Westminster scandal leaves fringe parties to spread Euromyths unanswered

As the campaign for the European elections draws to a close it is apparent that the three main parties have been embroiled in the appalling Westminster expenses scandal leaving the field open to the minor parties who see this as their great opportunity to make headway. Not only have they benefitted directly from the expenses scandal but they have also found that no major party is focused enough on the European campaign ro effectively rebut the myths and lies they continuously spread about Europe.

Thus we have heard in recent weeks, without any effective rebuttal, that:

*70 to 80 percent of our legislation comes from the European Union, when according to the House of Commons library it's only nine percent

*MEPs are on an even bigger gravy train than MPs in Westminster, when in fact they are well ahead of Westminster in cleaning up their act

*That Britain pays £41 million a day into the EU budget, when our net contribution is a third of that and this figure anyway takes no account of the wider economic benefits which dwarf any such figures.

*That EU rules are "dictated by bureaucrats", when in fact bureaucrats only propose rules and it is elected and accountable MEPs and ministers that make the decisions.

Yet few people in the media are informed enough to counter these wild claims and Labour, Liberal and pro-European Conservatives have their minds elsewhere. It is to be hoped that, despite this, the UKIP-BNP axis does not gain seats in the European elections.

The truth about EU regulation

An argument I’ve always taken on with eurosceptics is the effects on business of EU regulation. Open Europe took umbrage at an article I wrote in the Yorkshire Post a few weeks ago, which questioned their wild assertions that EU regulation was out of control and crushing British business, in particular their claim that EU regulations will cost the UK £356 billion by 2018, the equivalent of £14,300 per household.

However, new analysis by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) indicates that EU regulation actually accounts for a tiny proportion of regulatory costs on business (0.1% in 2007-8). Indeed, according to the BCC, who should know a thing or two about how regulation affects businesses, the net cost to business of EU regulation was only £1.9bn, i.e. about £31 per person.

The BCC research also indicates that the ‘better regulation’ drive by both the European Commission and Government have, although derided by the Tories, had an effect. Having analysed 246 impact assessments on regulation affecting business in 2007-8, the BCC research states that the Government managed to cut more than £1bn in administrative costs on business.

Even hese figures, of course, don’t factor in the massive benefits to business and consumers of the European single market, estimated by the European Commission to be as much as 2% of national GDP.

The point is that, to misquote Stephen Fry’s General Melchett in TV’s BlackAdder, regulation isn’t a dirty word. Firstly, having one single set of common rules, instead of 27 different sets of national regulation, can actually cut red tape for business. Moreover, a sizeable proportion of EU regulation on matters ranging from water quality to vehicle licensing would exist at national level if the EU did not exist. The other point is that some regulation saves lives (such as banning the use of asbestos in buildings) or, in the case of the Temporary Agency Workers Directive, provides extra rights and social protection for workers,

As legislators, we don’t always get it right, and there are many ways in which the European Parliament, Government and our national parliament could improve the scrutiny and development of European law – from the initial Commission proposal to the final legislation. But research by such an authoritative business voice as the BCC (which, incidentally, also shows that EU regulation accounts for about 20% of regulation on British business, a far cry from David Cameron’s comment that “almost half of all regulations imposed on our businesses come from Brussels”) should certainly knock eurosceptic scare stories on the head.

Nonetheless, it would great to think that, faced with the evidence, the Tories, Open Europe, and Taxpayers’ Alliance will now admit that they were talking nonsense. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath, though.

The real truth on bananas and Euromyths

Dan Hannan's recent blog on the Telegraph website discusses the scrapping of EU regulations on some fruit and vegetables and claims that many Europhiles have consistently denied the existence of these rules and are now therefore trapped in some kind of Orwellian double speak.

He uses my blog as evidence and quotes the following: "From silly stories (such as the EP legislating that all bananas be straight) to more sinister ones (that ratifying the Lisbon Treaty would lead to armed foreign police patrolling British streets) no opportunity, no matter how far-fetched, is missed to portray the EU as an evil empire."

But the truth is that the European Parliament has indeed never legislated that all bananas be straight. Quite apart from the fact that it was the Council of Ministers (i.e. national governments of EU countries) rather than Parliament that requested the rules, those rules anyway simply gave various classifications to bananas and didn't, as was often claimed, require all bananas to be straight. As I said on my website, this was in fact an industry driven initiative introduced so traders could be certain as to what they were ordering. If anyone is any doubt, and is as pedantic as myself, they can read the rules for themselves here.

Now, I'm certain Dan Hannan and his fellow Eurosceptics will still argue that legislation on bananas was never necessary and that national governments should not have requested it. It is certainly true that the very existence of the rules has caused the European Union considerable and unnecessary embarrassment (so Hannan must be disappointed that they are to be abolished!). Indeed, the Commission has now agreed with them. Nonetheless, Hannan's accusations that I have been misleading people on this issue, actually reinforces the point I am trying to make about Euromyths.

Euromyths exist because Eurosceptics deliberately distort or mislead, exaggerate or omit, and do not bother with the whole truth, as was the case when Hannan quoted me on his blog. Some may think this is a trivial matter, but what of the other story in the quote (armed foreign police patrolling British streets)? What of the invented quotes about Jean Monnet or Godfrey Boom's attempts to convince people there was going to be a shortage of New Zealand butter? How about The EU banning Peking Duck, or changing the name of Bombay Mix or EU rules forcing paramedics to stop work to have breaks? The list goes on and on.

The point of highlighting these is not to undermine Eurosceptic arguments about more serious issues (as Hannan suggests) but to publish the truth and ask why, if Eurosceptics have any serious arguments against our membership of the EU, they have to resort to myth, invention and distortions of the truth?

A big hello to the silly season

As always, the coming of August brings the arrival of the silly season and like the first daffodil of spring, a Daily Express journalist has been in contact with me asking me whether there is anyone in the European Parliament campaigning to make the UK change its road signs to kilometres.

Now the journalist was quick to mention the permanent derogation Britain has been granted on the use of imperial measurements for road signs and as such knew any change would be solely up to the British government and parliament. Yet the journalist still wanted to know if there was anyone in the European parliament who wanted Britain to ditch miles, even though this would be entirely irrelevant to the current situation.

So, sometime in the next month expect some ridiculous "save our mile" campaign in the Express suggesting there is a plot to force Britain to use the kilometre - even though the newspaper fully understands there is absolutely no threat whatsoever to the British mile.

Ducking the issue

There’s a new Euromyth about Peking Duck. Previous claims that the EU was going to force a name change (in the same style as the Bombay Mix myth) have now been replaced in the Mail and the Telegraph, along with other papers, by claims the EU has banned Peking Duck altogether!

It will come as no surprise to anyone except the most gullible that the EU hasn’t banned Peking Duck.

What has actually happened is that Westminster council have discovered that some of the the special ovens used to cook Peking Duck emit too much carbon monoxide - and surely nobody needs to be told the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning!

There are of course plenty of other ovens that do not break the regulations so any disruption to Peking Duck, however unfortunate, has really been quite minimal.

And while the facts are buried in the article the usual formula of nonsense is laid on top. Headlines scream of a ban, the blame is laid squarely at the foot of the EU and there is righteous indignation from a celebrity, Ken Hom in this case. But of course "Eleven restaurants must update their ovens because they release too much carbon monoxide" is not a news story and certainly not one that is the EU’s fault!

Bushill Matthews and gravy

Following the Tory expense scandal that accounted for their leader Giles Chichester and chief whip Den Dover, the Conservatives have appointed Phillip Bushill Matthews to lead their delegation in the European Parliament.

Speaking to a local newspaper Bushill Matthews said: "The national press only seem interested in selectively promoting the 'gravy train' image of the European Parliament."

This is a bit rich, coming from him, as his own book on the Parliament was called "The Gravy Train" (sadly no longer stocked by Amazon though available in the odd second hand shop).

Anyone reading the book would find that it actually tried to debunk much of the gravy train image, but its title (and cover complete with picture of him climbing on a train) show that he is another Tory trying to ride two horses.

Tories scrape the barrel on St George's Day

I had always thought that the media 'silly season' was in August, but the Tories seem to be trying to bring it forward a few months with this nonsense that was picked up by some very lazy journalists in the Sun, Mail and Express.

In what can only be described as a deeply cynical attempt to get some media coverage on St George's Day, the Conservatives have shamelessly recycled a story they used two years ago claiming that the Government is colluding with an EU plot to create transnational regions in order to create a united European state.

Sadly, it seems that a few journalists were too lazy to check the facts and swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

A quick internet search shows that the Sun and the Mail ran virtually identical stories in September 2006. Indeed, it looks as though the Conservative press officers were so lazy that they couldn't be bothered to make up a new quote for their Regional Affairs spokesman Eric Pickles! In September 2006, Pickles was quoted as saying "Eurocrats could literally wipe Britain off the map". Today he says "Gordon Brown literally wants to wipe Britain off the map". I don't think I'm alone in sensing a bit of déja vu here!

On the substance (what little exists), the Tories' claims refer to a map of Europe used for the INTERREG programme which is, as the acronym suggests, an inter-regional structural funds programme designed to help regions in different countries work together in order to maximise funding opportunities and tackle common problems. For the purpose of the programme, the map defines a "North Sea" region, an "Atlantic" region, a "Transmanche" region, a "North Atlantic" region and an "Ireland/Wales" region.

But, of course, Hartlepool and Hull do share a number of common problems and interests with the likes of Zeebrugge and Rotterdam - they are ports, share the same stretch of water and have similar environmental concerns. Indeed, inter-regional co-operation is not a conspiracy - it is common sense and a map showing which regions of Europe are working with each other is no more a threat to Britain than is a geological map showing both the Kent coast and Northern France as chalk.

Of all the euromyths I've come across, this has got to be up with the most scurrilous.

Anyway, let's hear a few bars of Jerusalem! Happy St George's Day everybody!

Bushill-Matthews fights a Euromyth

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that a Tory, Philip Bushill-Matthews, MEP has written to the Birmingham Post to rebut a Eurosceptic myth about transport policy. Normally stridently Eurosceptic, Bushill-Matthews rightly points out that a driver whose vehicle is registered in another EU country can evade prosecution for traffic offences in the UK because of the difficulty in verifying his/her home address. Common EU rules could be part of the solution to this problem.

