• 2012 will be the year of reckoning for the European Project. It is extremely unlikely that the Euro can be held together in its current form, and that that will be the most positive scenario. The worst case scenario will be that the markets overwhelm the whole thing leading to wholesale natonalisation of the banks. Either way Eurosceptic opinions and anti EU voting will continue to grow, not just in Britain bit across the whole European Union.
The EU project is a failure
For UKIP 2011 saw us clearly establish ourselves as the 4th party in domestic politics. Highlights for us included Stuart Wheeler becoming our Treasurer, lending us great credibility. Lord Hesketh joining us later in the year was a coup, having the former Chief Whip in the Lords during the Maastricht debate come over shows us quite how far the argument over Europe is moving in our direction. Then there was the second place for Jane Collins in the Barnsley by-election that ruffled feathers across the whole political class. And the consistent week by week improvement of our poll ratings in council by-election after by-election the length and breadth of the country, and in December one national opinion poll had us overtaking the Lib/Dems.
It is true that the end of the year saw a dip in our polling as Cameron gained a bounce. While I congratulate David Cameron, what is in all honesty could have done differently? The slow realisation will however dawn, that not a single power has been brought back from Brussels and that amidst the new mood of retribution in Brussels, British businesses are under greater threat than they were before the 'veto'.
There is now an overwhelming desire of the British people to have a referendum on this issue, a referendum that Cameron, Clegg and Milliband steadfastly refuse to grant.
•Senior Tory MEP Robert Atkins described the Icelandic Fisheries Minister as "Stalinist" for not wanting his country to join the EU.
Atkins recently returned from a taxpayer funded EU delegation to Iceland. The Icelandic Fisheries Minister expressed his concerns about what EU membership would mean for Iceland's fishing stocks and fishing industry. Robert Atkins told the European parliament's Foreign Affairs committee that he would compare this minister, Jón Bjarnason, to 'Stalinists', a remark that was immediately challenged by UKIP MEP William Dartmouth.
"The remark citing Jón Bjarnason as a follower of Stalin was completely gratuitous and uncalled for" said William Dartmouth, UKIP MEP for South West England. "Iceland has a 1,000 year old Parliament and one of the longest standing traditions of personal liberty. For an elected Member of the European Parliament which has direct elections only since 1979 to attack an elected Icelandic Minister in these jarring and gross terms is reprehensible".
William Dartmouth called on Robert Atkins to apologise to the Icelandic Minister and to the nation of Iceland.
•Britain still considers the levels of inward migration to be of massive concern reveals new data released by the German Marshall Fund in their Transatlantic Trends: Immigration survey for 2011.
The headline figures show that in the UK 57% people think that there "are too many immigrants", 68% regard immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity and 71% concentrate their concerns on illegal rather than legal immigration.
“While the UK maintains its traditional sympathy to those driven from their home by natural disasters, persecution and war, we are very concerned at the sheer scale of inward migration”, said Paul Nuttall, UKIP MEP for the North West.
“It makes perfect sense that this is so when the UK is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Figures released by Migrationwatch only this week show 401 people per square kilometre in England”.
•Today in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, UKIP helped win a vote to defeat a European Commission legislative proposal to continue a fisheries deal with Morocco that is harmful to the interests of the people of occupied Western Sahara.
Speaking after the vote, Stuart Agnew UKIP MEP from England Eastern Region said:
"This is a wonderful defeat for EU-assisted colonialism in Africa. This legislation was harmful to the interests of the people of occupied Western Sahara and clearly breached their rights, as well as established international law.
"UKIP were happy to vote down this proposal and send the European Commission packing."
Last Monday, 12.12.2011, Mr Agnew addressed parliament during the joint debate on the EU-Morocco fisheries partnership agreement.
•Speaking today at the Strasbourg plenary to debate the outcome of the EU summit (8-9 Dec.), UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said that something had changed since the summit: "Mr Cameron may not know it but we are now on course - Britain is going to make the Great Escape.
"We are going to get out of this Union. We are going to be the first European country to get our freedom back. I suspect many others will follow and then what we'll have is our democracy back, our liberty back, and we'll have influence in the world as you lot head for disaster. It is going to happen," Mr Farage concluded.
"I often ask myself the question - why would a successful country that has enjoyed a thousand years of independence give up its right of self-government to the unelected non-entities which sit before us this morning?" Mr Farage asked at the beginning of his address.
