Political balances in the new Parliament

As the dust begins to settle, what is the wider impact of the European election result on the European Parliament?

The most commented on aspect is the setback for the Socialists and the strengthening of the centre-right EPP - though the latter effect is negated by the loss of the British Conservatives, who hope to form their own, separate Group.

Yet the EPP cannot easily build a right-wing majority in the Parliament. The parties to its right are fragmented and are mostly people with whom they would not wish to be associated.

The fascist right, despite gaining the two BNP seats in Britain, lost seats in France and Belgium, gained some in Hungary and Romania, but overall cannot form a political group (a key to influence in the European Parliament), which requires at least 25 MEPs from a quarter (7) of the Member States, unless the Northern League of Italy joins them, which I hear is unlikely. Even if then, it is likely that their strongest common feature - hatred of foreigners - will make it difficult for them to work together for very long.

The eurosceptic right did not fare well in the elections. UKIP's "Independence & Democracy" Group failed to win enough seats to constitute a Group, having lost ALL its seats in Poland, Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Even in Britain, despite the gift of the Westminster expenses scandal, it gained only a single seat. As to Libertas, it failed dismally, with even Declan Ganley's millions failing to win him a seat.

The Conservatives are desparately trying to build their own group - but finding it difficult to do so without taking on board some frankly embarrassing partners. Their flight to the fringes is still viewed as madness by most Conservative MEPs - see for instance Caroline Jackson's comments to the BBC yesterday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8096297.stm). It is unlikely that the EPP will see them as a partner, given that they have just walked out on their former colleagues, slamming the door.

Finally, the UEN (Union for a Europe of Nations) Group could well disappear. Its mainstays, Fianna Fail is set to join the Liberals and the former Italian AN has been absorbed into the EPP member in Italy. Their main leftover, the Polish PiS, is one of the Tories potential new partners - though their overt homophobia might yet prove too embarrassing for the latter.

All in all, those to the right of the EPP have enough numerically to constitute one or even two political Groups (given that the European Parliament has a lower threshold than most national parliaments for constituting Groups), but actually doing so requires the creation of alliances that are highly problematic - and even if they are successful, they will not be natural allies for the EPP.

Instead, the EPP will have to deal with parties of the centre and the centre-left. Even with the Liberals, they cannot obtain a majority. They will have to bargain with the Socialists and/or the Greens. The left cannot by itself get its way in this parliament, but nor can it be easily circumvented.

election result

Thanks to all those who have been calling or emailing with sympathy for my losing my seat in the European election count yesterday. Losing is one thing - ceding a seat to the BNP is another.


Local elections and European elections always see a proportion of the electorate voting on national issues. This time, there was next to no European content - just one issue in the press and on the doorstep, that of the Westminster MPs expenses scandal.

Of course we knew that all the main parties would be hurt by the scandal, and Labour perhaps more than others as it is in government. People are rightly indignant about it and the main parties must be vigourous in dealing with their rotten apples if we are to restore trust in the democratic system.

What we did not expect was the additional hit to Labour's vote caused by Hazel Blears, choosing the day before polling to have her tantrum and resign dramatically from the cabinet, ensuring blanket media coverage of a Labour split just as people were preparing to vote. At least others waited until the close of poll. Hazel's actions treated with contempt not just her colleague Labour MEPs, but also kicked in the teeth the thousands of volunteers out campaigning to get the best possible result for Labour in already difficult circumstances. Given the closeness of the result in Yorkshire, it certainly gifted the BNP one of their two seats.

Silver linings? There was no surge to the BNP, which got fewer votes than last time (it was Labour's fall that helped them get past their target of more than half Labour's score in Yorks & Humber). UKIP's vote rose by a mere 0.3 percent - they would have lost most of their seats had it not been for the Westminster MPs expenses scandal. The Tories, looking to the next general election, are far from the sort of figure they would be wanting (their 28 percent is well below the 44 percent Labour were getting in the last European elections befor the 1997 general election).

In any case, we must now fight back. It will need lots of hard work, at all levels, but it can be done.

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.

Expenses, fringe parties and the Euro elections

For three weeks, the news has been dominated by the MP expenses debacle. This sombre chapter in UK political life seems likely to continue for some time. Analysis of its implications and how our political systems should be reformed is now starting to emerge.

As a result, the elections to the European Parliament on 4th June risk becoming an ‘anti-election’ – a rejection of all political parties. Some, like Lord Tebbit, the former Conservative minister, seem to relish this, urging voters to use their European vote to express their disgust at the mainstream political parties. So MEPs look set to become the collateral damage of this sorry national affair.

There is, to say the least, some irony in this. For many years, the only stories written about MEPs and the Parliament itself were the vitriolic and frequently inaccurate accounts of the “gravy train”.

These stories successfully obscured the fact that Parliament had become a serious player in EU lawmaking, voting through the pan-European laws that have, to name a few examples, set various targets for the fight against climate change, developed a Europe-wide energy policy, and created a framework for the use of chemicals that ensures health and safety across Europe.

But behind the scenes and unreported, Labour MEPs decided, as early as 2000, to set an example in how they handled their finances. We took the decision to introduce their own measures to ensure that their expenditure was beyond reproach, by deciding to voluntarily send every item of expenditure from both their office and staff accounts to an independent qualilfied accountant for review.

Furthermore, Labour MEPs elected in the new Parliament on June 4th are committed to publishing a breakdown of expenditure, with receipts, from their European Parliament office allowances every six months on the European Parliamentary Labour Party’s website as well as on their own sites.

No other party in the European Parliament made these reforms so early and so comprehensively.

By contrast, eight years after the Labour MEPs introduced their own measures in addition to those of the European Parliament, the Leader of the Conservative MEPs resigned and the Chief Whip was forced to resign after they were found to have been abusing and misusing their allowances for years, leading to them being required by the EP to pay back sizeable sums.

Most notably, the flash in the pan success of UKIP in the last European election was quickly marred by the behavious of its MEPs. One UKIP MEP Ashley Mote was found guilty of housing benefit fraud in the UK and was sent to prison for nine months, while fellow UKIP Member Tom Wise has recently been charged with counts of money laundering and false accounting following an account by the EU fraud office. Yet, UKIP Members still have no reporting or auditing of their expenditure.

Lord Tebbit could be forgiven for not knowing the details of Mr Mote’s conviction or of Tom Wise’s alleged financial mismanagement. But his exhortation to the electorate to boycott the mainstream parties is careless and unforgiveable. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter to Lord Tebbit if Conservative voters choose more extreme right-wing options such as the BNP.

In the end, efforts to marginalise the UK’s role in Europe are politically irreponsible. However indifferent many may feel, the European Parliament will make decisions over the next five years that will affect us all. No-one should opt-out and allow these decisions to be made by extremists.

The reality is that we live in a global society with opportunities and challenges unrecognisable from those we faced a generation ago. Responding to these needs progressive policies at local, national and European level. To undermine or opt-out of any of these levels is to undermine our British interests.

Europe is not about back room deals and treaty changes, it is about how we work together the improve the lives of our citizens. It is about working together, where possible, to pull out of this recession; it is about making the air we breath cleaner; securing our borders and preventing global warming. To think that any of these major issues can be tackled solely at national level is, at the very least, misguided and naïve.

EP reform package adopted

I was pleased that the European Parliament adopted virtually all my proposals to reform the Parliament's internal procedures yesterday, by an overwhelming majority.

Much of it is pretty technical (how committees deal with amendments from other committees, and such like), but some is aimed at making EP debates more lively.

Traditionally EP debates are a succession of monologues of successive speakers in a predetermined order, without much interaction. I had already introduced a reform to set aside a period at the end of each debate for members to "catch-the-eye-of-the-speaker" for short spontaneous interventions, not pre-allocated, and providing an opportunity for responding to points made by others. Now, I have gone a stage further and provided for all speeches to be subject to brief interruptions for short questions, a bit like what happens in the House of Commons, with the consent of the speaker.

Traditionally, speaking time is shared out proportionately among political groups according to their size. Groups choose themselves whether to have, for example, two speakers for ten minutes each or twenty for one minute each. UKIP often do the latter - and then complain that they have had only one minute each!

In any case, this reform is a small step towards more flexibility and spontaneity in Parliament debates (which exists already in its committees, where the detailed legislative work is done). I was therefore astonished to hear the extreme eurosceptic Tories Heaton Harris and Hannan describe it as dictatorial and an attempt to silence minority opinion. Our MEP colleagues from Eastern Europe, who know a thing or two about dictatorships, were aghast at this suggestion.