I wonder what Dan Hannan (the Conservatives' chief myth-maker in Europe) thinks of his colleague's efforts!

It's that time of the year again…

The Daily Mail has a fondness for publishing stories claiming that the Britain is bailing out the rest of Europe by paying through the nose for the EU budget.

This week they duly claimed that "every household in the UK will be expected to pay almost £400 a year for the privilege of EU membership".

A good line - but based on decidedly warped mathematics. Leaving aside our contributions to the EU budget, which is anyway capped at around 1% of EU GDP, the common market is worth £160 billion to our collective GDP - equivalent to roughly £1500 to every family in the UK.

Similarly bogus is the Mail's claim that Tony Blair "surrendered" the British rebate at the budget review in 2005. The rebate remains part of the budget and will actually increase by 13% (compared to an increase of just 6% for the EU budget as a whole) from an average of £3.9 billion per annum to £4.5 billion. Besides, let's not forget that the rebate exists to offset the imbalance that would otherwise leave Britain paying more than our fair share, not to provide us with a windfall which would leave us paying less than our fair share.

Indeed, claiming that Britain gets a raw deal from the EU budget simply does not stand up. According to a recent House of Commons library report on the EU Finances Bill, in per-capita terms, the UK is not one of the highest contributors to the EU budget. In 2006, the UK paid €68 euros per head. By comparison, the Netherlands pays €241 per head, Denmark €127, Sweden €124 and Germany €100. France and Austria paid €50 and €40 respectively.

Moreover, in structural funds (designed to regenerate the poorest regions of Europe) the UK receives a third more than France, 20% more than Belgium, nearly twice as much as the Netherlands and more than eight other countries. The UK received €3 billion in structural funds (an average of €50 per head). This is one euro per head less than Poland receives. Put plainly, the world's fifth largest economy, receives only €1 per head less than one of Europe's poorest countries.

Besides, while some may baulk at the idea of UK taxpayers providing money to the accession countries, the fact is that investing in economic stability in Eastern Europe benefits us all by increasing the total volume of EU trade, investment and jobs. For example, Britain's bilateral trade in goods with Spain and Ireland (two of the poorest EU countries 20 years ago) is now worth £40bn per year.

It is one thing for the Daily Mail to be sceptical of our EU membership, but it is fatuous for it to suggest that we are paying through the nose for the privilege.

Myth about not respecting Irish referendum result

Following my comments of yesterday, yet another myth has been drawn to my attention. This time it is that the European Parliament voted not to respect the results of an Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

The parliament did, of course, reject an amendment to add to my own report evaluating the treaty, a paragraph calling for it to respect the result of the Irish referendum, but it did so (1) because this goes without saying as the Treaty can only come into force if it is ratified by every Member State and (2) it was inappropriate to refer only to Ireland as it is every county's decision that has to be respected, not just Ireland's.

The authors of the amendment knew it would be rejected for those reasons, but tabled it anyway simply to be able to misuse its rejection and to make their absurd claim. It's known as manipulation.

A new myth being created

It has long been the tactic of Eurosceptics to continuously repeat untrue stories on the ground that if you say them enough times, people will begin to believe them.

From silly stories (such as the EP legislating that all bananas be straight) to more sinister ones (that ratifying the Lisbon Treaty would lead to armed foreign police patrolling British streets), no opportunity, no matter how far-fetched, is missed to portray the EU as an 'evil Empire'.

A new one is that the European Parliament has decided to "to silence dissenting MEPs", reported in several newspapers which took at face-value the claims of Farage and Hannan to that effect.

According to Private Eye, this even led to a member of the audience at a recent lecture at the LSE by President Pottering to shout out, "you disciplined MEPs for showing dissent and claimed that dissent is not acceptable." Private Eye itself referred to Pottering as "a man who bullied dissenters when they protested against the Charter of Fundamental Rights".

This really is case of breathtaking cheek. The "dissenters" were those who tried to prevent the Portuguese Prime Minister from making a speech in the Parliament. When as in any Parliament, the Speaker or President takes action to prevent such anti-democratic behaviour, it is not bullying, but protecting Parliament from bullies!

Note that the speaking and voting rights of these members were not removed, and they have their say in all debates, as the European Parliament, which contains members with a very wide range of views as it is elected by proportional representation, allocates the bulk of speaking time to each and every political grouping in proportion to its size before finishing with a "catch the eye" free debate. The variety of positions expressed is greater than in most national parliaments.

To try and portray those who shouted down an elected Prime Minister as martyrs of democracy is both spurious and wilfully misleading. It's a shame that the normally excellent Eye chose to print a piece that even the most eurosceptic tabloid would turn its nose up at.

Tory's emergency mythmaking

Britain has 999. Belgium has 100. France has whatever. Difficult for tourists and business travellers alike to remember every emergency number from every country they visit.

So, someone has the idea of having a common number that will work everywhere, not replacing 999 etc, but as an additional number that will put you through to the same switchboard. No problem remembering several different numbers. EU countries all agree to introduce such a system. Useful.

Then, along comes a Tory MEP, desperate for some publicity and media coverage, (Chris Heaton Harris, News of the World letters, 24 February), saying "They must be bonkers if they think we are going to drop 999 in favour of 112. This is another example of an idea pushed by Brussels which nobody wants"

Yet he must surely know perfectly well (it takes about 30 seconds to look at the relevant document, and he - and his staff - are paid by taxpayers to be on top of European legislation) that no one is suggesting to drop 999, and that, far from being an idea nobody wants, every EU country thought it was a good idea.

But why should a Eurosceptic MEP let the facts get in the way of a good story?

No surprises as papers produce myth-laden stories

Must of the British press was again displaying its utter contempt for factual analysis, truth and objectivity in its reaction to the signing of the EU Reform Treaty in Lisbon. Just look at the following lies and distortions:

* "Armed police from France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands will be able to come over here and take away British citizens" (The Sun, 18th December, Fergus Shanahan)
* "Britain ceased to exist politically on Thursday" and "ceased to exist in most other ways years before" (Mail on Sunday, 16th December, Peter Hitchens)
* "Mr Bean signs away our freedom" (Daily Express)
* "A further surrender of British sovereignty" (Daily Telegraph, 16th December, Michael Grove)
* "Another nail in the coffin of Britain's history" which "gave away more power to unelected Brussels bureaucrats" (Sunday Express, 16th December, Neil Hamilton)

And I could go on!

As revealed by former Telegraph correspondent David Rennie, these are invariably articles and headlines written in London rather than by Brussels correspondents for the papers in question. Their authors have neither read the texts nor verified their allegations. Their aim is colourful alliteration rather than factual accuracy or any meaningful contribution to political debate. But they all contribute to the drip-drip portrayal of the Union as being adverse to British interests, anti-democratic and incompetent, precisely the opposite of the reality.

Depressing state of the press

The poor quality of UK press coverage of the EU is something I've often moaned about. Those who think I exaggerate should read the recent article by David Rennie, who was until recently the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Brussels, so cannot be accused of coming from a pro-Europe stable.

In his article in E!Sharp magazine he says:

"British press reporting on the European Union is getting sharply worse. This matters more than you might think. When barmy Brussels stories first became a staple, they usually contained at least a speck of truth, which was then spun into an overblown confection like so much candy floss. Lately, however, once-serious newspapers have printed several stories that have not been checked at all or - strikingly - have been flatly denied by EU or government press officers, but published anyway."

He goes on to ask:

"Why are things getting worse? Here are a few hunches. British newspapers are turning their backs on Europe. While the Brussels press corps is growing overall, the number of full-time staff correspondents from the UK is shrinking steadily. The worst pieces are almost always written from from London, unsullied by contact with arguments from Brussels."

He also quotes some of the same examples that I have blogged on such as the Sunday Express' article on "a new EU police force" which he rightly describes as a "slab of tosh" pointing out that the opening sentance of the article succeeds in "cramming three claims into 17 words and getting all of them wrong", and the News of the World story on the Queen being removed from British passports - which, he points out, the Daily Telegraph repeated after the government had pointed out that it was not true.

My colleagues from other countries often tell me of their incredulity at how outright untruths find their way into headlines in some British newspapers, even when the papers themselves know the story to be untrue. And it is hard not to conclude that this drip drip drip of falsehoods denigrating the EU does not have an effect on public attitudes to Europe (just look at the comments section on the Telegraph's passport story).

Scraping the barrel

Disappointing but not surprising that the 'impartial' Open Europe thinktank has scraped the barrel by stirring up claims that the Reform Treaty would allow the suspects accused of murdering Stephen Lawrence to avoid retrial. This is deeply tasteless and untrue.

Open Europe refers to the text of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which has a line that reads, "No one shall be liable to be tried or punished again in criminal proceedings for an offence for which he or she has already been finally acquitted".

Of course, Open Europe knows full well that the British protocol on the Charter clearly states that it does not create any new rights under British law. If an equivalent right already does exist under UK law, it is because we have chosen to have it through past British decisions, unaffected by the proposed new Reform Treaty. Therefore, this story is a complete red herring and a tasteless attempt to use a shocking racist murder for political propaganda.

It seems like it’s not only the media that have a hand in giving the EU an undeserved bad name. This time, residents in Hull, taking adult educational night classes, were informed that concessions could no longer be given to over 60-year-olds because of EU anti-discrimination legislation.

The letter, sent by Hull City Council to adults enrolled on night classes, should have in fact referred to the UK’s Age Discrimination Act 2006. After consulting with their solicitors, Hull City Council was advised that offering concessions to over 60-year-olds could violate British anti-discrimination laws.

Hull City Council’s Adult Community Learning Centre has now recognised its mistake and is sending a circular to all its students to inform them why exactly concessions can no longer be given based on age – which is not because of any “EU laws”!

But it is mistakes like this (comparable to the recent MV Coronia and Yorkshire Belle affair, where pleasure boats on Yorkshire’s coast were banned due to the British authorities who blamed it on the EU) which contribute to the EU gaining an undeservedly bad name for “interfering.”

A good example of how eurosceptic media shamelessly and deliberately distorts stories was inadvertently provided by the Sunday Express. This concerned the so called "European Gendarmerie Force" (EGF). The Sunday Express duly reported that "there were no circumstances in which the EGF could be deployed in Britain" as it is in fact not an EU initiative but "an initiative of five EU Member States. It is not an EU proposal or agency and has been set up outside of EU structures. There is no connection with the European Reform Treaty". So, nothing to do with the EU, "Brussels", Britain or the new treaty, but a cooperation between five states which want to do this among themselves.

