By John Bufton MEP | Related VIDEO • 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Post Office was left with no choice but to rely on taxpayer's money to stay open, money which over the years has been withdrawn.
By Marta Andreasen MEP • The Council has decided to coordinate the economic policy of the nations of Europe. And I am sorry to see that George Osborne has agreed to this on behalf of the British people. Only recently It seemed that we were going to let Parliament in Westminister see the budget first before the European Commission saw it.
This new plan of the EU means the budget and economic policies of the member states will be monitored for six months every year from now on. This is really an attempt to reinvigorate the stability and growth pact. The SGP is something that today is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It was meant to keep the countries of the euro from letting their deficits get out of hand and threatening the euro. Well it didn´t work. Some countries let their deficits explode and threatened the existence of the euro in the process.
• UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall slammed the passing of a new report yesterday at the European Parliament which calls on the EU to fund a new communication campaign that includes the training of journalists and the funding of local broadcasters.
This report, he said, "smells strongly of a move towards propoganda to me".
"This is a full frontal assault by the EU to create a propaganda machine and buy off journalists to saturate the media with pro-EU spin."
Speaking in Strasbourg after the passing on an amendment to the Løkkegaard motion for resolution, Paul Nuttal MEP said: "Despite Barroso's 'State of the Union address' which claimed everything is going fine and the people are calling for more EU in their lives, the alternative motion on journalism that was voted through today was a damning indictment admitting that the EU is totally out of touch with the people.
VIDEO • Speaking after Commission President Barroso's first-ever 'State-of-the-Union' address, today in Strasbourg, UKIP MEP Nigel Farage told Mr Barroso there's one fundamental difference between him and US President Obama: "He, of course, is elected and you are not."
Whereas 48 million people had watched Obama's 'State of the Union' speech, Mr Farage told the Commission President, "here in the European Parliament we even have to beg to get the MEPs to turn up to listen to you," referring to the Parliament's president Jerzy Buzek's desperate efforts to ensure MEPs attended today's debate.
Referring to the recent EuroBarometer poll, Mr Farage said this tells us the true state of the Union: "It tells us that in the last six months there has been a dramatic drop in confidence in people's belief, even in belonging to the Union. A 10% drop in Germany; a 17% drop in Greece; a 9% drop in Portugal, and less than half of EU citizens think that being a member of the club is worth it."
UKIP's London MEP Gerard Batten was joined by those who have suffered at the hands of the EU's police state ambitions as he delivered his speech today at Torquay's annual conference.
Here is the speech in full:
• Good morning ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your warm welcome. I am not going to use this opportunity to promote my candidature for UKIP’s leadership. As most of you will know I stood in last year’s contest and I came second after Lord Pearson. I have declared my intention to stand this time and I will tell you my programme at the appropriate time and place.
What I will do now is to tell you about how the European Union is creating its own system of criminal law. The EU is in the process of creating its own police state.
UKIP joint Deputy Leader David Campbell Bannerman MEP kicked off his bid for the Party leadership yesterday in Torquay with a comprehensive speech on the conference theme 'A Positive Vision for the Future'.
Here is the speech in full:
• These next few years are the most important for our country, our liberties and our party.
And only through our Positive Vision for the way ahead will we be able to grow this party. That’s what we want, don’t we? To grow this party? To realise its real potential?
The foundations are set, we increased our vote share by 50% at the last election. We have a full and comprehensive manifesto, taking the fight to the Coalition and Labour on everything from defence to the economy, to fisheries and immigration. Policies make us relevant.
By Marta Andreasen MEP • The United Kingdom will have to loan money to countries that cannot protect their depositors under a new law proposed by Brussels. The European Commission has proposed two directives to update bank deposit protection.
One very interesting and to my mind quite sneaky part of the proposal is for a compulsory credit mechanism to protect the bank deposits in countries that could not afford to protect their depositors in the event of bank failure.
VIDEO
• Speaking in a debate on EUobserver TV (01.09.2010)on the French repatriation of Roma to Bulgaria and Romania, UKIP MEP Nigel Farage said this issue "gets to the heart of the relationship between Member States and the European Union."
"From 2014 there will be absolutely no possibility for Sarkozy sending people home, because they will have total rights of movement and of work, and all the transitional arrangments would have ended," Mr Farage said, referring to France's current legal basis for the expulsion of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens who settle in France.
"If the president or prime minister of a country doesn't have the right to say who should come to live, work and settle in their country, then do their own population realise just how much power this European project has got? So this is a fundamental debate about the European Union - and do the peoples of Europe really want this?"
"Any uncontrolled, large-scale migration poses a threat to the whole cohesion of a society," Mr Farage pointed out.
VIDEO • The European Union is an economic and democratic disaster, UKIP MEP Gerard Batten has told Russia Today.
Describing the EU as "an economic and democratic disaster," the London MEP said: "The way it was sold to people 40 years ago and has been ever since is that we must have it for trade and jobs. We do not need it for trade and jobs, even the European Union has backed down from that argument,” he said. “What we need is trade with Europe and the rest of the world, friendship and cooperation. We do not need to be members of this vast bureaucratic organization in order to achieve that.”
Writing in Exeter's Express and Echo, UKIP MEP William Dartmouth warns of the potential wave of immigration from Turkey should they be given EU membership
• When Prime Minister David Cameron declared that he was in favour of Turkey being allowed to become a full member of the European Union it was possibly of little more than passing interest to people living in the Exeter area or indeed the South West.
After all why should it be? The huge waves of immigration that the UK has seen over the past few years has had little or no impact on the region.Immigration, with its huge demands on schools, hospitals, housing and social services, was a problem for places like London, Birmingham or East Anglia.
• The UK Independence Party has consistently opposed the introduction of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) and The Extradition Act 2003.