Isolation vs co-operation

The European elections are shaping up to a battle between those who believe that Britain's future lies with isolation and those who believe that it lies in co-operation with other countries, in particular with its neighbours in Europe.

With the increasingly isolationist and extremist Conservatives competing with UKIP, Libertas, the BNP and sundry others for the ultra eurosceptic vote - and fighting like dogs while they're at it - the way should be clear for Labour to make a clear principled case for engagement and participation in the European Union.

The world economic crisis has shown clearly how interdependent countries are in the economic field - particularly so within Europe where we share the world's largest single market. Climate change has similarly underlined how interdependent we are on environmental matters. International criminal gangs trafficking drugs and people can only be tackled through co-operation. On all these and other matters, the EU is the framework where we and our neighbouring countries come together to seek common solutions to common problems.

Yet, instead of addressing these problems, the Conservatives want to re-open last year's decision by our national parliament to ratify the Lisbon Treaty - a set of reforms designed to make the EU work better and to subject it to more parliamentary scrutiny. Revoking Britain's support for this treaty - now ratified by almost all our partners - is scarcely a way to help us co-operate on the economic and environmental challenges that we must focus on. It would plunge the EU into turmoil and take Britain to the exit door at a moment when we need co-operation in Europe more than ever. And quite how it would help us deal with the world economic crisis is unclear - most of our trade is with the rest of the EU, and most inward investment into Britain from abroad is from our fellow EU countries. 2 million British people live or work in other EU countries. Yet the Conservatives propose to stick two fingers up at the rest of Europe.

Mind your language as Tories relish latest Euromyth

A story that neatly illustrates the working methods of the eurosceptics has been in the headlines of several papers this week, not least the Express. An internal guidance document intended for the translation services of the Parliament, advising staff on how best to render certain terms and expressions in other languages in a gender neutral or simply polite way (and also when not to do so if it would lead to distorted grammar and garbled sentences!), has been seized upon by various Conservative and other MEPs to portray it as "the European Union telling us how to speak our own language".

Although clearly not intended for MEPs or the wider public, Philip Bradbourn, Conservative MEP, said "I will have no part of it. I will continue to use my own language and expressions" - as if anyone had ever implied the contrary.

Struan Stevenson, the pro-European Scottish MEP who frequently masquerades as a Eurosceptic in the press to keep his right-wing party members happy, said "They seem determined to tell us which words we can use in our own language. It's ludicrous. The thought police are on the rampage". This is on a par with Struan's previous claims that the EU wanted to ban bagpipes - no doubt great for getting coverage in the Scottish press but no step forward for the cause of truth and honesty in politics!

Chris-Heaton Harris meanwhile had the cheek to claim "This really is the sort of rubbish that brings ridicule on the European Parliament", which is exactly what inventing Euromyths is designed to do, and something Tory MEPs obviously enjoy indulging in for a bit of easy press.

The Tories simply cannot stomach even moderately pro-European talk

The following was put up by a Tory on the Conservative Home website - who has been labelled a "Traitor for Being a Pro-European Conservative"!

"As a Conservative campaigner, (I am already working hard to get our London MEPs, headed by Charles Tannock, re-elected. Unlike Mr Helmer, I'll be focussing of the many positive aspects that membership of the EU brings to member states like Britain. Here's a recap of what they are:

Safer and Cheaper Flights

The EU has provided us with not only safer flights but also cheaper flights and increased competition between carriers registered in the Member States. Cheaper flights are the knock-on effect of a huge improvement in air traffic management and increased competition.

Student Exchange Programmes

Within the last 10 years the EU has created different education programmes in order to give students the possibility to experience different national cultures and broaden their personal horizon. Up to now 1.2 million students have benefited from the ERASMUS Programme and many more are expected to experience it in the future.

The Single Market

The Single Market is one of a kind as it guarantees ‘free movement' of people, goods, services and capital. At a practical level, it provides the possibility for EU citizens to live, work, study and do business throughout the EU, as well as enjoy a wide choice of competitively priced goods and services.

Protection of Intellectual Property

Intellectual property deals with two areas: industrial property and copyrights. Basically, it means that you are not allowed to use somebody else's ideas, for example, if your best friend has written lyrics to a song, you can not publish it in your name. The EU's efforts in this area have resulted in laws aiming at protecting company's or individual's knowledge.

Peace

Peace in Europe was first created when an alliance was made between Germany and France and the European Coal and Steel Community was founded. Europe has come along way since with a lasting peace amongst its Member States. International security is now a major issue for the EU: with increasing threats to a peaceful society in different areas of the world, the EU has put in place many policies to combat such problems.

The Euro

The single currency, the Euro, is now part of our everyday life but not all of its benefits are well known. From the practical advantages of travelling with a single currency, to the benefits of economic growth, to the strengthening of the EU international role and its political integration, the introduction of the euro has achieved much more than people expected.

Regional Funds

Unity and solidarity are some of the most significant aims for the EU. One important reason why the European regional policies have been created is because the EU is of the opinion that equal standards and rights should be provided to all citizens.

Cheaper and Better Phone calls

The liberalisation of the telecommunication markets in 1998 and the ongoing development in the field of technology have resulted in a steady decrease in prices within the EU. This means that it is cheaper to call your friends and family and choose between different operators.

Consumer Protection

NEW: Consumer protection and the safety of food in the European Union are two issues that have always gone hand in hand. The Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General's main responsibility is to provide laws and regulations on the safety of food and consumer rights.

A Healthier Europe

The public health issues dealt with by the EU are numerous and cover a number of different areas. They concern both men and women, young and old. The EU has also introduced the European health insurance card that is your guarantee if you should fall ill when going abroad.

Environmental Protection

In the EU, environmental issues including initiatives concerning protection have been underlined as some of the most important points not only for discussion but also for action. For instance, the EU is leading the "Kyoto" drive to reduce the air pollution that causes global warming.

Equal Opportunities - Against Discrimination

The promotion of equal opportunities and the fight against Discrimination are considered some of the most important issues within Europe and many directives have been put in place to combat inequalities that occur in the Member States. 2007 is officially the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. Additionally the "Roadmap for equality between women and men 2006-2010" was launched outlining 6 priority areas for EU action on gender equality.

External Trade

External trade for Europe has always been very important to the success of the European Union. In recent years our level of trade has increased and we are continuing to grow as major players in the world of trade. Today, the EU accounts for 20% of global imports and exports and is now the world's biggest trader."

Tories dump EPP in favour of isolation

The Tories' departure from the centre-right EPP has been brought a step closer today, with William Hague and Tim Kirkhope holding a meeting with Joseph Daul to officially serve notice of their intention to form a new group after the elections in June. The meeting will no doubt have been difficult for Tim, who has always been in favour of remaining within the EPP-ED.

However, the Tories are still no clearer about who will join them in this new right-wing group. Apart from some of the Czech ODS members, takers are a bit thin on the ground. Under the rule change which I piloted through the Parliament last summer, political groups must consist of at least 25 members from at least seven Member States. The number of Members is unlikely to be a problem, but finding MEPs from at least six other countries to join could still prove difficult.

Leaving the largest group in the European Parliament to sit in isolation (or with some pretty odd characters) is in any case throwing away power and influence.

Why do it? Because the EPP has some federalists! Yet, it also has many non-federalists, and anyway it is national governments and parliaments that decide on the degree of integration - the European Parliament decides on the content of EU legislation in areas that the EU is already responsible for. On most of this, the Conservatives and other centre-right parties agree.

So symbolism prevails over reality! Britain, which had a strong presence in the two main groups, will now have no presence in one of them (except for those - and I know of at least one - who will not follow Cameron's silly instruction).

At the other end of the Tory delegation, Roger Helmer has produced this poster featuring a semi-naked woman, and (for those who bother reading the poster) a series of outlandish claims about the cost of EU membership drawing on the inaccurate nonsense published by the Taxpayers’ Alliance this week.

Roger makes it clear that he will be using this material to campaign during the European elections, despite the fact that it clearly advocates British withdrawal from the EU – which is completely at odds with Tory party policy. If Helmer is going to campaign on this basis, there is barely a cigarette paper between his politics and UKIP's. It is a mystery why Helmer hasn't done the decent thing and defected. Or is the self-styled 'straight talker' frightened that if he followed his beliefs and defected, he'd be out of a job in June?