However, this accurate description came in the very last paragraph of an article with the headline "fears that Brussels riot squad could soon pound the beat on British streets" and which reported that "Brussels has set up a new EU police force" which is "the first police organisation to come under the direct control of the EU and is seen by some as another step towards the creation of a superstate". It quotes unnamed critics as warning "that the force could eventually patrol the streets of Britain".

It then goes on, totally unabashed, to say that "the best ways to stop these fellows demonstrating their skills on a high street near you is to make sure that people in Britain know what is going on, put pressure on politicians to hold a referendum before ratifying any EU treaty covering justice and home affairs."

Breathtaking hypocrisy!

Delighted to hear the metrication issue is finally dead! For too long the Eurosceptic right had made great play of the alleged EU plans to destroy imperial measures, despite the fact this was never in the pipeline.

I think we can all be grateful to Commissioner Verheugen for finally putting to bed a Euromyth that simply refused to go away.

Commissioner Verheugen said: "Let's get one thing straight from the off.

"Neither the European Commission nor any faceless 'Eurocrat' has or will ever be responsible for banning the great British pint, the mile, and weight measures in pounds and the ounces.

"These imperial measures form part of the traditions that are the very essence of the Britishness that all Europeans know and love.

"We at the Commission have decided the time has come to nail these myths once and for all by setting out in black and white what has always been our view: that Britain should continue to use imperial measures for as long as it likes.

"Much as it may dismay those who have peddled the metric myth for far too long, we have now proposed legislation enshrining Britain's right to retain pints of milk and beer, miles on road signs and dual indications of weights and measures from now until Kingdom come."

So hopefully everyone is now clear that: the pint lives, it was never going to die and that the European Union’s sole purpose is not to destroy British culture.

But what’s this in the Daily Mail? The "EU wants to get rid of the Queen from our passports"? Will Britain ever be safe?

It's nonsense of course and correctly spotted then thoroughly torn apart by none other than ultra-Eurosceptic blog EU Referendum who are fed up with "gullible Eurosceptics" who, "demonstrate only that, after all these years, they have learned nothing, and continue scoring 'own goals' with gay abandon".

And who's on the scoresheet for believing this poorly put together myth? Why, it's Devil's Kitchen who, having been taken in, unleashes a bilious rant which is potty-mouthed even by his standards, until he realises his mistake and backs down here.

Who would have thought it, one of the great Euromyths gone and another fiercely condemned by a leading Eurosceptic. I think I'll celebrate with 568ml of beer.

Last night I went head to head with Graham Stringer on BBC Radio 4, debating the proposed EU treaty.

You can listen to the whole discussion by clicking on the link on the Westminster Hour webpage here.

Another useful link:

John Redwood's latest return from the wilderness won him extensive headlines with his deregulation, red tape-cutting policy proposals. Many people couldn't believe the Conservatives returned to Redwood, though many of his ideas went down well with the right-wing press.

The TUC has produced a paper on what Tory deregulation, including the Working Time Directive, would mean. It's also a useful guide to what the EU's Social Chapter actually is. Click here to read.

Euromyths are not always a media invention – they are sometimes made up by those who have a vested interest in shifting the blame away from themselves. Such is the case with the current controversy over the MV Coronia – the ship that defied the Nazis during World War II to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk, which has now been told it can no longer make the 17 mile journey from Scarborough to Whitby because of “new EU restrictions” limiting the distance a vessel like the MV Coronia can travel to just 15 miles.

Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott has championed the cause, writing a letter to Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, demanding to know “why British laws are being cast aside in favour of an EU directive.” But perhaps Mr McMillan-Scott should have checked his facts first and then he wouldn’t be left with egg on his face.

It turns out that the restrictions preventing the MV Coronia from making its traditional voyage are not EU laws, but in fact UK laws. Not only that, should the UK simply implement the European directive on maritime safety without adding its own restrictions, the MV Coronia would be able to make its traditional voyage.

The Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA), the organisation tasked with implementing British maritime policy, has deviously suggested that new restrictions placed on passenger vessels have been imposed by the EU because the MCA adopted new EU classifications of vessels in order to apply their existing regulations more stringently than before.

But as well as containing new classifications of vessels, the EU directive also contained new more appropriate restrictions for these classes – but these restrictions have been ignored by the MCA. According to British regulations, the MV Coronia may not travel more than 15 miles from its point of origin, but under the new EU regulations, the MV Coronia may travel within 15 miles of the nearest harbour. This means that should the MCA simply implement the EU maritime safety directive, the MV Coronia would be able to make its traditional voyage with no restrictions.

But Tory MEPs and the anti-EU media don’t care about the facts. All they care about is spreading lies and false fear about the EU. In this case, their desire to criticise the EU has ruined any chance of gaining support for the very thing that would prevent the MV Coronia from going out of business – the rules we jointly agreed with other EU countries.

David Cameron and his Tory Party are really plumbing the depths in the debate on the Reform Treaty. Cameron's article for this morning's Sun was rabid and riddled with untruths.

In particular, his claim that the Reform Treaty would "transfer power from our elected Parliament to the EU's unelected bureaucrats" is a flat out lie. In fact the opposite is the case. The Reform Treaty specifically increases the power of elected parliaments not bureaucrats by increasing the role of national parliaments and the European Parliament. It strictly limits EU action to the policy areas agreed by Member States in the treaties. Mr Cameron has either not read the Treaty or has no understanding of its contents - perhaps not surprising since he is too arrogant to meet with his right-wing counterparts in Europe.

He talks about Gordon Brown's "shameless arrogance" as being a "big cancer eating away at trust in politics". On the contrary, it is Cameron who is displaying shameless arrogance by telling lies to the British people.

Cameron's dishonest assertions follow on from William Hague's barmy claim that the Reform Treaty would see the EU take Britain's seat on the UN Security Council. This is simply not true.

Cameron thinks that he is a "euro-realist" and pledged to create a new-centre right group in Europe which would include the Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topalenek's Eurosceptic Civic Democrat Party. But the Czech PM is refusing to hold a referendum on the Reform Treaty as it does not create any new powers for the EU. Topolanek's stance speaks volumes about the Tories' opportunism and obsessive Europhobia.

David Cameron and his party seem to be pursuing a policy of 'little Englander' isolationism that would greatly damage Britain's national interests. For a man who hopes to become Prime Minister, his tactics and arguments on the Reform Treaty have been gutter politics of the highest order.

Hooray for public service broadcasting and its obligation to provide balanced reporting! It doesn't always work, but at least it tries.

After weeks of reading biased, factually inaccurate, 'briefings'
on the contents of the proposed Reform Treaty in much of the press, it was a relief to read the BBC's reasonably balanced briefing on the treaty.

It aims to provide readers with a good understanding of the main arguments about the Treaty - but that means that it, too, is drawn on to the territory of having to focus on myths that are already out there, such as whether it "gives Europe a US-style president", whether "an EU foreign minister will sideline national ministers" and whether legal personality makes the EU "like a country." It is also obliged, to avoid accusations of bias, to give due space and seriousness to some of these allegations.

Nonetheless, it does so in a reasonably dispassionate and above all jargon-free manner, so well done to its author, Stephen Mulvey.

Topically, it dismisses the nonsense put about this week by eurosceptics that Britain would have to give up its seat on the UN Security Council. Hmmm just a thought but perhaps William Hague and the Tory front-bench should give it a read before putting out any more misleading and spurious press statements on the treaty.

The Telegraph and the Mail claim today that the BBC is to investigate "allegations that the Radio Four 'Today' programme is biased in favour of the European Union"! That will be news to most objective observers, as Radio 4 is widely held to be a bastion of euroscepticism. This is clearly an attempt by the eurosceptics to bounce the BBC into adopting a more eurosceptic position. They are of course, irritated that in the main, the BBC is normally a source of factual and objective information and does not come out with a constant one-sided diatribe against the EU that they would like.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a UKIP member, has apparently claimed that only one interviewee in five supports British withdrawal from the European Union. I suppose he will claim that BBC coverage of Westminster is equally biased as only a minority of interviewees support the break-up of the United Kingdom. Come to think of it, 'flat-earthers' don't seem to get anything like 50% of the air-time either.

Anyone who has followed my recent investigation into that Jean Monnet quote might be interested to read Jan Marinus Wiersma's blog on cabbages, which turns out to be another example of how the internet has helped propagate and amplify myths.

Cabbages have always been held responsible for creating some unpleasant hot air and as Jan Marinus reveals it is no different on this occasion.

His blog looks into the alleged 26,000-odd words the EU uses in its legislation on cabbages and how this compares to the number of words in, for instance, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer or Pythagoras’s Theorem. With a little research he discovers it is in fact an old yarn, originally cooked up in the United States in 1943, about a trade agreement the country originally had with the Netherlands, but with the help of the internet it has sprang back to life as a fanciful story about European regulation.

Lies about cabbages are certainly not as damaging as the Jean Monnet quote but they, along with the plethora of other white lies about Europe, contribute to the atmosphere of ridicule the right-leaning press is so accomplished at foistering.

UKIP have spent the past few months attempting to convince people that they are not just a one issue party and take an interest in domestic matters. However, in doing this they have not lost the capacity for spreading myth and outrageously distorting the truth.

The latest example is their Yorkshire MEP Godfrey Bloom "uncovering" that 11 schools in York use fingerprint recognition and getting his knickers in a twist that this is indicative of Orwellesque totalitarianism. With characteristic understatement, Godfrey said "it's like 1984", adding that "we really have reached a low when we are fingerprinting children at primary schools". The Daily Express described this as "a scandal" and an attack on civil liberties, while the Daily Star reported the 'story' under the lurid headline "Terror test for 5 year olds". All this conjurs up images of a police state.

The problem is that if Godfrey, the Express or the Daily Star had bothered to check out the facts behind the 'story' they would merely learn that the 11 schools are using electronic fingerprint recognition, instead of membership cards, for their library services. Moreover, all but one of the schools in question had informed parents in advance of implementing the system, while the school in question, Manor CE, introduced the thumbprint recognition scheme on the recommendation of the pupils themselves! Indeed, Manor's head, Brian Crosby, responding to the furore in the York Press, expressed amazement that anybody could be so upset by a school using such a library system, pointing out that it is much easier and quicker for pupils who don't have to worry about always carrying (and possibly losing) library cards and that the school's library system is not connected to any other network.