It has done so because, unlike the Old Parties, it always understood that the criminal justice systems of many of the member states of the European Union did not measure up to the high standards set by the Common Law and other legal systems in place in the UK, and that many people being haled off to face criminal proceedings in far-flung corners of the EU would do so on the flimsiest of pretexts and without any Judge in the UK being able to scrutinise the evidence on which the draconian EAWs are based.
• Although under his leadership the vote in the last General Election increased by 50% Lord Pearson feels that other interests in his life are demanding more attention.
Leadership Resignation Statement by Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I took over as leader of UKIP last year to see the party through the General Election, and said I would then consider my position. We increased our vote by 50%, and have many exciting plans for the future. But I have learnt that I am not much good at party politics, which I do not enjoy. I am also 68, and need to give more time to my wider interests. These include the treatment of people with intellectual impairment, teacher training, the threat from Islamism and the relationship between good and evil - not to mention my dogs and my family.
• Following the comments of the new EU Ambassador to Washington earlier today, William Dartmouth MEP, UKIP's spokesman on International Trade pointed out, "Cameron's trip to see Obama can now be seen to be a complete waste of time."
The Portuguese diplomat João Vale de Almeida, who reports only to EU Presidents José Manuel Barroso and Herman van Rompuy and to EU foreign minister Cathy Ashton, told local press in Washington that he was now the man to call, echoing Henry Kissinger's famous question "When I want to call Europe, who do I call?"
Leaving British citizens open to detention without trial for well over 540 days in Greece dwarfs the debates on 42 and 28 days detention in the UK. Yet there’s much worse to come with what Europe has in mind.
• David Cameron may well have stood firm against letting Eurocrats have a peep at our own draft budgets, but he seems to have rolled over by allowing European police agencies to desecrate our own civil liberties – paradoxically making the current reality of British citizens being detained without trial for one and a half years in Greece look like a mere inconvenience. Perhaps a referendum was also inconvenient.
• I have to confess that I never had great expectations for the result of the famous bank stress tests. It is a no-brainer that if the ECB jumped into this adventure it was because it thought that the outcome of the tests would be such that would inject some energy into the financial markets.
Running the risk of ending up with negative results and provoking a further financial crisis would have constituted evidence of major lack of responsibility, which wouldn´t have suprised some of us but would certainly have put an end to any confidence that people could have in the ECB.
The Swiss financial authority FINMA took advantage of the EU test to run their own stress test on their big banks using a stricter capital ratio of 8% (compared to the EU’s 6%) and were able to declare they passed with flying colours. This just highlights the lack of credibility of the CEBS test. In fact CEBS admits that the purpose of the test was not to determine the capital needs of the banks so what was the point?
•UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom today revealed his horror at news the EU is looking into 'eco-friendly' plans allowing undertakers to dissolve the dead then flush them into the sewage system.
"I am utterly appalled at this suggestion which is almost beyond belief and that is saying something with the bilge given the go ahead by the European Commission," said Mr Bloom, UKIP Euro MP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.
The Commission is investigating plans which could see corpses dissolved in caustic solutions in a bid to cut down on the amount of land taken up by graves.
Belgian undertakers have come up with the proposals which could see people’s deceased loved ones being placed in containers containing salts and water.
"In the meantime negotiations for the 2011 Budget are ongoing and I see that both Parliament and Commission are not giving up their ambitions even when they can see that almost all the national governments are making significant cuts to their budgets. And the ambitions include not only the European External Action Service and the Supervisory Authorities but also salary increases for EU civil servants and more assistant allowance for MEPs."
• The last two weeks have seen the EU bureaucracy speed up their agenda on their power grab, and the costs are now becoming apparent.
First there was a meeting in Madrid where the main details of the new European External Action Service (the EU foreign service) were agreed upon. A compromise was reached between the EU presidency (Spain in the chair), the three MEPs responsible for the file (Guy Verhofstadt, Elmer Brok and Robert Gualtieri) and Commission President Barroso. Immediately afterwards the Commission and the Parliament started to take steps to set up the structure.
• Last week Zapatero came to close the Spanish presidency of the EU and spent a good half hour telling us about the great things he had achieved. I just could not believe he could boast about success while Spain has now joined the club of those countries that are out for rescue.
Back in January when he came to open the presidency I caught him by surprise when I brought to his attention the dramatic situation that many British citizens were going through due to the threat of having their properties in Spain confiscated without reasonable compensation. Since then I have travelled to Andalucía to support the SOHA (Save Our Homes in Axarquia) march and there I met many of those affected. Others who have houses in other regions have come to my office in Brussels asking for support and I have discussed with them how I could help.
• Research by a Spanish University has shown that each 'green' job created costs $800,000 and lost 2.2 other jobs. UKIP MEP Derek Clark said that it called into question the whole future of the 'green' industry that was being pursued at both European and UK level.
The document, produced by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, came to light under US Freedom of Information Act requests by campaigners concerned at President Obama's failure to ban political lobbyists.
Mr Clark, who sits on the European Parliament's Employment committee, said that the British government should now come clean over its green pledges, and outline not how many jobs would be created, but how many would be lost as a result of following its policies.
"Wind power is an unreliable source of energy at best, particularly as currently deployed. If the rapid expansion of the wind sector continues as the Liberal Democrats proposed earlier this year, the 57,000 green jobs they want to create would cost $45.6bn and would lose 125,000 jobs in the non-green economy.
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UK Independence Party in the European Parliament, Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, Rue Wiertz, 60 - 1047 Brussels
UKIP's London MEP Gerard Batten was joined by those who have suffered at the hands of the EU's police state ambitions as he delivered his speech today at Torquay's annual conference.
UKIP joint Deputy Leader David Campbell Bannerman 
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