Has the snow caused Hannan to abandon democracy?

It’s good to see that Dan Hannan spent his Monday enjoying the February snow that has brought much of Britain to a standstill this week, while his fellow MEPs fought their way through the blizzards to Strasbourg. But slightly less impressive is the product of the ‘blue-skies thinking’ the time off allowed him to do.

In it, Dan extols the virtue of replacing the democratically elected European Parliament with an assembly of appointed national politicians tasked with meeting for a few days a month. He adds that when this operation existed (up until direct elections were introduced in 1979) it was cheaper than the current Parliament and would be “considerably less likely to generate unwanted laws” - an odd remark for a Parliament that does not propose legislation, but approves, amends or rejects legislation proposed by the Commission or Council.

The argument that the EU is not democratic enough, so let's abolish the one EU institution that is directly elected, is bizarre, especially for someone who makes great play out of his claims to be a great democrat.

The European Parliament brings political pluralism (comprising MEPs not just from the governing parties in each country, but also, even mainly, opposition parties) providing a different perspective from governments in the Council of Ministers. Without the European Parliament, there would indeed be a danger of the EU being dominated by bureaucrats and diplomats.

The pre-1979 model of the Parliament was ineffective, because it was part-time and because whole countries could be un-represented if there was a key event in their national parliament keeping those members away.

As to holding the the Commission to account, a part-time Parliament that only met for three days per month would be a complete waste of time. Just as was the case in the 1970s, it would be marginalised and ignored by the Council of ministers and the Commission.

So much for enhancing democracy!

Clarke's return will re-open Tory wounds on Europe

The Conservatives’ apparent retreat from rabid euroscepticism has apparently continued today with Ken Clarke returning to the Tory shadow cabinet. Meanwhile, in a sign of the added importance the Tories are attaching to Europe, their shadow Europe spokesman Mark Francois has also been promoted to the shadow cabinet.

Clarke’s return to the front bench has been hotly debated by Conservative activists on Conservative Home, with many members dismayed that such an unabashed europhile is back. Among the choicest quotes are descriptions of Clarke as “divisive” and “overrated” while one describes the move as “two fingers to anyone in the Conservative party who is a eurosceptic". The Conservative affiliated Bruges group has also claimed that Clarke’s promotion signals David Cameron’s abandonment of a commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The idea that Clarke will be silenced on Europe is surely fanciful, especially as shadow Business Secretary when most of of Britain’s trade is with its EU neighbours. Although Clarke has promised not to buck the party’s policy on Europe, he has consistently called for Britain to join the euro, is against Tory withdrawal from the centre-right EPP, and was one of just three Conservative MPs to vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty back in March last year. He is also forthright in front of a microphone and it is surely only a matter of time before he criticises party policy. As Gordon Brown put it this morning, “it’s good to have someone in the Shadow Cabinet who is supportive of our policies on Europe, on VAT and probably quietly supportive of a number of our other policies”.

While most Tory MEPs will be happy to see him back, the likes of Roger Helmer and Dan Hannan, and the majority of Tory party activists will be spitting feathers. If Ken can’t keep quiet, Tory infighting over Europe will continue unabated.

Another swing to Labour in Yorkshire by-election

I popped over to Hull yesterday to help Labour’s Gary Wareing in his Drypool by-election campaign, which was caused after the Conservative councillor (who had previously been Lib Dem) resigned.

Just like in December’s by-election in Bingley, Labour’s share of the vote once again rose as the Conservatives (who finished last) and Liberal Democrat’s both fell.

In the end, Gary finished second behind the Lib Dem candidate but gained a swing of 9.8% from the Lib Dems to Labour since the local council elections last May.

Here are the figures (pinched from Luke Akehurst’s ever reliable blog) Drypool Ward, Hull City Council. LD regain after their cllr defected to Con. LD 1306 (52.3%, -11.6), Lab 891 (35.7%, +8), NF 184 (7.4%, +7.4), Con 117 (4.7%, -3.6). Swing of 9.8% from LD to Lab since 2008.

Strange silence over Bingley by-election

I'm not surprised that there was little press coverage of the Bingley by-election for Bradford Council that took place last week. It was, of course, a small matter in the greater scheme of things.

But I can't help feeling that the silence, even in much of the local and regional media, is because it was such a poor result for the Conservatives. Their majority in a "safe" Conservative seat was halved. The only party to increase its share of the vote was Labour, by several percent. An inconvenient truth, perhaps?

EU closing in on vital climate change package

This week's plenary session in Brussels was dominated by the climate change and energy package. The negotiations between Parliament, Council and Commission to agree a deal at first reading in Strasbourg in two weeks time have been proceeding well. There is still some way to go, however, and it is vital that all sides make the last effort to reach an agreement.

To be acceptable to Parliament the package of measures must be sufficiently vigorous for us to achieve the agreed EU targets of a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions and a 20%increase in renewables by the year 2020 - but also to enable us to go further and raise this up to 30% in the event of an international agreement. I am also pleased that there seems to be agreement that the biofuels target should be subject to strict sustainability criteria, ensuring that biofuels would not have a detrimental impact on food prices.

The debate also displayed some of the worst aspects of the European Tory delegation. Roger Helmer ignored the hard science of man-made climate change caused by our high carbon emissions, claiming that "the threat is not posed by global warming, but by policy responses which would "have a devastating economic effect". Such arguments are not only scientifically bone-headed but also economically suspect. The sad irony is that the reaction to Tories like Helmer on climate change is similar to their proposed response to the current financial crisis: do nothing. But doing nothing on climate change now could, as with failing to stimulate our economy, cause widespread human suffering and serious economic decline further down the line. In taking action now, we can not only negate these potential costs but also, as exists already in some parts of the world and several European countries, develop 'green' jobs and a 'green' economy.

Some like Helmer and UKIP describe the climate change package as being extreme. If so, then I am an extremist - but let us be clear: moderation in the face of a threat to the very future of this planet would be no virtue and vigorous action no vice.

More pro-EU sentiments from Tories

Hot on the heels of last week's conversion amongst the Tory MEPs to pro-European realism, with Roger Helmer calling for tighter regulation of EU animal welfare legislation to protect horses and Christopher Beazley saying that Cameron would take UK into the euro, previously arch-Eurosceptic Martin Callanan has a letter in his local paper praising EU state aid rules and adding that they "are essential to ensure a competitive business environment across Europe". He was at it again in yesterday’s Newcastle Evening Chronicle, demanding extra resources through the CAP (of all things) to help deal with the decline in bee numbers.

State aid rules avoid countries having to compete with each other in a bidding war, which would mean taxpayers paying over the odds. They are just part of the common rules than govern our common market.

How stringent these rules are in protecting consumers, workers or the environment are up to elected MEPs and ministers in the Council, with the Conservatives tending to support light-touch regulation and Labour MEPs calling for more strict rules and protection for consumers and workers.

It may have taken a while but at least a few Tory MEPs are coming to their senses but they will have to do battle with many of their colleagues who believe that Britain should leave the EU. Seemingly, as ever with the Tories, those that want in and those that want out have a long way to go to reconcile their differences.

Have the Tories become pro-European again?

What an unthinkable thought just a short while ago, but after the events this week I'm not so sure.

Today the Tory MEPs selected as Leader, Deputy Leader and Chief Whip, three MEPs who are all opposed to David Cameron's pledge to withdraw the Tory MEPs from the centre-right EPP - and all with, as I understand, large majorities.

Indeed, while they elected fellow Yorkshire MEP Timothy Kirkhope as their leader in Europe, defeating James Elles, just as significant were the other results from their internal elections: the moderate Richard Ashworth defeated the eurosceptic Geoffrey Van Orden. Furthermore, Sir Robert Atkins, who penned this diatribe warning Cameron against allying the Conservatives with the Polish Law and Justice party and other extreme right parties in Europe, was appointed as Chief Whip. In other words, a clean sweep for the moderates.

Kirkhope has, of course, been leader of the Tory delegation before (between 2004 and 2007 before being ousted by Giles Chichester). He is also the author of this "Alternative Treaty", which contains virtually all the substantive reforms contained in the Lisbon Treaty which the Conservative leadership in London so bitterly opposed.