Mr Crosby adds that this new technology has allowed the school's learning resource centre to be transformed, is popular with students, and has helped them to achieve excellent literacy results, while the education authority in York has sent out a letter to schools supporting the system so long as parental approval is sought.

This is simply a case where modern technology is being used to assist children in their learning rather than a sinister attempt to condition them to hand over their privacy. Bloom's attempt to distort what is good news for schools, parents and pupils is yet another example of his party's breathtaking cynicism.

The Sun has needlessly got its knickers in a twist over the Working Time Directive by claiming paramedics would have to finish their breaks before answering emergency calls. And who is to blame for this? Well the “barmy EU”. Obviously.

Of course anyone with any sense will realise this is patently quite ridiculous but the journalist responsible, Emma Morton, had few qualms about the truth and liberally dipped into the Sun’s big book of how to construct a Eurosceptic scare story to produce this shocker.

Even the most cursory reading of the working time directive would have revealed to Ms Morton that in the case of ambulance service workers and fire and civil protection services "derogations (ie exemptions) ....shall be permitted". In other words, ambulance crews are exempted out of the break provisions of the working time directive.

Still, the Sun has never let the facts prevent it from bashing the EU and Ms Morton slavishly follows the paper’s line with what appears no recourse to research.

Interestingly, exemptions to obligatory break provisions are also allowed for press journalists - and judging by the inaccuracies and distortions in Ms Morton's "story", perhaps she is due a lengthy break.


Addendum 16 December:

Although I wrote to the Sun pointing out their factual error, they did not print my letter, but instead printed another one yesterday from a James Cullen, saying how ludicrous these rules are and that they could mean the difference between life and death. He would be right, of course, if the rules actually said that - but the Sun is clearly not going to let its readers know the truth!

As frustrating (and predictable!) as an England batting collapse is the Express and Mail’s predilection for publishing at face value any old garbage sent out in a press release by Europhobic Tories.

Considering these papers would probably print “Brussels bureaucrats eat babies” given the slightest chance, it came as no surprise to see them indulge Conservative MEP Philip Bradbourn by running his claims that the EU intends to force thousands of people to retake their driving tests.

This is of course utter rubbish.

The draft directive on EU driving licences provides for Member States to keep their own rules for testing drivers. There is no requirement for people to be retake their test every 10 years, only for them to update the picture on their licence once a decade (as is already a requirement in Britain now for the new plastic cards). There is a proposal that drivers with certain medical conditions (such as serious neurological diseases and some angina sufferers) should be tested every 10 years for their suitability to drive, which is something quite different from retaking their test.

Bradbourn, the Tory transport spokesman, said: "The EU is trying to dictate to Member States what they need to do in terms of driving tests and licences."

More nonsense - and he knows it.

Legislation that is actually wanted by every country - and has been approved by the EU Council of Ministers with ministers from every Member State - hardly amounts to "dictation"!

And why do countries want it? Because it will replace over 150 different types of driving licences across Europe with a streamlined set of.... just one.! Because it will make forgeries more difficult. Because it will stop drivers banned in their country from getting a new license in another. Because it will raise standards among those who drive on our roads across Europe.

As with so much Eurosceptic myth making, the story is warped to demonise the EU for what is merely a common sense proposal.

While I was looking at this on the Daily Mail’s website (I must make clear I don’t buy the thing!) I stumbled over a story from 30th September, with the headline “Lives at risk as driving test fraud hits ‘terrifying’ new levels". So you might think the Mail would welcome measures to combat driving licence fraud - but, no, their obsession with attacking anything to do with Europe outweighs their own assessment on the issue.

And, as to Phil Bradbourn MEP, I first met him years ago when he was active in European youth and student organisations. He seemed to be an enthusiastic pro-European. Now, he prefers to play that down and pander to the Eurosceptics in his party. I suppose he expects this to help save his skin when re-selection of Conservative candidates comes up. Will it help his conscience?

I was interested, if that is the right expression, to hear UKIP leader Nigel Farage on Radio 5 Live yesterday.

He usually claims that the European Union is responsible for 70% of the UK’s legislation; this time, however, he fancied a change and decided that it was 75%.

Thankfully, a listener put him right asking the following question:

“Mr Farage claims that 75% of our laws are made at European-level, even though his own website puts the figure at 70%. His UKIP colleagues put the figure at anything from 50% to 80%. Isn’t part of UKIPs problem that they can’t keep their stories straight? Incidentally, the House of Commons research department put the actual figure at 9%”.

His response was fascinating. He dismissed the 9% figure by saying that the House of Commons research department can’t be trusted, “that paper was an entire fabrication”. So, is everyone a liar?! He doesn’t trust the European Parliament. He doesn’t trust the UK Parliament. Who exactly does he trust?

His argument to back up his 75% claim was equally as revealing. "Well in Germany, the figure is 80%, so to say 75% is probably quite accurate". Nothing like sound research eh Nigel?!

The Daily Mail is outraged by the government’s plans to teach school children the benefits of the EU. Predictably, and right on cue, Christopher Brooker accuses Europe Minister Geoff Hoon of attempting to brainwash our children.

Of course there is no mention of the veritable mountain of lies the Daily Mail (and the rest of the Eurosceptic media) has published in its efforts to deride the EU, which far more justifiably deserves the term brainwashing.

And, of course, on closer inspection, all the government is suggesting is that the school curriculum should not just teach children how national and local government functions, but also how the EU functions. Now, why would anyone want be against that? Unless, that is, they want to hide how it works so that people continue to believe the myths and lies that they spread.

When someone eventually publishes the definitive list of Euromyths, the recent tabloid headlines and story claiming the EU intends to force Bombay Mix to be renamed Mumbai Mix should be somewhere near the top.

According to both the Sun and the Mirror, the reason for this was to avoid offending the people of India. So far, so ordinary, but what makes this myth stand out so much is its brazen disregard for even a smidgen of truth.

Many myths originate from either extreme exaggeration (health and safety legislation exists but it has never threatened the careers of busty barmaids wearing low cut tops) or a manipulation of the facts (excessively bent bananas have never been banned they are merely not sold as Class A produce).

But as revealed by David Rennie, the European correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (hardly a paper with a pro-Europe bias!), a short investigation found the Bombay Mix story to be a complete and utter fabrication. It was originally concocted by a news agency in the south of England, looking for business from the tabloids, and subsequently published by the Sun and the Mirror (and while the Yorkshire Post did not make such a gaffe by publishing the story as news, it did let itself down by publishing a letter on the issue which purported it to be fact). The press agency played the story down and for many it will be a minor issue, swiftly forgotten, but it provides an illuminating insight into just how easy a Euromyth is created, spread and believed.

There will no doubt be people quick to suggest that the reason people will readily believe these myths is the EU’s propensity for regulation but this is an argument that does not hold true. The obsession with excessive regulations many people link to Brussels is a consequence of the myths created by the media to ridicule the EU. When the EU legislates it is normally for a very good and very obvious reason, and only when this assessment is actually agreed by MEPs and by ministers from Member States in the EU Council. Hence there are stringent laws about food labeling so that, for instance, allergy sufferers can be confident about what they are eating.

Perhaps the most interesting issue which has arisen from the Bombay Mix myth is the standard of journalism the very existence of the story implies and which David Rennie’s account so well illustrates.

I thought press agencies based their reputation on providing copy the rest of the media can rely on, but it seems that the ability to spin a good yarn is more important, at least for this particular agency. And, did anyone at the Sun and the Mirror bother to check whether the story was real? Or worse still did they discover it to be rubbish but publish it regardless? Either way, it says very little about the quality of either newspaper. (Now there’s a surprise!)

Will either paper bother to print a correction? Judging by the Sun’s website, no. The story remains online! It is unfortunately indicative of the Eurosceptic agenda against the EU: avoid a sensible debate by obscuring the real issues with a series of increasingly preposterous things “Brussels” plans to do.

As any policeman will tell you, those who change their story repeatedly will probably be lying. It’s no different in politics.

The percentage of our laws decided at a European level, causes such confusion amongst Eurosceptics. UKIP’s David Bannerman thinks it is 60%, Nigel Farage prefers 70% whilst Mike Nattrass, bizarrely, suggests it is 90%!

The Tories are slightly more reserved, with their spokespeople hopping arbitrarily between “just over half” (David Sumberg MEP) and around 80% (Dan Hannan MEP).

Surely the figure is a factual one, not a subjective one, because it is a figure borne out of actual statistics. That statistic is actually 9% (stated in an answer to a Parliamentary Question by John Redwood MP).

So, where have they got these figures from? Have they just randomly plucked them out of the air? Well, quite possibly, for some of them at least. One or two, I would suggest, are a little more sneaky.

If you look at the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ figures, around 57% of the secondary legislation that has come from this department, has actually been agreed upon with our European neighbours. I would suggest that those who say “60% of our laws come from the EU” are working from this DEFRA figure and, of course, deliberately misinterpreting them as being representative of all subjects, whereas in fact, the environment and agriculture are, for good reasons, atypically high.

Notice that they fail to mention how 0% of our primary health, defence, education and culture/media/sport laws have come from the EU. This is hardly the “handing over of sovereignty” that they suggest!

Another euromyth has hit the headlines, namely that the EU is banning New Zealand butter, such as the famous Anchor brand.

This is not the case. There has been a temporary halt in imports of the goods due to a ruling by the Court of Justice that the current trading arrangements were illegal. These arrangements are being sorted out as a matter of priority and consumers shouldn’t notice a big hole in the supermarket’s butter aisle.

You can rest assured that, if Anchor is your thing, there will still be the usual 77,402 tonnes of New Zealand butter arriving in the EU in 2006.

It is interesting, however, that papers such as the Express, who often denigrate other Europeans as “foreigners”, were so outraged by the thought of New Zealand farmers missing out. It seems that only European foreigners are the object of their wrath!

Three blatant examples of Eurosceptic lies came across my desk recently. Needless to say, no-one in the media picked up on the fact that they were lies and sadly many people will have taken them at face value.

