standard Note itself points out that the 9% figure isn’t the correct one. It quotes Denis MacShane (then Europe Minister) saying “It would entail disproportionate cost to research and compile the number of legislative instruments enacted each year in the UK directly implementing EU legislation. The picture is complicated.”
4. The German Parliament admits that 80% of new legislation in Germany originates in Brussels.
“Leeds City Council employs more staff than the European Commission”
Very misleading. The European Commission employs roughly 40,000 staff, most of whom are lawmakers. Leeds City Council employs teachers, social workers, park rangers, street sweepers – surely these can’t be compared to bureaucrats!
Across the EU, hundreds of thousands of government staff have to implement Commission decisions. In the UK, the Environment Agency, Customs & Excise and other government departments are responsible for the implementation.
In addition, at any given time there are tens of thousands of lobbyists in Brussels lobbying the Commission.
“The EU accounts may not have been signed for 13 years in a row, but this is because member states haven’t administered budgets properly. The money is then reclaimed the following year.”
1. A few examples from the Court of Auditors report:
(Page, Paragraph)
(92, 5.9) 40% of payments tested by the CoA showed claimed fields were larger than the real fields.
(93, 5.14) In Hungary and Slovakia, farmers may have been punished because of false claims by their neighbours because of the management system.
(94, 5.21) 11.4% of Italian suckler cows either didn’t exist or weren’t suckler cows. But the figure in Slovenia was nearly half. Meanwhile, over one in ten special beef premium cows in Malta didn’t exist or weren’t premium, one in five in Italy, and over half in Slovenia. See Graph 5.4 (p. 114)
(94, 5.25) Olive oil grants are worth €2 billion. All cases tested found errors or overpayments, and also revealed two cases of suggested fraud.
(213, 10.18) The Committee of the Regions has failed to reclaim money from several members who had fiddled their claims
(216, Table 10.2) There remains a backlog of untaken leave by employees across the institution, which can be swapped for cash. This previously identified liability (which runs into many millions) remains on the books.
Also, MEPs’ second pensions continue presently to be illegal, and remain an unfunded liability.
2. If any money is reclaimed, it’s claimed back from governments – not the recipients of the grants. This means that the member state has actually paid twice over – once in membership subscriptions, and once when the money is ‘reclaimed’.
“It doesn’t matter that the European Commission isn’t elected. The Council Of Ministers is elected, and that’s responsible for new policies.”
The Council of Ministers transfers power to the EU Commission. Richard North’s blog deals with this issue:
“Does the Council maintain an oversight over how those powers are exercised? No.
Has the Council any power to call the Commission to account over the way it uses its powers? No.
Can the Council remove or modify those powers, if it is unsatisfied with the way the Commission is performing? No.
Does the Council even have the power to ask the Commission for information on its performance? Er… No.
So what is the Council? In effect, it is a transfer station. On the basis of proposals from the Commission, it handles the process of taking powers from member states, packaging them up and shovelling them into the Commission, for them never to be returned.
Does it ask the electorate in advance - through an election manifesto - what powers it should hand over? No.
And is any record kept of which particular ministers vote for what, so that they can be taken to task by their electorates, if they vote the wrong way? No.”
“Britain trades more with Holland alone than with the entire Commonwealth”
1. The EU records Holland as the destination even if goods are shipped through Holland to other countries, including the US. Huge containers in Rotterdam are considered to be trade under EU rules. This is known as the “Rotterdam Effect” and hugely distorts the amount of trade that we really conduct with non-EU nations.
2. EU tariffs and single market membership make it hard for the UK to trade competitively with the Commonwealth. EU withdrawal will sort the problem out.
“We need the Common Fisheries Policy for conservation because fish are endangered and they don’t respect national boundaries”
1. Fish don’t respect European Union boundaries either. It’s pointless having a single fisheries policy covering the UK, Greece and Eastern European countries at the same time.
2. 50,000 tonnes of cod are thrown back into the sea dead each year. This is because EU quotas only allow fishermen to catch one type of fish. By the time they realise they’ve accidentally landed cod, it’s too late. They’re heavily fined if they sell the fish, so instead they dump them back into the sea – dead. 24,000 tonnes of cod are caught legally each year; 50,000 tonnes are dumped.
“The Common Agricultural Policy used to account for 70% of the EU’s budget. Now it’s less than 30%.”
1. The EU budget has increased dramatically; of course the proportion spent on the CAP has decreased!
2. With EU expansion, the proportion is set to increase to 50% again.
“When the Labour Party campaigned on EU withdrawal in the early 1980s, they lost spectacularly.”
1. In the early 1980s, the EEC was not as advanced as the European Union is today. We hadn’t signed the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Consolidated Treaty or the Nice Treaty. EEC withdrawal in the early 1980s was a lot less palatable to the electorate than EU withdrawal is today.
2. In that election the Labour Party also proposed protectionist trade quotas, unilateral nuclear disarmament, sustained borrowing followed by tax hikes, restricting multinational companies, building new coal power plants, repeal of the Police & Criminal Evidence Act and re-nationalisation of industry. So they blame the EU??
So, the question is; do you think the europhile argument is dead in the water, or already being cooked in the pan?
Monday, 1 September 2008
Up and down
According to some figures that are going around, Labour's membership in Yorkshire and North Lincs has dropped some 31% in the LAST YEAR ALONE.
Now, you may think that this trend is probably the same for every Party. Well, certainly not for the UK Independence Party. Membership for that Party, in the same area of the country in the same time period, has risen by 19% and even more positively, the number of UKIP members under the age of 35 in this region has reportedly increased by 31%!
Given that nothing as of yet has indicated that these figures will not continue in their respective directions, the future looks very bright indeed for the country, if a little (okay, VERY) dreary for everyone's least favourite dabbler in hardcore europhillia.
Now, you may think that this trend is probably the same for every Party. Well, certainly not for the UK Independence Party. Membership for that Party, in the same area of the country in the same time period, has risen by 19% and even more positively, the number of UKIP members under the age of 35 in this region has reportedly increased by 31%!
Given that nothing as of yet has indicated that these figures will not continue in their respective directions, the future looks very bright indeed for the country, if a little (okay, VERY) dreary for everyone's least favourite dabbler in hardcore europhillia.
The magic number
With Corbett having been selected as the No. 2 choice on Labour's diabolical Yorkshire European Elections regional list, there is a chance that the man could lose his seat.
It is probably likely that a 28% swing would be required for this to happen. So, all of thee with common sense, let us link arms and pray together, for the magic number 28 in June 2009 could not only see Labour ONCE AGAIN decimated, but could see to it than no dosh from taxpayers pockets will be funnelled into this jerk's bank account. At least, that is, until he cashes in his cozy EU pension!
(Even if we may have to witness Corbett and his comrades give one final salute to the EU flag with tears on their eyes upon departure, as televised by Corbett's mates in the BBC!)
It is probably likely that a 28% swing would be required for this to happen. So, all of thee with common sense, let us link arms and pray together, for the magic number 28 in June 2009 could not only see Labour ONCE AGAIN decimated, but could see to it than no dosh from taxpayers pockets will be funnelled into this jerk's bank account. At least, that is, until he cashes in his cozy EU pension!
(Even if we may have to witness Corbett and his comrades give one final salute to the EU flag with tears on their eyes upon departure, as televised by Corbett's mates in the BBC!)
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