Needless to say, this news is a clear statement to Cameron that, to keep to his EPP withdrawal pledge, he will have to fight his MEPs to the death, and has met with a mixed reaction amongst the grass-roots activists on the influential Conservative Home site. One would expect that the notorious H-block of Chris Heaton-Harris, Roger Helmer and Dan Hannan must be spitting feathers, but perhaps not - even Helmer seems to have performed a volte face on Europe this week, calling for EU legislation (on horses) to be more strictly enforced in member States!

All of which comes hot on the heels of Conservative MEP Christopher Beazley's speech yesterday in the Parliament, in which he declared that Britain should have been "a founder member" of the euro, and adding that he looks "forward to the next Conservative Government applying to join the eurozone really quite shortly."

Just two days into a Strasbourg session one has to ask what more is set to follow. Maybe tomorrow the Tories will call for Britain to sign up to the Schengen agreement?!

Still, the bottom line from both of these stories is that, certainly as far as his MEPs are concerned, whatever edicts David Cameron tries to enforce from Smith Square, he is a leader who is not being followed.

Tory sleaze, yet again

The spectacular hypocrisy of the Eurosceptics - both Tory and UKIP ones - was revealed yet again with the disgrace of former Tory chief whip Den Dover MEP.

Eurosceptics often claim loudly that they will "clean out" Brussels, to which they attribute all manner of evils, yet they themselves keep on getting caught out for financial improprieties.

The belated removal of Den Dover (not Ben Dover as some papers wrongly called him) is only the latest twist. Earlier this year, the Tory MEPs lost both their leader (Giles Chichester MEP) and their chief whip following allegations about breaking the rules on claiming expenses.

At the time, Cameron sent his financial troubleshooter Hugh Thomas to investigate. He can't have investigated very far, as it's only now that firm action as been taken against Dover following the European Parliament's own investigation. What they found was overlooked by Cameron's man. Is this because some of the money found its way into Conservative party coffers?

All this comes on top of UKIP, who have seen no less than a quarter of the MEPs they elected in 2004 get into trouble, one (Ashley Mote) even serving time in jail.

If UKIP and the Conservatives had followed Labour's example and had their accounts reviewed annually by an external independent auditor, then maybe none of this would have happened.

Dan Hannan on Iceland

Sadly the financial crisis continues to hit Iceland hard as it battles to keep its head above the water, seeing its currency collapse and desperately seeking foreign loans, while West Ham's owner Bjorgofur Gudmundsson is, according to the Daily Telegraph, facing the collapse of his Samson Holdings company, having already lost £230million.

Meanwhile, several prominent Icelanders, including possibly Iceland's most famous national, Bjork, has called for the country to join the safe haven of the EU and the euro, the idea of which will appall Tory MEP Dan Hannan.

A long time fan of Iceland, Hannan spent his stag night there so he could enjoy himself outside the EU (though obviously not outside most EU regulations, which Iceland follows as a member of the EEA, though with no say in shaping them).

And well done to the Fabian's Next Left blog which has dug up an astonishing article Hannan wrote for the Spectator in 2004.

In it he writes: "Being outside the EU, Iceland has been able to cut taxes and regulation, and to open up its economy. For 70 years the Althing has been dominated by the splendidly named Independence party, which has pursued the kind of Thatcherite agenda that is off limits to EU members...

"They understand that there is a connection between living in an independent state and living independently from the state. They have no more desire to submit to international than to national regulation. That attitude has made them the happiest, freest and wealthiest people on earth. Long may they remain so."

Quite spectacularly wide of the mark!

Bruges group anniversary highlights Tory divisions on Europe

I was interested by the coverage of the dinner to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Mrs Thatcher's notorious Bruges speech.

At the gala dinner organised by the arch-eurosceptic Bruges Group, and attended by a handful of the most eurosceptic Tory politicians and a few UKIP members, diners listened to Norman Tebbit call for Britain to completely re-negotiate its relationship with the EU, followed by a referendum on whether Britain should remain part of the EU.

It ties in quite neatly with my article in the Guardian at the weekend, looking at the Tories' continued divisions on all things European. One of things that has struck me is that many Tories, particular the younger breed, routinely claim to be eurosceptic, and argue that we should re-negotiate our EU membership, but are unable to identify or examine in any detail the policy areas they would like to see Britain opt out of. At the same time, however, they do not wish Britain to leave the EU and recognise the huge economic benefits of having access to the single market and its common set of rules.

But the diehard eurosceptics, focussed to the point of obsession on their hostility to Europe, dictate the pace. They have been appeased by Cameron since his election as party leader in 2005, through a combination of the pledge to withdraw the Tory MEPs from the mainstream centre right European People's Party in the European Parliament and his refusal to rule out a post-ratification referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, Dan Hannan, one of the most eurosceptic Tory MEPs, says he voted for Cameron in 2005 purely because of his promise on EPP withdrawal.

The Tory moderates and, indeed, Cameron would probably be happiest if all European controversies would just go away. If the Conservatives really were to win the next election, presumably with the world economy still in the process of recovering from the effects of the financial crisis, few senior Tories would relish the prospect of seeing their administration dominated by re-negotiating our membership of the EU followed by a referendum that they would probably lose.

But, while the europhobes remain such a vocal minority in the Tory party and feel that Cameron is the man to do their bidding for them, the Conservative leadership will be at their mercy. As William Hague has acknowledged, Europe is still a "ticking time bomb" for the Conservatives.

Hannan's plans to destroy the welfare state

The ultra Eurosceptic Conservative MEP Dan Hannan has, with Douglas Carswell, just published The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, which was summised in an article in the Sunday Times.

So what would Hannan’s plans really mean?
He promises:

"An end to the government monopolies in education and healthcare." This would leave us all paying for healthcare and education, which is too bad if you’re poor I suppose!

"Self-financing local authorities." So there would be no central government grant for local autorities, which will have to raise ALL their money through Council tax or other local taxes. This would be less of a problem in Surrey (high incomes, lower costs) than in Sunderland (lower incomes, higher costs). Council tax would therefore have to be higher in poorer areas.

"The devolution of social security to counties and cities." This will cause exactly the same problems as leaving local authorities to finance themselves. Cities face higher costs with a lower tax base. So much for solidarity or any kind of national cohesion.

"More referendums." More and important issues to be decided, on low turnouts, with superficial soundbites rather than detailed scrutiny by our elected representatives.

"Power back from Brussels in order to disperse it at home. You can't democratise Britain while 84% of our laws come from a super quango, the European Commission." Just nonsense. Only 10% (House of Commons library figures) of legislation originates from the EU, where it is anyway not decided on by the European Commission but by ministers (including British ministers) in the Council and directly elected MEPs in the Parliament. These are on subjects where we have decided it is advantageous to have a common approach, such as common rules for the common market instead of a myriad of separate national rules generating red tape.

There is little surprising in the article, Hannan is obsessed with dismantling the welfare state, but it is an insight into just how far removed from reality some of Dave’s cuddly Conservatives really are.

Tories, the Lib Dems and their attitudes to sexual services

There was some press consternation at a report by the European Parliament's Women's Committee debated last week, with some Tory MEPs going apoplectic at some of the ideas it contained.

It is not that many years ago that the very idea of women having equal rights to men, being able to open a bank account separately from their husband, not having to give up their job when they were married and so on, were met with similar disdain from the Conservatives.

Of course, a report from the Women's Committee, which was not legislation but simply a report analysing the situation, floating ideas and making a number of suggestions, contains a variety of ideas with which one might agree or disagree. But to treat it with contempt and disdain tell us much about the general attitude of the Conservatives.

On top of that, some of their votes were quite astonishing. The report looked at the problem of local newspapers being filled with adverts for local brothels and other sexual services. Interestingly, one local newspaper chain in the UK, Newsquest, recently took the decision to ban such adverts from their papers because of "concerns regarding the appalling issue of human trafficking" which it linked to the sex trade.

Probably most citizens would agree that, if brothels are to advertise at all, it would be better that they did so in publications that are not as likely to fall into the hands of children as local newspapers, delivered to every household, are. Yet the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats, voted to try to remove the paragraph on advertising sexual services in publications accessible to children from the report.

Flagging up the issue

More hullaballoo from Eurosceptics about the European flag and anthem.

Most of you will be thinking that the 12 gold stars on a blue background and Beethoven’s Ode To Joy have been around for some time and you’d be right. The symbols were originally agreed on by Mrs Thatcher and other prime ministers of EU countries way back in 1985 but have never been formally recognised by the European Parliament.