First was an article by John Blundell in "The Business" who rants about European legislation "imposed on us by the Commission in Brussels. There was no Parliamentary scrutiny. There was no consultation. There was no discussion........." Either this man is painfully ill informed and cannot even be bothered to check basic facts before putting pen to paper, or he is deliberately deceptive. As I never cease having to point out, the European Commission does not adopt legislation: it proposes it to the elected European Parliament and the elected governments of the member states in the EU Council. They decide on it, and rarely adopt it without changes. There is always parliamentary scrutiny, both by the European Parliament and Westminster. Far from there being "no discussion" the examples he quotes are all discussed ad nauseum.

The second example is from a letter-writer to the Yorkshire Post who claims, in similar vein to Mr Blundell, that "MEPs are not allowed to vote to change any Commission decision". Same answer as above, but the prevalence of this false allegation in so many recent letters makes me think that it is a deliberate policy line of the europhobic organisations to ply this particular myth, sure in the knowledge that too few people understand the workings of the EU to be able to answer
them. And as Hitler advocated, tell a lie often enough and people will
believe it.

Third example was Thomas Wise, a UKIP MEP, who in the Parliament this week blamed the EU for changes to planning laws in English villages so that "we are now witnessing the erosion of the traditional communities and destruction of our landscape"! He goes on "you might ask who is responsible for this. Have a guess: the regional assemblies accountable directly to Brussels"!

Now, quite what the regional assembly may or may not said to influence local planning in his region, I don't know. But one thing I am quite sure of: regional assemblies are not "accountable directly to Brussels". How could they be? They are composed of elected local Councillors and other stakeholders in the region concerned. "Brussels", whoever that is, appoints no one to them. They have been established in the UK by UK authorities with a remit determined by the UK. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the European Union.

Yet this has not stopped anti-European campaigners repeating their allegations that these regions have been created by the European Union. The flimsy evidence they cite for this is that the European Parliamentary constituencies established by the House of Commons follow the same regional boundaries. Wow! So do Government Offices of various kinds. So do many private sector companies. This does not mean the EU created them. The EU has no jurisdiction on how member states organise themselves internally. It simply recognises whatever internal regions member states may or may not have.

The Eurosceptics here are trying to link Europe in peoples' minds with something they consider to be unpopular, namely regional assemblies. This is the same tactic that they have followed in trying to blame the EU for metrication, which is similarly not caused by the European Union. I hope readers and newspaper editors are not gullible enough to fall for it!

I chuckled when I saw Nick Martinek’s latest letter in the Yorkshire Post complaining about my “low standards” of argument. Charming! Nonetheless it would be fascinating to see where he got his figures. “We do not elect 90 per cent of MEPs, or 90 per cent of the EU Council” he claims. Well, I’m sure that’s news
to the MEPs and Government Ministers who battled hard in elections to win their seats!

As for the idea that the EU is attempting to ban minor political
parties from entering elections, it really does make me wonder who cooks up
these bizarre attempts at scare mongering. Of course, any system of state funding for parties is limited. Joe Bloggs couldn’t set up a political party and expect to receive a fat cheque, signed by the tax-payers, to help him get started. It is absolutely right that state funding should be offered to real parties which actually have members and a degree of support from the public as shown in elections. That is how it works in Britain (where we do already have some state support through free TV party political brodcasts, free mailing of electoral addresses and "short" money given by the House of Commons to opposition parties). It is also how it works for the limited support given by the European Paliament to help with the work of political parties at European level.

That under no circumstances implies that smaller parties are excluded - they get their share. Nor are they banned from running campaigns or raising their own funds, and certainly not required to "toe the EU line" and I suspect that Mr Martinek knows it.

I’ve been getting several letters from concerned constituents, after the Times, the Yorkshire Post and other leading papers reported that the EU has outlawed church organs. Hopefully you won’t be too surprised when I tell you that these reports should be filed along with the other baffling Euromyths; straight bananas and whatnot.

The reports come from the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive which will come into force in July. After July 1st, any new church organ will have to contain a reduced level of lead (below 0.1%) to meet safety standards. Existing organs in need of repair, resotoration and maintenance will be unaffected and will, I’m pleased to say, keep congregations raising the roof for many years to come.

A poll in the Independent on Sunday showed 62% in favour of Britain going completely metric, with 38% opposed.

The metrication debate in the UK has run for over 100 years, ever since the House of Commons first voted to go metric back in 1863. Meanwhile, most of the world has gone metric - even America for many purposes. (There's a fascinating article on the subject at Wikipedia.)

Yet the very idea of using the same measurements as the rest of the world seems to make some people apoplectic - at least if they think it is something to do with the European Union! Take Peter Hitchens in the latest Mail on Sunday (registration required):

"Bureaucrats and tyrants love metres and kilos and hectares, in the same way that they love concrete and wide, straight streets."

Pretty heady stuff for what most of the world thinks of as the simple convenience of using the standard measurements!

And he goes on - trying to blame what he thinks is unpopular on the EU:

"Our absorption into the EU means that we are undergoing many of the things a conquered people must endure; the introduction of foreign laws and customs, the obliteration of our own, the deliberate destruction of familiar landmarks like imperial measurements"

No doubt, many people will believe him that metrication is all because of the EU. But the Independent on Sunday's opinion poll shows that most of them might actually think better of the EU for it! Hard luck, Mr Hitchens!

The myth that the EU wants to stamp out the British pint of milk has resurfaced this week, along with a new twist: apparently the eurocrats also want to ban our sliced bread! The story has been generated by the British Retail Consortium and the usual Tory suspects have jumped on the bandwagon. (Examples are here, here and here.)

This story is easily rebutted. Simply put: the European Parliament is about to pass new laws on consumer protection and packaging, but these laws will not endanger the traditional British pint. Just as they didn't endanger it last time this old euromyth came around. ("Another sliver of the British way of life bites the dust", according to the Telegraph in 2001.) In fact, Parliament's report specifically provides protection for traditional pint measures.

Does nobody notice that these cheap inventions, endlessly recycled by the tabloids, never actually come true? Does it not cross the sub-editor's mind, when they write yet another headline like EU BANS BRITISH PINTA (or EU MILKING US FOR WHAT WE'RE WORTH, or UK BOTTLES OUT OF EU DEBATE, or whatever dubious pun they go for), that we've been here before? Has nobody noticed that the doorstep pint still exists, for crying out loud?!

The facts about this myth, like virtually all the others, are easily accessible and in the public domain. So why have so many papers published a completely false report? At the very best, it's shoddy journalism. More likely it reveals the overt europhobe agenda of our written media.

The press are getting more and more shameless in their willingness to endorse fabrications which ridicule Europe - just as they did with the lies about putting the EU flag on car number-plates, the lies about banning walnuts, and the original, classic lies about straight bananas.

And finally - why are these same papers not queueing up today to print corrections?

A clanger in Friday's Daily Express:

"Cows are being given luxury beds to sleep on in the hope it will make them more productive. Farmers in Norway are forced under a new law to give their cows £80 mattresses. The idea, promoted by the EU, is to stimulate the animals to produce up to 10 per cent more milk."

It's good to know at least someone at the Express is still in touch with the old school of euromyths, namely the 'gloriously silly fantasy' variety (as opposed to the new-style 'pernicious eurosceptic invention' variety).

Needless to say, no EU law requires cows to be given mattresses, and even if it did, this could not affect Norway as it's not an EU member. Sigh.

The BBC were yesterday trumpeting a Radio 4 poll which produced some very odd results. The poll, organised by the Today programme's 'Who Runs Your World' season, apparently found that 22% of listeners believed Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, to be “the most powerful man in the UK”.

Considering that most people in the country don’t even know who Mr Barroso is, this is a curious result. But then, it was a pretty curious poll from start to finish. Setting aside the usual doubts about what exactly counts as 'power', listeners were asked to choose the most powerful “person” from a pre-selected shortlist of ten, which included a number of quite definitely non-person entities, including 'Parliament' and even 'Google'. (In no less than 300 words, discuss the merits of comparing the Prime Minister with an internet search engine…)

The results were even more odd: a supermarket chief executive scored more highly than the supposedly ‘dictatorial’ Tony Blair, who only made seventh place; while Gordon Brown, the ‘Iron Chancellor’, the holder of the strings of Britain’s biggest purse, managed to come joint last, tied with Shami Chakrabarti, who works for a political pressure group!

Something was clearly very wrong with the whole affair. According to the Yorkshire Post on January 3 (I couldn't find the online version of the article),

"the BBC did not say how many votes it received and there were signs that the number might have been quite small. Voters had to be keen enough to check into the Today programme website and were encouraged to make their own comments when they did. The last messages left before the final count were five days old and only one person wrote in to comment on the result yesterday."

The plot thickens.

Of course, the Eurosceptics jumped on the bandwagon immediately. UKIP’s Roger Knapman crowed that Barroso is “a bureaucrat perceived as the most important man in this country and that is quite shocking”. (Wrong, as usual: Mr Barroso is no more a bureaucrat than Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten were. He’s a politician through and through, having previously been Prime Minister of Portugal! In his present post, he was proposed by the heads of 25 democratically elected governments and can remain in office only while he enjoys the confidence of the directly-elected European Parliament – just as our national ministers must enjoy the confidence of our House of Commons.)

Anyway, I was quite prepared to put this weird result down to a conflation of two euromyths in voters’ minds: the myth that the Commission makes laws (it can’t), and the myth that it is unelected (it isn’t). But then the final icing on the cake came in a report in today’s Guardian:

“The UK Independence Party admitted yesterday that it tried to rig the poll on the Today programme to find out who runs Britain. … UKIP and Dan Hannan, the fiercely eurosceptic Conservative MEP, both admitted to the Guardian that they had separately sent e-mails encouraging supporters to vote for Mr Barroso. … Mr Hannan said last night: ‘I had no idea UKIP were doing it. I was going to take sole credit for it.’”

So the mystery is solved, and another instance of UKIP’s media strategy lies exposed. All rather embarrassing for the BBC, of course, but sadly no surprise for those of us more accustomed to eurosceptic propaganda tactics. I won’t hold my breath for an apology from Mr Knapman, who, let’s not forget, claimed to find the results “quite shocking”.

But I’ll leave the last word to an indignant Ben Jones of the European Movement:

“Politics should be done through rational argument, not by manipulating the media.”