"And the answer that comes back from the Foreign Office and the great of the good is that we must have influence in Europe; we must have a seat at the top table so we can change things.
Cameron's veto will incur the wrath of Sarkozy. Financial services will suffer. And only more pain awaits if we stay in the EU, UKIP leader Nigel Farage writes.
• For some years I have felt like the most unpopular Englishman inside the EU institutions. Now I have competition. David Cameron cut a very lonely figure in the grim Justus Sipsius building in Brussels. He vetoed a new EU Treaty that was designed to save the Euro and will try to present himself as a strong leader in the UK.
His objection to the Treaty had nothing to do with the Eurozone itself or the new, proposed draconian measures on failing member states. This is a pity as he could have used the opportunity to explain that democracy, both in the UK and in Europe, was something that we passionately care about.
He should have warned them that abolishing national democracy and vesting new powers in EU bureaucrats (under German direction, of course) was disgraceful. That an apology needs to be issued to Greece and Italy for the removal of their democratically elected governments and the appointment of puppet premiers. If peoples are deprived of their rights they will resort to other means, civil disorder in Greece being an example of this. The EU project is now in danger of creating the very extreme nationalism that it was supposed to stop.
• Following David Cameron's use of a veto today at the European Council, UKIP Leader Nigel Farage at the Justus Lupsius building in Brussels this morning said the real debate on the EU was just beginning.
"It is tempting to say well done David Cameron for standing up for British interests, but then we realise that he has actually gained nothing," he said.
"His attempt to safeguard Britain's biggest industry has led to Mr Sarkozy telling him where to go.
"The argument that we can repatriate powers from the EU died last night. We cannot have an á la carte menu in future with Europe. They have made it abundantly clear, we can either take it or we can leave it. "Of course there will be a heavy price to pay for the City for every time there is a crisis with the Euro the City of London will get the blame. The Euro elite have their permanent scapegoat.
"I fear we will now see an avalanche of financial market regulations over which we will now be in a permanent voting minority.
"The real debate on the European Union in Britain is about to begin. Whether David Cameron knows it or not, his actions last night marked the beginning of the end of Britain's membership of this union.
•In response to David Cameron's call for safeguards for the City in return for supporting EU Treaty change UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said today:
"'Retreat, retreat, just ten yards at a time' is effectively David Cameron's call. David Cameron's European position started off with a 'Cast-Iron Guarantee' to hold a referendum, then moved to repatriating powers, and now down to some obscure concept of safeguarding the City which is undefined.
"Cameron's empty posturing is getting ridiculous. He is the man who called for EU budget cuts but was happy to settle for an increase.
"By his actions we must judge him. And his actions to date have been to pick up the white flag and wave it furiously.
"His pretence of defending the City of London is pathetic as his party supported EU regulation of the City in European Parliament votes last October.
"Cameron has retreated so far to please his EU partners he is now supporting the federalist dream of fiscal union for the Eurozone to save the euro. This is just empty words from the federalist prime minister."
• East of England UKIP MEP, Stuart Agnew has accused Agriculture Minister Jim Paice of ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ in a response to the Government’s proposals for screening of imported eggs after the EU’s battery cage ban comes into force on 1st January 2012.
Mr Agnew, who farms in Norfolk said: “Mr Paice is going to have to do a lot more than tinker with this issue. Clever sound bites are not enough. Imported shell eggs are a relatively small part of the problem and UV scanning of them will only trap the unwary.
"Unfortunately, it will do absolutely nothing to protect British producers from potentially huge amounts of imported egg powder and processed egg products made from battery cage eggs.
"I would like to hear his proposals for dealing with this much more important aspect of the problem.
• "I've never known in the history of the world that politics beat economics," UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom told RT yesterday, following agreement between Merkel and Sarkozy over EU treaty changes to save the euro.
"Water doesn't flow uphill, that's the long and short of it. Forget my politics, it doesn't really matter. The long and short of it is: this project is doomed to failure, it was always doomed to failure, and moreover I would have the people responsible... arraigned at a fiscal crimes tribunal. I would like to see some of these people sent to prison," Bloom said.
"The only way out of this is growth. And of course the thing that restricts growth and economies is regulation and taxation, and that's exactly what the European Union wants more of. They just don't get it... I give the thing months rather than years, now."