To tidy up this discrepancy, a European Parliament committee, on which I sit, today voted in favour of recognising these EU symbols. Despite my disquiet at the Thatcherite angle, I voted in favour in a spirit of cross-party consensus.

Curiously backing out of the consensus, Conservative Tim Kirkhope voted against this. He did so, he explained, because he has an interest in a flag company back in the UK. A strange decision, bearing in mind most people simply abstain from votes which they have an interest in.

Although the status of the symblols is just a decision of the relevant institutions (plans to put them in the treaty and have them ratified by Member States were abandonded last year), leaving their status somewhat akin to the Olympic flag and anthem - don't be surprised to see Eurosceptic media stories raging about superstates and suchlike in tomorrow’s newspapers!

The Tories, then and now

Clearing out my attic over the summer I came across some interesting old press clippings. One recorded Margaret Thatcher's visit to Brussels, as leader of the opposition, in 1977 in which she said that if the Conservatives won the next elections, "the country will take a more positive attitude" to Europe and that she "would like to see a closer alliance with the Christian Democrats and others on the basis of a joint statement of beliefs".

Tell that to the current Tory leaders.

Come and meet your MEPs in Sheffield

I and my colleague Linda McAvan will be attending this along with the Tory and Lib Dem MEPs from Yorkshire & Humber.

I hope to see you there!

All talk and little action from UKIP and Tories on workers' safety

Surprising news from Personnel Today, who report that UKIP’s Derek Clark and the Conservatives’ Chris Heaton Harris have joined a campaign to reduce the amount of youngsters injured at work.

All very laudable of course, though Derek Clark and the rest of his UKIP colleagues have never been too concerned about the safety of workers before, consistently voting against measures which protect workers.

Less than 12 months ago my colleague Glenis Wilmott’s report on Health and Safety at Work expressed concern at the "excessively high rate of accidents among temporary, short-term and low-qualified workers" and suggested measures that should be taken to prevent workers from exposure to dangerous and carcinogenic chemicals. UKIP voted against it.

And while Heaton Harris did support this measure he has previously criticised legislation which seeked to protect workers from hearing damage. He might also choose to have a word with some of his fellow Tories over their attitude to safety at work. A fellow member of the Conservatives’ right-wing H block, Dan Hannan, voted with UKIP on the Health and Safety at Work report, while Struan Stevenson mocked Labour MEPs for our avid support of the Working at Heights Directive, legislation which has and will continue to save workers’ lives.

Of course this could all be a road to Damascus-styles conversion, or Clark and Heaton Harris merely adding their name to a list. The next time a vote on health and safety comes round we shall see if they back up their talk with actions. I hope they do because Derek Clark in particular certainly hasn’t ever before.

The right, the north, and the south

It’s difficult to know what to say (without being rude)about the paper from the conservative think tank, Policy Exchange, that essentially declared the death of northern England by stating that cities like Bradford, Liverpool and Hull (all of which I have represented either in the past or currently) were “beyond revival” and their citizens should head south.

It’s quite clear that they are not and have in fact been revived to an incredible degree since Labour came into power back in 1997. Indeed, the improvements in some cities are so impressive, you wonder whether any of the authors of the report actually visited the north since it was left to rot in the 1980s by the Tories.

There is plenty of work still to do but the paper shows the inherent difficulty the Conservatives have in understanding the north, as their record in many northern cities illustrates.

John Prescott described the paper as “the most insulting and ignorant policy I've ever heard” while also making the important point that the Tories still see “people as economic units to be moved around.” It is indeed a policy that would be a disaster for the south as well, implying as it does that several million people, needing homes, schools, hospitals, transport and so on, converge on the congested south.

This Policy Exchange paper has justified many people’s concerns about the Conservatives and their relationship with the north so it was no surprise to see David Cameron trying his best to distance himself from the policy, and to play down the close and very real links between Policy Exchange and the Tories.

After all, from its infancy up until 2007, the director of Policy Exchange was Nicholas Boles, a key figure in the modern Conservative Party. Only this year he was appointed Chief of Staff to London Mayor Boris Johnson, while he is also he prospective parliamentary candidate for Grantham and Stamford. Before entering parliament, shadow secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, was the chair of Policy Exchange. It has also published papers written by Tory MEPs.

Since its creation Policy Exchange has essentially served as an academy for future Tory MPs, and influential ones at that, which suggests Cameron’s Conservatives still have a long way to go before they are seen as credible in much of the north of England.

So where do the Tories stand on civil liberties?

Hugh Muir makes an excellent point in his diary piece in the Guardian today, which again highlights the disparity between what the Conservatives say in the UK and how they vote in the European Parliament.

Muir neatly juxtoposes David Cameron’s professed distaste for ID cards with the news that most of his Tory MEPs voted against a resolution in the European Parliament which condemned Silvio Berlusconi’s plans to fingerprint Roma children - a far more drastic measure, introduced in a discriminatory way against a particular group.

Of all the Tories present, just one didn’t back Berlusconi’s plans to ethnically profile the Roma. Last week’s vote of course took place in the same week as David Davis’s re-election to the Commons. Presumably this was the Tory MEPs' contribution to his debate on civil liberties.

Tory revolt against Cameron's anti-sleaze show

Conservative MEPs are today in open revolt over the announcement made yesterday by their supposed leader David Cameron to reform the Tories' system of auditing their MEPs expenses, after it was revealed that a secret Conservative memo referred to his proposals as, amongst other things, "half-baked" and "a PR disaster that would "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"

The story is all over today's papers and there is confusion over the source of the memo. The Guardian and Sun seem to think it came from the pen of arch-eurosceptic Roger Helmer, while the Telegraph claims that it was written by a group of several Conservative MEPs. Either way, it is hard to imagine that the author's identity will stay secret for too long. The memo is incredibly indiscreet; it is astonishing that Tory MEPs are threatening to sue the Conservative leader if he carried out his threat to de-select them!

The memo was found on a photocopier in Strasbourg. It says a lot about the incompetence of the Conservatives that they would leave such an explosive document in a photocopier for anyone to find.

Demonstrating a startling brass neck (even by his standards), Dan Hannan claims that Tory MEPs are actually the cleanest, and saying that Labour MEPs are keeping "schtum for a reason"! Well, the reason would be that since 2000, Labour MEPs have had their accounts annually reviewed by an independent auditor to make sure that they are in order and in compliance with the Parliament's rules. As Labour's leader in Europe, Gary Titley said yesterday, "Finally, after eight years, the Tory Party has caught up with the Labour MEPs' regime for dealing with expenses. The difference is that all 19 Labour MEPs have signed up to this, but the evidence is many Tory MEPs will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into doing the right thing.”

I have to say that Lib Dem Norman Baker's line that "the words 'Tory and sleaze' go together as easily as cheese and sandwich" is also worth a chuckle (but it would rhyme better if it was 'sandwich and cheese')

The memo's release took the thunder out of Cameron's press conference given yesterday to announce a so-called 'deep clean' of his MEPs expenses. It wrecked his latest attempt to portray himself as taking a tough line with the sleazier elements of his party.

New rules on groups, same old story from Hannan

My proposal to raise the threshold for forming political groups in the European Parliament from 20 to 25 MEPs was today adopted by a comfortable majority in Strasbourg.

This matters. Once a political group is formed they are provided with extra resources, in terms of finance and staff for their political campaigns. The current threshold of 20 MEPs amounts to just 2.5% of the European Parliament and is therefore considerably lower than what most national parliaments require. Very small, and possibly extremist groups can help themselves to taxpayers money for their political campaigns.

While the figure adopted today (25) is still below the average for national parliaments, it is a compromise that was supported by most of the smaller groups.

Modest reforms you might think, but I have been accused of being anti-democratic and of attempting to wipe out Euroscepticism in the European Parliament!

One of my accusers is Dan Hannan, who despite being an articulate and witty writer, consistently fills his Telegraph blog with untruths to back up his conspiracy theory that the European Parliament is seeking to become a dictatorial one-party parliament intent on destroying Eurosceptics. The headline in his blog today, “European Parliament bars Euro-sceptic groups”, is a prime example. This is patently untrue!

There have always been far more than 25 Eurosceptics in the European parliament and there have always been Eurosceptic groups. Euroscepticism is an important segment of public opinion which, especially in a proportional representation electoral system, is well represented in Parliament.