Catching up with recent press articles, I came across an article by former Director of the Thatcherite Institute for Economic Affairs Russell Lewis, who claims that Britain would be better off outside the EU. His argument, citing the well known Eurosceptic academic Patrick Minford, is that Britain's economy will be increasingly held back by European regulations. He cites the minimum wage, arguing that if it were raised by 50% "social costs would rise by 20% and unemployment by 5.7%".

Whatever the veracity of his calculation, the existence of the minimum wage, and even more so its level, has nothing to do with the EU. It is not required in any EU legislation; some EU countries don't have a statutory minimum wage. Britain introduced its one only seven years ago by a purely national decision.

Lewis goes on to warn that some continental countries have deficits in their pension schemes and that "if Britain were obliged to share the burden of their deficits, the bill would be 7% of the country's GDP". But why on earth would we have to share this burden? It has never been on the cards. On the contrary, the Treaty contains a "no bail-out clause" specifying that each country is responsible for its own finances. Messrs Lewis & Minford are surely aware of that, yet they prefer to deliberately mislead and use scare tactics.

It doesn't stop there. The article makes a whole set of preposterous claims: that the EU will stop us from trading in services with the rest of the world, that there is no internal free trade in services, that there will be "harmonisation" of state pensions, and so on.

What is alarming is that the Eurosceptics know that, if they repeat such claims often enough, most non-experts will begin to believe at least some of them. Remind me - was it Goebbels who said the bigger the lie, the more effective it was?

It's inconceivable that the expert political journalists who work for the Daily Express should make such an elementary error as to confuse the European Court of Human Rights with the EU. I have no doubt that its writers – if not its readers – are perfectly well aware that the Court is an entirely separate institution which has nothing to do with Britain's EU membership.

So how are we to explain the brazenly inaccurate headline on page two of Friday's Express: 'EU gives convicts in British jails right to vote'?

Every other news source in the UK managed to recognise that it was the Strasbourg court, not the EU, that made the ruling in question. So I suppose we must conclude that this was a simple slip of the Express pen which will soon be corrected.

After all, I'm sure it couldn't be, oh, I don't know, an attempt to spread further inventions about the insidious bureaucrats of Brussels interfering in our daily lives? Such inventions would surely not be in keeping with the standard of political journalism for which the Express is rightly renowned.

The UK Independence Party's latest scheme is to try and convince us that the great British public hasn't been consulted on our membership of the EU for thirty years — because the last referendum was in 1975.

This is peculiarly twisted logic. According to UKIP's reasoning, we have also never been consulted on the NHS, education, housing, taxes, the environment or anything else.

But of course this is complete rubbish. We live in a parliamentary democracy, and we have a general election every four or five years. If we don't like a government's policies, we can kick the government out of office and replace it with a better alternative. If that's not consultation, I don't know what is!

As every general election since 1975 has produced a pro-European government, maybe UKIP should take the hint?

In the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph on 26 September:

The EU 'parliament' is a smokescreen. It is there to create the illusion of democracy. Unlike British Parliament, the MEPs have no power whatsoever in the running of the EU. No power to make law or amend law and no power to elect a government or dislodge the members of the unelected commission, who themselves are put into place by the powers behind the scene, unelected, unremovable, unaccountable figures who really pull the strings in Europe.

This bizarre and obviously ill-informed diatribe has provoked a series of responses from first Bernard Regan:

The image of Paul Potter quaking in a corner about the 'hellish picture' of the EU, which he conjures up in his letter (Viewpoint, September 26), is an amusing one, but I can assure him it's quite all right to take off his gas mask, invasion is not yet imminent.

…then a J Donaldson:

Like most opponents of the EU, Mr Potter outlines and complains of a number of issues of what is wrong with the community and some people can agree, but so what? That is what we have MEPs for, to correct and change. But like most opponents who try their best to blame Brussels and faceless civil servants for all the ills and problems an organisation like the Community has, they conveniently forget to mention this is controlled by elected members of the European Parliament.

…then Simon Duffin at the European Parliament:

Only recently, the European Parliament threw out a proposal which said workers exposed to natural sunlight should be covered by new health and safety legislation. In July, the European Parliament rejected outright a proposed law on computer patents. Indeed, writing in the national press last year, Boris Johnson MP bemoaned the fact as a backbench member of the House of Commons, he has less influence over the laws of this land than does an MEP.

…and finally myself!

There was a bit of a media frenzy this week on the European Court judgement which allegedly gives the Commission "power to legislate in the area of criminal law" (according to the BBC!). Predictably, the Daily Mail described this as a "sinister new judgement" and reported that:

"unelected bureaucrats, answerable to no-one, will be able to order British courts to fine or put people in prison for breaching EU laws".

Complete rubbish in every respect, of course. Other publications were only slightly less reactionary: compare coverage in the Times and the Guardian, not to mention the tabloids.

Rather than wearily pointing out for the millionth time that, with or without this judgement, the Commission has no power at all to legislate in any area (because it merely makes proposals and carries out what has been agreed), I decided to look into the detail and find out what the Court's judgement actually said. Here it is in full. And a quick glance at the Court's summary here also reveals that the headlines are, needless to say, grossly exaggerated.

Interestingly, there was no dispute at all about the actual content of the environmental legislation that gave rise to the court case. All parties agreed that it was necessary to classify certain infringements of environmental legislation as criminal offences in countries' domestic law. These offences are listed in a framework decision originally agreed jointly by national ministers, and include:

(a) the discharge, emission or introduction of a quantity of substances or ionising radiation into air, soil or water which causes death or serious injury to any person;

(b) the unlawful discharge, emission or introduction of a quantity of substances or ionising radiation into air, soil or water which causes or is likely to cause their lasting or substantial deterioration or death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to protected monuments, other protected objects, property, animals or plants;

(c) the unlawful disposal, treatment, storage, transport, export or import of waste, including hazardous waste, which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil, water, animals or plants;

(d) the unlawful operation of a plant in which a dangerous activity is carried out and which, outside the plant, causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil, water, animals or plants;

(e) the unlawful manufacture, treatment, storage, use, transport, export or import of nuclear materials or other hazardous radioactive substances which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person or substantial damage to the quality of air, soil, water, animals or plants;

(f) the unlawful possession, taking, damaging, killing or trading of or in protected wild fauna and flora species or parts thereof, at least where they are threatened with extinction as defined under national law;

(g) the unlawful trade in ozone-depleting substances;

when committed intentionally.

The Court case simply turned on which treaty article should be used for the adoption of such agreements. The Court ruled that, as it concerned the protection of the environment, it was appropriate to use the environmental articles of the treaties. The definition of the offence, and the severity of the penalty that would apply, remain a matter for member states to decide individually as they see fit.

The losing side in the case agreed that joint European-level action was necessary and that the offences listed should be classified as criminal offences - but they argued for a different treaty article to be used in order to enact such legislation. Using this article would simply have sidestepped the need for parliamentary approval while leaving the content of the legislation intact.

The Court's judgement therefore didn't touch the question of whether the principle of member states laying down criminal penalties could be agreed at European level - since this principle was already agreed by all parties (pace the UK's eurosceptic media). Instead, the net effect of the judgement is to rule that parliamentary scrutiny is required for these decisions, so the Council of Ministers is not allowed to adopt them unilaterally. Surely this is a valuable democratic safeguard worth having - for any legislation?

In all the hoo-hah recently about busty barmaids being banned by the EU, a sly remark by the Sun slipped through my net:

We vowed to give big-boobed barmaids all the support they would need to beat the ban. It was due to be rubber-stamped by the EU parliament next month under the Optical Radiation Directive."

Oh? Why "rubber-stamped"?! The European Parliament rarely, if ever, lets through a Commission proposal unamended - unlike our own dear House of Commons, which almost always approves government bills. Don't knock the democratic part of the EU!

The buzz of hyperbole once again fills the air in the debate over what the tabloids have dubbed ‘the bra wars’. As usual, politicians on all sides have been quick to leap on the bandwagon, with Tory MEPs trying to pin the blame entirely on Peter Mandelson and the Telegraph pretending that it’s all the fault of “the EU’s protectionist camp”, an invented conglomeration of countries that apparently “compelled the European Commission” to impose this “botched policy” on the rest of us.

While it’s nice to see the hideously Eurosceptic Telegraph admit that the Commission can be “compelled” to do anything by EU member states — it usually likes to paint the Commission as a maveric dictatorship bullying governments into submission — unfortunately it’s still managed to get it wrong. In fact, I was astonished to find that it’s the Daily Mail (admittedly via Reuters) that gets closest to the truth of what’s really going on here:

“The June deal, which capped growth in 10 lines of Chinese textile exports at 8-12 percent a year, was hailed at the time as a sensible response to a deluge of low-cost clothes from China following the scrapping of global textile quotas on January 1.”

The essence of the problem is this. With the end of the so-called multi-fibre agreement this year, we all knew that China would quickly come to dominate the world textiles market with a big rise in its exports. To address these fears, the EU agreed a transitional system of quotas, increasing gradually year-on-year, which would make these changes manageable. The system was neither particularly protectionist nor ultra-liberal, but was agreed by all and sundry, including by EU countries and by China itself.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can indeed debate whether the levels agreed were too strict or too lax. But that has little to do with the problem which has now landed in Peter Mandelson’s lap. This problem arises primarily from the problem of what to do with stock which was ordered from China before the new quota came into force but wasn’t delivered until afterwards.

With Mr Mandelson promising to sort this out by the end of the week, I’m doing my best to keep concerned constituents up-to-date on the situation.

One of my biggest bugbears about the way European issues are debated in this country is the way both politicians and the media deliberately avoid discussing the issues themselves, instead deflecting attention onto bogus stories which aim to make the EU look silly.

Nowhere is this kind of deflection more prominent than in the reporting of health and safety legislation. In 2002, when we considered ways to address the growing problem of occupational exposure to noise in places such as factories and airports, the Tories and the media had a choice between joining the debate as adults or inventing childish stories to shout from the sidelines. The adult option would have been to make a contribution, perhaps suggesting ways in which the huge problem of occupational deafness — the most common occupational disease in Europe — should be addressed. They could have debated what kind of industrial noise levels are considered safe for how long, and who should be responsible for ensuring that workers in more dangerous conditions are offered adequate protection.