Asked about Merkel and Sarkozy pushing for a new treaty that would punish states for breaking the rules, Mr Bloom said "it's so much political posturing as it always is. The first people to break the rules - I think was in 2003 - were the French and the Germans by breaking the Maastricht treaty 60%-of-GDP rule. [NOTE: they broke the rules three years in a row from 2002 to 2004].
"So they've been breaking the rules. Everybody's been breaking the rules. They continue to break the rules, and of course now we have - quite against treaty obligations - we have the ECB buying soveriegn debt in the secondary market, so the whole thing is a complete shambles and they're trying to strap celotape all over it, but it's not working.
"We are now witnessing the endgame. It's over. If the euro had been a horse, they would have shot it."
• Following talks in Paris today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed on a course of action they believe could save the euro.
In a joint press release the two leaders said that EU treaty changes will include automatic sanctions against eurozone members that exceed the budget deficit threshold of 3% of GNP. Bailing out countries by means of eurobonds has been ruled out due to lack of funds, it was said. Instead, Merkel and Sarkozy agreed to activate the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to replace the current bailout facility - the 440-billion-euro European Financial Stabilisation Facility (EFSF), which was practically disboursed to bail out Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Initially aimed to take effect in 2013, the ESM treaty is a permanent bailout fund agreed by member states last July. Its Board of Governors, comprising of Eurozone finance ministers bound by, and accountable to the treaty, will have the power to raise an initial €700 billion from eurozone members, pro rata, and to demand for more if required.
"This is ludicrous," UKIP MEP and spokeman for economic affairs, Godfrey Bloom said in response. "They admit there is not enough money to bail out distressed countries through eurobonds, but they want to try the same thing through the same states financing the ESM.
"I have news for Merkel and Sarkozy - Italy and Spain are too big to bail.
Response to the Scott-Baker Review Panel Report on the European Arrest Warrant by UKIP MEP Gerard Batten. • Introduction: In better ages of its legal history than the one we are living through, Britain developed a uniquely fair system of criminal justice. Our achievements on this field have excelled those of Ancient Rome and remain unparalleled in the history of civilisation. Throughout the world, our common law system became an ideal which other nations strove to copy.
Yet, the very excellence of British justice produced some new dilemmas - such as the extradition of suspects to other countries. We do not want to become safe havens for foreign fugitive criminals; on the other hand, how can we hand over suspects to the countries where the system of criminal justice is so different from – and inferior to – our own?
This has been resolved by a number of safeguards which evolved over centuries to protect the liberties of the suspects whilst enabling extradition of genuine fugitives. Thus, we would not extradite people to countries where they would be tortured of subjected to unfair trial. The so-called 'dual criminality' requirement bars extradition where a person is wanted for actions which would not be considered a crime in this country. Above all, a country requesting extradition first had to prove to a British judge that they had a prima facie case for the suspect to answer.
• Yesterday [01.12.2011] in the Brussels chamber I poured scorn on Conservative claims that they had EU spending under control. MEPs formally voted for a 2% increase in the EU’s budget for 2012.
The rise – an estimated 2 billion pounds in total – will cost British taxpayers around £307 million for its contribution to the pot. The European Parliament and the Commission's demand for a 5 % increase for the 2012 budget was ridiculous but the acceptance of a real 2% rise is a slap in the face to taxpayers!
In a doomed pursuit of its Lisbon Agenda, the EU has squandered more than one trillion euro of taxpayers' money. I’ll say that number again: One Trillion.
Funds are given to an unaccountable Commission that fails to properly control their use, yet always comes back to ask for more.
The present economic and financial situation in Europe is without a doubt a reflection of the EU's abject failure.
•Speaking during the debate on Croatia's accession treaty in Brussels, today, UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said if Croatia votes to join the European Union it would be renouncing 20 years of hard fought independence to rejoin another Yugoslavia in the making.
"This country has for nearly a thousand years sought independence, and for 20 years they've had independence - they got out of the failed political experiment that was Yugoslavia - and if they vote to join the European Union, they're voting to rejoin a new Yugoslavia, a failing political experiment that will implode," Mr Farage said.
Having visited Croatia last September to check on whether there was a fair campaign and a proper national debate, Mr Farage said:
"I found that the EU is doing everything it can to bribe the poitical class in Croatia. Already the EU has given 320 million euros to Croatia in what is called pre-accession aid."
"The EU has just spent a million euros on a blatant propaganda advertising campaign, telling Croatia that the EU is their only hope," he said.