Any grouping of 25 MEPs elected at the next European elections, representing seven member states, will be able to form a political group. What’s more the new rules will actually benefit them if they are close to the threshold, because they allow an existing group to continue for up to two years if it slips just below the threshold! This of course isn’t mentioned in Hannan's blog because it doesn’t fit in with his conspiracy theory.

He also suggests that the adoption of my proposals broke European Parliament rules. Again this is not true. The report was adopted at Committee level and amended when it went before the whole house, a perfectly normal and regular occurance.

The amendment adopted by the House was a compromise (between the status quo and a proposal for 30) which was supported by small and large groups alike (the Greens, Left, Union for Europe of Nations, Socialist, Christian Democrat) and some of Hannan's fellow Conservatives. Even UKIP's Group wanted to raise the threshold (to 22) - if raising the threshold was a plot against Eurosceptics, as Hannan claims, then why did the most Eurosceptic Group in the Parliament support such an idea?

Increasingly every rule change in the European Parliament is being deliberately portrayed by Hannan and his friends as an attack on Eurosceptics but as the events of today show this is ultimately a paranoid and flawed theory.

Reconsidering Thatcher, Major and Europe with some help from Boris Johnson

Going through a long overdue paper clearout of my office, I came across a fascinating article by Boris Johnson (written back in 1995 when he was still a humble hack for the Daily Telegraph) on the similarities between Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

If the attitudes of public opinion and political commentators are anything to go by, the passage of time has been much kinder to her legacy than to Major, whose premiership is often ranked alongside that of Anthony Eden as the least distinguished in post-war British politics.

However, Johnson's thesis is somewhat different and there were some passages in his article that were particularly striking. For example, he points out that taxation as a proportion of GDP soared from 34% under the Callaghan government in 1979 to 40% in 1983 under the Conservatives and was higher during the Thatcher era than it was for the majority of Major's premiership. Similarly, Johnson quotes spending statistics on social security spending which rose from £17 billion to £60 billion by the time Thatcher left office. Admittedly, these figures have to be taken into context. The massive hike in spending was, of course, not because Thatcher was committed to a benevolent welfare policy but rather the result of the near tripling of unemployment to over 3million during her time as Prime Minister. Nonetheless, the statistics are still at odds with Thatcherite claims that their heroine stood for lower taxes and lower welfare spending.

Similarly, on Europe, one of the more ironic features of recent British politics that Margaret Thatcher is a heroine to Eurosceptics despite being, in many ways, one of the most integrationist Prime Ministers. While Major's handling of the Maastricht Treaty is commonly regarded as the great betrayal by British Eurosceptics, as Johnson points out, the Single European Act agreed and ratified by the Thatcher government was "a more significant European treaty", adding that "if ever a crucial constitutional change was swept under the carpet, it was the Single European Act, forced through the Commons at dead of night by means of a guillotine procedure". Meanwhile, Britain's membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (one of the biggest single factors that brought down the Major government when the unsustainably high exchange rate at which the government chose to join of 2.95 Deutschemarks to the pound led to Black Wednesday, costing the exchequer £15bn in a day, and causing British withdrawal from the ERM) was agreed, not by Major, but by Mrs Thatcher!

Johnson's article finishes by posing a question: was Thatcher's record really better or was it that "she better disguised her failures"? It seems pretty clear that the new Mayor of London, and most powerful office-holding Conservative politician in Britain, tends towards the latter.

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.

High Court rejects Stuart Wheeler's referendum bid

It was good to see that the High Court has finally thrown out the claims of spread betting tycoon Stuart Wheeler that the Government should hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, with Lord Justice's Richards and Mackay judging that there was "nothing in the claimant's case to cast doubt on the lawfulness of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum".

Wheeler, who is one of the leading donors to the Conservative party, famously giving £5m to the party when William Hague was leader, is the second high profile Tory to have a case thrown out. Last week the renowned Europhobe Bill Cash made similar attempts to stop the ratification of the Treaty in the High Court only for his claim to be thrown out. Indeed, Justice Collins described Cash's attempts as "totally without merit" and "an attempt to pursue a political agenda through the court".

Bill Cash's attempt to take the Government to court was particularly bare-faced. Cash, whose euroscepticism first came to real prominence when he helped 'lead' the Tory Maastricht rebels in 1993, always claims that the EU undermines the sovereignty of Parliament. Deeply ironic, then, that he would go to the High Court to try and get the judiciary to overrule the UK Parliament.

These judgements should mark the end of the Treaty's progress in the UK, and the EU (Amendment) Bill will now be formally ratified and the "instruments of ratification" deposited in Rome. However, Wheeler has refused to give up, saying that he will go to the Court of Appeal despite being refused an appeal by the court. Still, if he wastes his money on that, there may be less to give to the Tories and the eurosceptic pressure group that calls itself 'Open Europe'.

The way Eurosceptics work

If ever people needed proof that phoney 'think-tank' Open Europe is nothing more than a front for Better Off Out campaigners for UK withdrawal from the EU they should look at this opinion poll.

With great fanfare, Open Europe on Tuesday announced this poll undertaken by YouGov apparently showing that only 29% of people want the UK to remain a member of the EU. Needless to say, the Tory headbangers on Conservative Home have already loudly trumpeted the poll as proof that David Cameron should heed the Better Off Out brigade and pledge to negotiate British withdrawal from the EU.

Of course, polls such as these are designed to be spun by those commissioning them, but on closer inspection, the poll itself is based on a false premise, claiming that the EU was always based around "economic co-operation" but is now responsible for making decisions on "foreign policy, immigration and crime" (carefully ignoring the fact that the EU does not govern Britain's immigration or criminal justice systems, nor can it make foreign policy decisions without the agreement of Britain and all EU countries).

Therefore, the poll offers three choices - "the UK should stay in the EU", "the UK should stay in the single market but pull out of the political elements of the EU" or, "the UK should leave the EU altogether". Faced with this, 29% chose the first option, 38% the second and 24% the third. Notwithstanding the fact that the single market is political as well as economic (a market must have rules and regulations to ensure that it is free and fair, rather than be left free to unfettered market forces, and the adoption of such legislation is a political process), the option of remaining in the single market "but pulling out of the political elements" is virtually impossible to achieve. In other words, it is a meaningless choice.

Besides, the Europhobes don't seem to have commented on the statistic that only 24% want Britain to leave the EU - a lower figure than in virtually any opinion poll since the 1975 referendum.

So there you have it - loaded questions based on false premises with bizarre choices makes for a pointless poll that reveals nothing - but don't expect Open Europe to be asking for their money back. So much for the intellectual rigour and integrity you would expect from a genuine think-tank.

Staying with Eurosceptic nonsense, the Sun came up with an inspired scare story that the French presidency wants a British aircraft carrier to be at the heart of a new EU Navy.

This 'story' is similar to the Sun's claim on St George's Day that the EU was planning to destroy Britain by dividing it into five regions (lumping the South-East in with the North of France in new super-region). Needless to say the Sun were able to find a Tory politician desperate enough for publicity to lend the story some ill-deserved credibility, with Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox saying "the EU's military ambitions know no bounds" and "we should be told whether this madness emanates from Paris or Downing Street", and, surprise surprise, Open Europe's Neil O'Brien also adds his two penn'orth.

Whilst it would be churlish to say that they've not been imaginative, (a Sun hack has certainly earned his corn with this re-writing of the lyrics to the Village People's "In the Navy") the story is fabricated tosh. Indeed, buried at the end of the story lies a quote from the Ministry of Defence demonstrating that this story is a pack of lies. Still, there seems to be nothing you can do to stop Eurosceptic tabloids writing such nonsense. Maybe the Commission should tell the press that it intends to buy up News International - now that would be a story!

The European Parliament's debate on Ireland's No

Interesting debate today in the European Parliament on the fallout of the Irish referendum, punctuated by UKIP and three of the Tories coming in wearing T-shirts urging "respect for the Irish votes" - prompting one Irish MEP to comment that history would have been quite different if right-wing British politicians had started to do that a century or more ago!

The problem we face, of course, is how to respect the divergent results of different member states - both the No from Ireland and the Yes from other member states.

Some want to listen just to one side. I want to listen to both. We must then rise to the challenge of bridging the gap.

If there are by the autumn 25 or 26 ratifications, it would not be unreasonable nor undemocratic to ask the minority to consider the possibility to seek a compromise rather than to block reforms entirely.