But they didn’t. Instead, they went for the childish option. The Tories put about all kinds of ludicrous lies which were lapped up by the media, including the claim that bagpipes would be banned (Times), clubbers would have to wear ear-plugs (News of the World), football fans would have to keep their voices down (Sunday People), and Beethoven symphonies could never be played in the EU again (Times again). All of these were bare-faced and screamingly obvious fabrications, of course, but when the laughter had died down the fabrications had done what they were intended to do: reinforced anti-European prejudices and distracted attention from what was really a very serious debate.

Exactly the same thing happened two years later when we discussed what should be done about the frighteningly large mortality rate of workers falling off high scaffolding. Rather than making a grown-up contribution, the Tories dubbed the proposal ‘the ladders directive’—suggesting that Brussels would force manufacturers to emblazon warning messages at the top of ladders. And they even suggested, via the BBC, that bureaucrats would have to scale mountains:

“A Euro MP claims new EU laws to prevent falls at work will mean UK mountain pursuit centres having to warn people that they are ‘high up’… Welsh Tory MEP Jonathan Evans said…’This is madness—most people know that when they climb a mountain they will be up high!’”

Same childish reaction; same damaging result.

Finally, we can thank The Sun for the most recent example of health and safety issues being ridiculed rather than discussed:

“The EU has declared a crackpot war on busty barmaids – by trying to ban them from wearing low-cut tops. Po-faced penpushers have deemed it a HEALTH HAZARD for bar girls to show too much cleavage. And in a daft directive that will have drinkers choking on their pints, Brussels bureaucrats have ordered a cover-up.”

As ever, the European Commission tried diligently to stem the tide:

“New EU rules on optical radiation, due to be voted on by ministers and MEPs (including those from the UK) in September 2005, do not tell people what they can wear, or ban low-cut tops or, heaven forbid, dirndls.

“They instead require bosses to assess the risk of skin and retina damage for employees who work in the sun all day. This is a pressing concern, given that in the UK alone there 69,000 new cases of skin cancer diagnosed each year. How the risk to employees will be assessed, and what measures should be taken if there is deemed to be one, will be decided at local level – in the UK by the Health and Safety Executive. Of course, bar managers can always use their common sense by handing out sun cream.”

But what made this particular euromyth extraordinary was the reaction of The Sun to being corrected. We all know not to expect an apology for such inventions — or the tabloid press would contain little else — but it takes a particular species of bare-faced cheek to try this one:

“The Sun has saved Britain’s busty barmaids. EU killjoys have backed down over plans to make our girls cover up by banning low-cut tops. The Brussels bureaucrats surrendered in the face of The Sun’s double-barrelled attack... We vowed to give big-boobed barmaids all the support they would need to beat the ban. It was due to be rubber-stamped by the EU parliament next month under the Optical Radiation Directive.”

In other words, The Sun is taking credit for forcing the Commission to “back down” over something that was never in the pipeline in the first place! Now that tactic really is straight out of the junior school playground.

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy re-emerges into the public arena every few years for a heated discussion. This year's most-quoted fact is probably the intended "shock statistic" that nearly 40% of the EU budget is spent on agricultural support.

For all their usefulness, statistics are often misleading or downright devious. 40% of the EU's budget sounds a lot, but here's another statistic: that 40% is only 0.4% of the EU's GDP, less than we spend on most other key policy areas which are dealt with at national and European level.

There are two reasons why this tiny proportion of GDP seems to be such a large proportion of the EU's budget:

• The first reason is that the EU's budget as a whole is itself only a tiny proportion of GDP - around 1%, which is mere pocket change in international terms, despite regular attempts by UKIP and the BNP to suggest that the EU budget is massive.


• The second reason is that agriculture is just about the only policy area which is financed entirely out of the European-level budget; other areas of spending are drawn from national-level budgets or jointly. If this were not the case, agricultural spending would be much more comparable to other areas.

Add to this the fact that CAP reform has already brought the figure down from 70% to the current 40% (and this is projected to fall still further) and the situation suddenly looks a lot less pessimistic.

And incidentally, guess what proportion of EU land is used for agriculture? You've guessed it - about 40%.

Not one, not two, but three EU stories made the national headlines this morning. I wish I could be confident that the trend will continue, but sadly, it's more likely that the summer lull has temporarily reduced the availability of what the BBC usually sees as "proper" stories.

The first is tobacco advertising, which I discussed here; the second is vitamin supplements, which I discussed here (though it was most interesting to hear a spokesperson for the Alliance for Natural Health on the news this morning forced to retreat from the substance of the issue and fall back on the absurd myth that this is the EU forcing Britain to do something it doesn't want to do); and the third is the EU arrest warrant.

The arrest warrant is something that has gone the whole distance in the UK, from something dreadful that threatens to undermine our way of life (because, of course, it comes from Europe), through to an essential mechanism by which we can catch suspected terrorists and bring them to justice on home soil.

In 2002, the Telegraph published Frederick Forsyth's predictable insistence, in the best tradition of Eurosceptic hyperbole, that the new arrest warrant would "abolish habeas corpus, presumption of innocence, the Magna Carta and half of the Bill of Rights of 1689". Yet so great has been its transformation in the eyes of the public since then that the legal affairs editor of the very same Daily Telegraph was this morning explaining to Radio 4 listeners, in calm and measured tones, how the scheme will greatly speed the extradition of a terrorist suspect from Italy.

As he explained, the truth is simple and, until the Eurosceptics got hold of it, uncontroversial. Normal extradition proceedings between countries take years because the domestic courts must establish all kinds of basic facts about the foreign country that's requesting the extradition: whether its laws are compatible with the domestic country's laws, whether the suspect will get a fair trial, and so on. The arrest warrant is a recognition of the fact that EU countries already trust one another to provide such guarantees; in fact, the mutual acceptance of such basic principles is a cornerstone of the Union.

Without the European Union, fleeing to Rome might have been beneficial to Osman Hussain. But thankfully, we live in a world where there should be no hiding places for terrorists - especially not in our neighbouring European countries. Funnily enough, the eurosceptics have fallen silent on this now their rhetoric has been exposed.

There's some hoo-hah in the press today about the new directive on vitamins. I'm all for public debate about EU legislation - in fact, I think it's crucial to the democratic life of Europe - but, as usual, the UK's debate is too much, too late, and painfully ill-informed.

First, a letter from a QC in The Times:

"The judgment of the European Court of Justice to uphold the Food Supplements Directive (report and leading article, July 13) highlights the way in which the EU’s law-making intentions are easily distorted by an inbuilt addiction to over-regulation.…

"Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, says that our Government will “continue to press for the lightest touch possible in carrying out the directive”. This pitiful acknowledgement of inability or unwillingness to protect our economy and interests demonstrates the need for fundamental change in the objectives and law-making procedures of the EU."

Why is it that the stock response to any decision we take at EU level is to invent spurious objections to the way we take those decisions, rather than actually discussing the quite important issues that surround them?

Firstly, all decisions on new EU-wide laws are taken by the governments of EU member countries and by elected MEPs. If there is praise or blame to be apportioned for any democratic decision, let it at least be apportioned correctly.

Secondly, the charge of "over-regulation" here is outrageous. Setting aside the fact that more than 99% of vitamin products are unaffected by the new rules, the UK's decision to press for this directive was based on conclusive medical advice. As another correspondent pointed out in The Times on the same day, measures that save lives are not self-indulgent over-regulation; on the contrary, they are our solemn duty.

The very same points can be made in response to the ignorance of a still more reactionary letter in my own local York Evening Press (the letter itself isn't available online):

"Once again our lords and masters in Brussels have decreed that all members of the European Union must obey their latest idiocy."

(With a first paragraph like that, I hardly need go on, but let's indulge.)

"And, lemming-like, the British government immediately brings out legislation to enforce it rather than raising a metaphorical second finger right hand skyward, and advising the mandarins in Brussels to 'rotate!'."

Sigh.

What's particularly curious is that, in this case, it was our very own UK government that pressed for the directive - successfully. So, far from showing the blind adherence of our "lemming-like" government to the whims of "mandarins in Brussels", these new rules show just how much Britain can achieve when we work together with our European neighbours.

As for the directive itself, let's not lose sight of three simple facts:

1. More than 99% of vitamin products are unaffected by the new rules.


2. The directive is based on conclusive medical advice already accepted by all 25 EU countries.


3. The measures are strongly supported by the British Dietetic Association.

Surely we should welcome health measures that save lives - not use them as an excuse to invent anti-European arguments?

It must have been a painful dilemma for Eurosceptic newspaper editors when they were faced with a choice between having a go at the EU and having a go at Tony Blair. When the Prime Minister made a slip in an otherwise excellent speech and said that a seesaw had been dismantled because of spurious EU regulations, there was no clear line from the right-wing press about how to report the error.

The Evening Standard went one way, sacrificing accuracy at the altar of reactionary Euroscepticism:

"Tony Blair today launched an unprecedented attack on Brussels… [Mr Blair] raised the case of a Cotswold village required to pull up a seesaw because it was judged a danger under an EU directive on outside playgrounds."

Meanwhile, you can almost hear the teeth grinding in the editor's office as the Telegraph decides to point the mistake:

"Tony Blair was caught out yesterday for falsely claiming that a European Union directive had forced a Cotswolds village to rip out its playground seesaw - when no such directive exists. Playgrounds are, in fact, not regulated by the EU."

Fortunately, the European Commission is on hand to break the deadlock.

"This little tale first surfaced in 2000 and found a home in a number of newspapers willing to peddle it. Now the Evening Standard has jumped on the merry-go-round [boom, boom] of blaming non-existent EU rules for depriving children of their seesaws, while the prime minister appears to have, albeit unintentionally, recycled an old euromyth.

"There is no EU Directive on Playground Equipment for Outside Use. No village in the Cotswolds has been forced to take down its seesaws, or swings or slides.

"The prime minister may have been referring to European Standard EN 1176-5, drawn up by the European Committee for Standardisation. This is a non-EU body made up of standards institutions from 28 European countries, including the British Standards Institution. It sets guidelines for products in order to improve consumer safety. But these guidelines are entirely voluntary."