•"There is an argument that Mr Berlusconi wasn't a very good premier. That may or may not be true. But the essence of parliamentary democracy is, however bad your government is, you the people get an opportunity in general elections to remove them and replace them with somebody else," UKIP Leader Nigel Farage told Claudio Messora in an interview for the Italian site Byoblu.com.
"The argument that he wasn't up to it; the argument that a technocratic government of experts will somehow be better... is wrong on two counts," he continued.
"Firstly, that Mr Monti is one of the architects of this failure in the first place, and secondly this is how dictatorship begins - a state of emergency is declared, normal traditional laws of democracy are suspended and someone takes charge for the good of the country.
"This is how dictatorhip begins. It is not justified in any circumstances at all."
"We got called 'deniers' but now the boot is on the other foot, and for the last two years the alarmists have been fighting a rearguard action. Climate change scare stories no longer create moral high ground for politicians and their useful idiots in the environmental movement." - Godfrey Bloom MEP • Another few thousand emails have come to light purporting to show that those involved in pushing the 'We are all going to die' line in politics of climate change have at best a lot more questions to answer.
Godfrey Bloom MEP, UKIP Energy spokesman said, "The person or persons unknown who leaked thousands of emails between climate scientists in 2009, leading to the 'Climategate' scandal has struck again.
“Thousands more emails have now been released into the public domain, revealing more about the institutional corruption at the heart of this pseudo-scientific enterprise designed to relieve people of their cash.
•Tuesday: You may recall earlier comments of mine about the EU moving in on Education - University Degree documents to carry the EU logo and to be labelled as an EU Qualification, without reference to the University where a student actually graduated. Today we voted on the "Implementation of Professional Qualifications Directive", adopted by 463 - 163 votes. It was an "own initiative" report - that's by an individual, not from the commission. The author was your East Mids MEP, Emma McClarkin, and the Commission often take these individual reports up and push them through later, officially.
Wednesday: The day began with a major debate, "Economic Governance." Barosso, Van Rompuy and Jean-Claude Juncker led and trotted out all the usual rhetoric, Solidarity and so on. I have to say Barosso was less bombastic than usual, but he pressed for Treaty changes, the Community Method and declared that the Euro is central to the EU; excellent news!
• UKIP MEP Gerard Batten's monthly report on the Strasbourg and Brussels sessions of the European Parliament is out.
This issue covers the 14-17 November Strasbourg plenary and more.
Among other features:
• Melting down our memorials for scrap
• President Barroso calls for economic and financial governance
• Batten tells Barroso he is mad - in the best possible taste
• The European Arrest Warrant - the nightmare continues
•David Cameron is today flitting between Brussels and Berlin, the two key seats of Government for Britain. In both he is trying to be statesmanlike. He is calling for ‘action’ and ‘reform’. He is highlighting the mutual dependence on trade and the sincere hopes and wishes that the entire Eurozone doesn’t fall apart in an uncontrolled death/default situation.
Of course his slinky words will, as the phrase goes, ‘butter no parsnips’. They will be politely listened to and ignored by Barroso and Merkel. After all why should they listen to him?
They know what they want, and they have a good idea on how to get it. And Cameron’s position in all this is entirely untenable.
"When Mr Papandreou got up and used the word 'referendum'... Mr Rehn, you described it as 'a breach of confidence', and your friends here got together like a pack of hyenas, rounded on Papandreou, had him removed and replaced by a puppet Government. What an absolutely disgusting spectacle that was. And not satisfied with that, you decided that Berlesconi had to go. So he was removed and replaced by Mr Monti, a former European Commissioner, a fellow architect of this euro disaster and a man who wasn't even a member of parliament." - Farage, 16.11.2011 | VIDEO • Nigel Farage's recent speech in Strasbourg has gone viral, surpassing 100,000 views in 48 hours on one Youtube account alone.
The video is being widely distributed, especially across Europe and the United States, reflecting Farage's worldwide support as the crash-landing of the euro unfolds, and the Greek and Italian governments are seized by unelected technocrat puppets with a centralising agenda that is far removed from the democratic aspirations of the people.
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UK Independence Party in the European Parliament, Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, Rue Wiertz, 60 - 1047 Brussels
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Cameron's veto will incur the wrath of Sarkozy. Financial services will suffer. And only more pain awaits if we stay in the EU, UKIP leader Nigel Farage writes.
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