Indeed, that was the professed view of No campaigners in Ireland, who said they want a better deal.

Yet, the UKIP/Tory/Sinn Fein/French Communist view (what an alliance! watching the acting leader of the Tories vigorously applaud the French Communist leader was instructive) expressed in the debate was that other countries shouldn't be allowed to vote on the treaty at all (presumably in case they Vote Yes).

For good measure, Nigel Farage threw into the debate a claim that a Commissioner had committed fraud - a remark somewhat undermined when the very next speaker was UKIP's shame, Ashley Mote, recently released from prison after serving a sentance for...fraud!

Several Irish members were understandably bitter at the the claims by some No campaigners that the Lisbon Treaty would have legalised euthanasia, drug-taking and abortion in Ireland, and also required higher corporation tax rates and an Irish contribution to a European army. These lies had an impact on enough voters to swing the result.

But blame was also laid at the door of the Irish government for not campaigning or explaining properly or even bothering to rebut the No claims until the last few days, preoccupied as they were with installing a new Prime Minister and re-shuffling the government.

Be that as it may, we now have to face up to the consequences rather than apportion the blame. It will be no easy task, but the need to reform the EU has not gone away and achieving this remains on the agenda.

If you want to read more on the referendum I recommend Will Hutton's excellent piece for the Observer which addresses the issue of lies and misinformation used by some of the No campaingers.

More on MEPs' expenses

The media focus on Tory MEPs' expenses has continued unabated since I last blogged on the subject a week ago.

Following the resignation of the Conservative leader in the European Parliament, their Chief Whip has also resigned. They can hardly claim it is a case of a few small rotten apples, when it is their leadership team itself that has had to resign!

As I said, the Tories might have avoided this humiliation if they had done what we Labour MEPs have done for the last eight years, namely have our spending reviewed annually by an independent accountant to certify that all has been used properly. They are now belatedly on board for that, as are - equally belatedly - the LibDems.

Some have suggested that this has all come out now because of in-fighting among the Tories who remain bitterly divided on Europe, but even at the best of times have a reputation for ruthless backstabbing. Certainly, some of the stories in the press appear to come from internal leaks. Some have suggested that Cameron will use the opportunity, not just to deal with wrong-doers, but to purge those who are not solidly behind his own leadership. Maybe. That is an interesting dimension to their troubles, but it should not distract us from the the fundamentals. The setting up of companies run by family members to siphon off public money for private gain is a serious allegation and if true should be punished.

Meanwhile, they are determined to do whatever they can to tar other parties with the same brush. They are distraught that, despite trying, they have not been able to find equivalent cases among Labour MEPs.

We are now being bombarded with letters and calls from journalists, and queries from various campaign groups. Fortunately, we can reassure people quite easily thanks to our auditing rule and the fact that we all fill in our Declaration of Members' Interests, which includes whether any family member is employed. We publish the guidelines given to our auditors and we publish the resultant certificates on our websites. We also publish how we make use of the staff allowance in terms of employing staff in our constituency and parliamentary offices.

Despite all this information being publicly available, the anti-Europe campaign group Open Europe, which masquerades as a think tank, has now appointed itself as the policeman-cum-prosecutor of MEPs, has sent each Labour MEP a questionnaire, and denounces all those who fail to fill it in. Too lazy to read the published information on our websites, they expect MEPs to spend their time co-operating with an organisation that has no interest in improving the system, and certainly makes no distinction between genuine problems and invented ones, but simply in promoting Euroscepticism by means fair or foul. We'd rather spend our time, given that we are in order with our spending, on doing our job on behalf of our constituents.

For anyone who is interested in my expenses I suggest they look at the relevant page on my website.

Tory leader resigns

So, Giles Chichester has resigned as Tory leader in the European Parliament – their shortest-lived leader ever!

Giles Chichester was once the luckiest politician to be elected. He won the Devon & East Plymouth constituency in 1994 by a whisker, thanks to the Liberal Democrat votes being split by a “Literal Democrat” (spot the difference!) candidate, who did no campaigning, but siphoned off more than 10,000 votes from the Liberal Democrat who would certainly have won by a mile:

G.B. Chichester Conservative 74,953
A.M. Sanders Liberal Democrat 74,253
R.J. Huggett Literal Democrat 10,203


At the following election in 1999 under the new regional PR system, he competed against his Tory MEP colleagues and others for a place high enough on the Conservative list of candidates to guarantee election. The Tory party selection method was a vote among whichever party members turned up to a single general meeting in the region. The South-west is pretty vast, and having the meeting in his very own constituency was no doubt what ensured his survival.

Well, there must be many Tories who now wish he hadn’t been so lucky! But, had the Conservatives followed the example set by Labour MEPs eight years ago in having our spending of staff and office allowances reviewed by an independent external auditor every year to ensure that all monies are properly spent, then maybe they would have avoided such humiliation.

I suppose I should be jumping up and down with glee at another case of Tory trouble, but I'm afraid that for large swathes of public opinion we will all get tarred with the same brush. Parts of the media that never covers the European Parliament’s actual work will cover this in detail - and that is all that some people will ever read or hear about the Parliament. The Eurosceptics will even argue that the system is inherently corrupt and we should scrap it – a line they of course don’t take for similar scandals such as that of Derek Conway MP at Westminster. Yet the answer is the same in both cases: clear, transparent rules, properly applied and enforced.

Tories and Lib Dems follow our lead

Interesting to see the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have finally followed Labour’s lead and demanded that their MEPs produce receipts for all their office expenses.

Labour MEPs have had to provide receipts for their expenses and have their accounts approved by an independent auditor for nearly a decade. It’s a simple enough measure but I’m stunned its taken the Tories and Lib Dems this long. Hopefully more parties across in the European Parliament will now demand the same standards.

The party which have been under the most scrutiny for their MEPs expenses, UKIP, have not. Should we really be surprised?

The Conservatives are still the nasty party in Europe

Cameron's empty claim that his Tory party are the real defenders of social justice and equality rings particularly hollow in Europe.

In 2004, the Commission promised to draft a proposal for a "horizontal" directive under Article 13 of the Treaty to combat discrimination in access to goods amd services in the European market on the grounds of sex, race, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation. At present, only discrimination on the grounds of gender, race or ethnicity is covered by existing directives and Parliament’s report called for Commission to "complete the package of anti-discrimination legislation". Such legislation would prohibit both direct and indirect discrimination in all areas that fall under EU competence. Yesterday, the Tory MEPs (with the honourable exceptions of Christopher Beazley and John Bowis) voted against a report by Liberal Democrat Liz Lynne which called for such legislation.

That the Conservatives would effectively vote for a hierarchy of discrimination shows that whilst they may talk the language of social justice and compassion actually doing something about it is a completely different matter.

It is the same in other areas too. The vast majority of the Conservatives (who have just one female MEP don't forget) have consistently voted against women's rights and aside from Caroline Jackson, didn't even support a measure to combat domestic violence.

Cameron of course kickstarted his cuddly image by going green yet Roger Helmer, their representative on the climate change committee, continues to denounce any attempts to battle climate change.

Worse still if you ever glance at "Conservative Home" or other Tory blogs, a lot of the MEPs are citicised for not being right wing enough!

Finally, real progress for agency workers

I was delighted to hear today that the Government has reached an agreement with the TUC and the CBI on equal treatment for agency workers. This agreement, which would give agency workers equal treatment with permanent workers after 12 weeks, breaks a six year deadlock.

This proposed European directive has caused a great deal of controversy between Government, unions and industry. Of course, temporary agency work contributes to a dynamic and flexible modern economy and can often be a bridge for long term unemployed to get back in the labour market. But agency workers should not be treated as second-class workers and agencies should not be able to distort the labour market by undercutting the wages and conditions of other workers.

Indeed, support for the Temporary Agency Workers directive was one of the key planks of the 2004 Warwick Agreement between Government and unions and the impasse in resolving its future has caused great frustration for unions.

However, this agreement at UK level is not the end of the story. A further agreement will have to be reached in the Council of Ministers, hopefully at the next meeting of Employment ministers on the 9th and 10th of June. The directive will then return to the European Parliament (which had supported equal treatment for day one at first reading) for second reading, with a view to hitting the statute book in advance of next year’s European elections.