Great quote from Yorkshire Tory MP David Curry in the Yorkshire Post last year (I've just had it drawn to my attention:

"The eternal mantra about the imminent arrival of the European superstate in some political Armageddon sounds more like Lord of the Rings than European reality. … The [Conservative] party will get nowhere by competing with UKIP; it needs to contest it, challenge it and confront it."

I was recently talking to a Eurosceptic who thought that EU decisions were taken by unelected, foreign bureaucrats.

Unelected? No. All EU decisions are taken by elected MEPs in Parliament and elected governments in the Council.

Foreign? No. Everyone in these institutions is an EU citizen.

Bureaucrats? No. The Commission, the EU's equivalent of the civil service, has no power to take decisions. It can only make proposals and carry out what has been agreed.

The Fabian Society is a UK left-wing think-tank and a forum for debate on all areas of progressive politics, including Europe. I was interested to read just such a debate in the Spring edition of their journal, Fabian Review - though I was a little surprised to read an analysis by pro-European contributor Mark Leonard, discussing the popular mandate for EU integration, which was wrong in every detail! Mr Leonard concludes:

"On the rare occasions when citizens are asked if they support [EU] integration, they have answered no."

Yet, in the past thirty years, there have been no fewer than 32 national referenda in European countries on further EU integration, and all but four have produced pro-integration majorities, often as high as 89 or 90%, and often with very high turnouts.

A record of 28 victories out of 32 - that's 88% - would be regarded as a remarkably positive result in any national election campaign. Yet Eurosceptics seize on the very few occasions where one or another country has said no to a particular development, half of which were later reversed, in order to suggest that the whole EU project has been bereft of public support and will be rejected at the first opportunity! Mr Leonard does the cause no favours by perpetuating such myths.

Apparently, seven out of ten people believe that the pound will be axed if Britain ratifies the new EU constitution - according to The Sun yesterday.

Yet there’s absolutely nothing in the treaty that says this. In fact, it says exactly the opposite – the UK will never have to join the euro unless it wants to.

So what does this so-called ‘news story’ tell us? Simply that people are confused about what’s in the treaty. Wouldn’t it be more useful for The Sun to cut through the confusion and report the facts – rather than muddying the waters further?

Conservative Lord David Howell wrote to the Financial Times yesterday to say that, although he likes the EU in its current incarnation - he describes it as "a subtle balance between the obvious efficiencies of collective action and the equally obvious imperatives of national identity and belonging", and amen to that - he has serious problems with the new constitution, which he thinks inflicts all kinds of damage on our sovereignty, independence, budget, democracy and so on.

This is a rather fine line to try to tread - especially when you consider the very straightforward fact, highlighted by the BBC just the other day, that vast amounts of the new treaty are simply lifted from the current treaties. "If you complain about the constitution, as you are entitled to, you also have to complain about the Treaty of Rome".

But anyway, Lord Howell makes a much more fundamental mistake. Underpinning virtually every aspect of his lengthy tirade against the new constitution is one all-pervading misconstruction.

He sets out to describe a sinister creature which he calls “the Union”. In his mind, this monster can “assume whatever powers it likes”, has “the final word” on our laws, and will “impose a new and higher legal order” on our country. He conjures up the vivid image of twenty-five valiant but helpless nation states, each struggling to maintain independence against the menacing domination of a sinister alien will.

This is, of course, utter hogwash. “The Union” is nothing more than the co-operative framework that we ourselves have agreed with our European neighbours. Its decisions are taken by member governments, double-checked by the directly-elected European Parliament. They are not foist upon us by some higher authority, least of all the European Commission, which has the power only to make proposals.

And the scope of the Union’s competence is determined entirely by member governments themselves. The new constitution enshrines the ‘principle of conferral’ as a fundamental tenet, meaning the EU has no powers at all except those conferred on it by its member states. This point is made extraordinarily clearly at the very
beginning of the constitution (Article I-11). But Lord Howell has “studied every draft” – so he must know all this. Whence the confusion?

We have nothing to fear from the new constitution, in whose drafting Britain did, after all, play a decisive role. Nor have our European neighbours. What Lord Howell calls the “subtle balance” of Europe’s evolution so far need never be upset – because we remain firmly at the tiller.

Under the typically hyperbolic headline THE RAPE OF OUR MEADOWS, today's Daily Mail claims that "the EU Commission has offered farmers inflated prices for their products". (The article is on page 13 of today's issue, but it isn't available online.)

The article places the blame on entirely the wrong shoulders. It's not the Commission that has showered taxpayers' money on the farmers - far from it. It's national governments of the EU's member countries who bear responsibility for this matter.

Year after year, the Commission has proposed to cut or restrain agriculture prices. Yet, year after year, the governments in the EU Council have watered down their proposals and agreed on price increases.

It's fashionable to blame the Commission for less popular EU policies. But the Commission can only make proposals. It's governments that take decisions.

And as it's now past midday, I can highlight this article from the Yorkshire Post without fear of Eurosceptic reprisal:

Fury as Brussels batters Yorkshire pud

Yorkshire pudding could become the dish that dare not speak its name – thanks to a half-baked decision by Eurocrats in Brussels. …

The EC Milk, Fats, Flour, and Oil Committee has ruled Yorkshire Pud must be sold as "puff batter snacks" under the Protection of Geographical Indications of Origin for Foodstuffs policy.

Read the full article here.

There was a letter in the Yorkshire Post yesterday from a regular Eurosceptic correspondent, Keith Johnston. His latest theme is that the constitution is an anti-Christian document and the EU is a humanist conspiracy:

In our ever-closer union in Europe, this is a fundamental point to be considered when we vote on the Constitution. Is God to be relegated and humanism to take over?…

One can see it at work in the European Union, with its Charter of Fundamental Rights, and its unending stream of laws, regulations and decisions of the courts affecting all aspects of our lives.

There is no such conspiracy, of course. In fact, the constitution recognises our rich “religious and humanist” heritage, which seems to cover all the bases. Nowhere does it state that “humanism [is] the ethical basis of the European Union”. In fact, it explicitly commits us to respecting Europe’s cultural and religious diversity when we take decisions at European level (Article 82).

Mr Johnston also brings up the old myth about rejecting a Catholic Commissioner:

It was there, too, in the rejection of an Italian commissioner who was a devout Catholic.

Now, we certainly did not vote against Rocco Buttiglione because he was a Catholic! Religion didn’t come into it. After all, several other Commissioners are also devout Catholics – this really isn’t a problem.

But Mr Buttiglione expressed views about homosexuality, women and the family which ran directly counter to the fundamental principles of equality already agreed by all EU countries. Incidentally, many Christians also found his views unacceptable. He was, of course, entitled to express them, but he was not entitled to let them affect his decisions as a Commissioner – and he was unable to guarantee that he would not.

MEPs from several parties therefore felt unable to give him a vote of confidence, and the President of the Commission responded by withdrawing his nomination. Quite how this could be seen as a victory for humanism over Christianity is a mystery to me!

Anyway, Mr Johnston's assertions about Christianity have been undermined somewhat by this breaking news: the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), representing Catholic bishops from across the EU, has given its backing to the constitution and commended it to Catholic congregations:

While regretting that the Union had not heeded calls by John Paul II to include a reference to Christianity in the text of the Constitution, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) has commended it to their congregation. The Constitution is a "breakthrough for Church and society" which "reflects core principles of Christian anthropology", the Bishops said in a statement.

In a meeting with President Barroso on 11 March, COMECE affirmed the backing of the Church for the goals and values of the Union. The Bishops approved the Lisbon aims of economic progress, the rule of law and a strong civil society and pledged support in particular for the creation of an EU fundamental rights agency.

That last point is particularly interesting because, elsewhere in his letter, Mr Johnston claims that the concept of fundamental rights is a humanist concept that runs counter to Christian thinking. The bishops disagree!

Edit: I wrote a few days ago about the fact that Muslims support the constitution "unequivocally" and, in particular, that European Muslims are also committed to the principle of human rights. Some humanist conspiracy…

I was interested to read in the FT (full article here - but you need to subscribe) that the House of Commons library has estimated that EU legislation only accounts for about 9% of new regulations adopted in Britain each year, rather than the 50% or more often claimed by eurosceptics.

The library has analysed all statutory instruments adopted over the last five financial years, up to April 2004 and showed that the proportion arising out of agreements reached at European level come to about 9% per year - and many of them rather technical rules concerning trade or agriculture.

Don't count on the Eurosceptics dropping their silly claims that we are being sucked into a super-state that dictates all of our laws from Brussels. They have never let the facts stand in the way of their claims.

Today, a new Euromyth is born. I pick up a Tory briefing in which I learn that the European Commission is planning to ban – wait for it – that bastion of British society, the Honey Monster! To wit:

“The European Commission is attempting to interfere with the way breakfast is advertised. Proposals have been made that would make it illegal for companies to invent fantasy characters such as the Honey Monster and Coco Monkey. The [Commission's] thoughts behind this [are] that such characters encourage children to eat food which [is] high in sugar, fat and salt and ultimately lead to an unhealthy diet and obesity. Breakfast cereal on our shelves would have to be marketed and packaged in new ways if the proposal comes into force."

Hah! I know eurosceptics like to exaggerate sometimes, but that’s the first time I’ve heard anyone accuse the Commission of being a cereal killer…

Other myths about the constitution are surfacing – or re-surfacing – this week.

The Times intimates that Britain and France might lose their seats on the UN security council in favour of a European foreign minister if the constitution is adopted.

But this is false. In fact, the text reads as follows:

“When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs be asked to present the Union's position.”

So Britain and France will therefore keep their seats and their votes. The only difference is that, when the rest of the EU agrees with our position, we’ll benefit from the extra weight of the entire EU behind us too! Surely this is an unambiguously good thing?

The Telegraph resurrects the hoary old myth that the primacy of EU law is (a) new and (b) bad. But this was a well established principle of the EU long before the UK joined. It is also true of other international treaties - there would be little point in making international agreements in the first place if the signatories were not agreeing to be bound by their provisions!

In any case, EU law only operates where we have already agreed that it should. The constitution makes clear that the Union may only act "within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States" (Article I-11.2). Moreover, "the Union shall act only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member State, either at central level or at regional or local level" (Article I-11.3).

The constitution commits Member States to supporting a common EU foreign and security policy, just as the present treaties do. But this policy only exists when every single country agrees on a common line – so we can never be forced to do anything against our will. When there are disagreements, each country simply goes its own way.