EU legislation on agency workers will establish one common set of rules for the common market and remove the possibility of having a multitude of divergent legislation from different Member States that would still leave the problem of transnational agencies undercutting wages as well as creating legal uncertainty. Domestic legislation would create as many problems as it would solve and today’s announcement demonstrates that Government’s priority is, rightly, to agree a compromise at European level.

Moreover, the debate on agency workers has demonstrated that will be clear dividing lines on European social legislation between Labour and the Conservatives at the next election. The Conservatives have already promised to restore Britain’s opt-out from the Social Chapter and bitterly oppose this directive which will protect some of the most vulnerable workers in the labour market. In contrast, today’s agreement shows that the Government is committed to a social Europe in which workers rights and social protection stand alongside economic growth and enterpreneurship.

Cameron talks up the importance of Europe

Having spent the first 18 months of his leadership appeasing his Eurosceptic wing by pledging to withdraw from the centre-right European People's Party and being the only non-fascist right-wing party to oppose the Lisbon Treaty, David Cameron appears to have had a road to Damascus style conversion.

In the words of Cameron, during an interview for the Yorkshire Post:

"I don’t want to leave the European Union and I'll tell you why. This is a trading nation. Yorkshire relies on traded goods and on businesses which can trade all over the world and particularly in Europe. We export more per head of the population than America, Japan or other countries. We are a trading nation and Europe is a very important market for us. If we are not in the European Union, we would not be able to have a say over what the rules of the single market are. That is the primary reason for being a member of the European Union."

All pretty sensible stuff, and light years away from the reactionary nonsense and baseless scare-stories trotted out by himself and his front-bench colleagues over the Lisbon Treaty. However, it is unlikely that such an approach will find favour with the likes of John Redwood, Bill Cash and David Heathcoat-Amory.

When I give talks about the reasons for our EU membership to constituents and visitors to the Parliament, I often point to three sets of reasons: the idealistic, pragmatic and selfish. Cameron has at least taken up the latter. Though, even that will be too much for his right-wing MPs.

Tories align themselves with an unlikely bunch

Now that national parliaments across Europe are debating the Treaty of Lisbon, the unholy alliances of hard left and far right that are attempting to block it stands revealed.

The motley crew includes Jorg Häider's Freedom Party in Austria, the Flemish separatists Vlaams Belang, the Northern League in Italy and the Bulgarian Attak party.. These parties all fall into various shades of the extreme right - xenophobic, ultra-nationalist and/or anti-immigration.

On the other extreme, the remaining Communist parties across Europe have voted 'No', while the German Die Linke partei made up of Oskar Lafontaine's defectors from the SPD and the remnants of the communist PDS party (still enjoying electoral success in parts of East Germany) has also opposed ratification. Interestingly enough, Sinn Fein is the only major Irish party to oppose the treaty. I never thought that Sinn Fein and the Tory party would line up as close allies!

Despite Cameron's attempts to position himself as a moderate conservative, the Tories are the only main centre-right party in Europe to be opposed to the treaty. Every main social democrat, Christian democrat, liberal and green party across the EU has supported the Lisbon Treaty.

All of which highlights just how out of touch Cameron is with mainstream thinking and how isolated Britain would be if the Tories were to win the next election. As Philip Stephen's put it in today's Financial Times,

"As far as abroad is concerned, as things stand Mr Cameron's first act would be to start an acrimonious and unwinnable fight to overturn the treaty of Lisbon and withdraw Britain from the European Union's social chapter. That, not to put too fine a point on it, would be barmy."

BBC's report on MEP's expenses unbalanced

Many of you will have seen the lead item on the BBC news Tuesday night on the subject of MEP's expenses. I and most of my colleagues didn't, as we were in Strasbourg at the time.

The BBC interviewed me for this item, because I have published a comparative table of all the expenses and allowances provided to MPs and MEPs. The BBC's Mark Mardell asked me to describe the system, respond to questions on it and cover also the issue of governments obliging the Parliament to meet once a month in Strasbourg.

In the end, they didn't use one second of this interview, presumably because I was boringly factual and didn't reveal any salacious gossip or make any wild claims about abuse. I gather they took a instead a Conservative and a Lib Dem MEP (and Dan Hannan and Chris Davies are not even regarded by their party colleagues as representing mainstream opinion in their parties) denouncing the system and calling for further reforms, and my Labour colleague Gary Titley defending the right of MEPs to employ their spouses provided they are doing a proper job, for which they are qualified, that the pay is commensurate and that it is declared and transparent.

This, of course, made it look as though the Lib Dems and Conservatives were for further reform and Labour was against it. Yet the employment of spouses was not an issue dividing the three parties, who all accept it under correct conditions, and anyway is not the most important issue in the reform debate.

Nowhere did they point out that up to now Labour is the only one of the three parties to require its MEPs to have their accounts audited annually by an independent auditor to ensure that all monies have been spent properly and in accordance with the rules. In other words, Labour MEPs can claim to have more, not less, propriety than the others - the opposite of the impression given by the news item, according to people who saw it.

Nor did they point out that the Parliament has not chosen to sit in Strasbourg once a month - most members heartily agree that this is silly - but the national governments who oblige it to do so.

The report featured a decision not to publish an internal auditors report, again without mentioning that all three British parties voted for such publication.

Shame that the BBC was, tabloid-style, seduced by the attractions of sensationalism. Their journalists - Mark Mardell and his colleagues - had gone out of the way to get a range of material, including the boring facts, but the producers in London chose to use only that which would titillate rather than inform.

Hoping for a ban on seal products

On Wednesday, Parliament welcomed a very special guest to speak to the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals. Sheryl Fink, speaking on behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), had travelled all the way from her native Canada to drum up support for an EU-wide ban on the import of all seal products into Europe.

New regulations implemented by the Canadian authorities, supposedly to make the Canadian seal hunts more "humane", have done little to increase the welfare of the seals. Most hunters are ignoring the regulations and the authorities seem unwilling to take action. Indeed, the group was shown a highly distressing video filmed by IFAW proving that seals were not killed quickly or humanely.

The Eurosceptic Tory MEP Roger Helmer, who was in the audience, attempted to pass Sheryl Fink's presentation off merely as a "slick" gimmick from the animal welfare lobby. Helmer asked what effect a ban on the seal hunt would have on those who relied on the trade to make a living, and what effect would a ban have on Canada’s fish stocks. If Helmer hadn't left immediately after asking his questions, he might have heard the answers!

Canada's seal hunt is not economically viable. The C$11million industry would not survive without the subsidies paid by the Canadian government. In fact, no hunter relies on the trade for a living - the hunt only makes each hunter around £1000 extra income per year. It is merely an extra bit of pocket money for them. Add to that the fact there is no evidence that seals have any significant adverse effect on fish stocks, and there appears very little justification in continuing the inhumane seal hunt, and hopefully, an EU ban on seal products will finally see an end to it.

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!

Tories in Lords sing treaty's praises

The debate continues this afternoon in the House of Lords on the Lisbon Treaty when the European Union Amendment Bill enters the Committee stage of the debate; the bill will be discussed by the whole house in six separate sittings over the coming months.

In its Second Reading at the beginning of April, some 75 Peers were listed to speak on the subject of the Lisbon Treaty. Unlike in the Commons, a large number of Conservative peers spoke in favour of the new treaty, including several previous Cabinet Ministers.

Among them was Lord Howe, previous Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister under the Thatcher administration. Speaking during the debate, Lord Howe called for Britain to continue to exert an "increasingly effective participation in the European Union" stating that the Treaty "is an important step in that direction for the enhancement of British influence". The Lord, who was Thatcher's longest serving Cabinet Minister, went on to criticise the Conservative Party's calls for a referendum stating, "I cannot bring myself to say a word in support of one."

Lord Brittain, a former Home Secretary, also spoke against his party's position on the Treaty: "I am not only very much in favour of approving the Treaty but I am also strongly opposed to a referendum on this issue." Lord Brittain continued saying that the comparisons made between the Maastricht Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty are fair and paying particular heed to the numerous benefits for Britain and the rest of Europe under the new treaty. He also praised the treaty for the necessary changes it makes to ease the efficiency and functioning of the enlarged Union.

Lord Tughendhat, Member of the European Commission from 1977 to 1981, criticised the Tory line: "Sadly, I believe that the Conservative Party's present position on the treaty is not only contrary to the national interest but to its own interest."

Lord Jones, who was a previous junior Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, also criticised the Conservative position: "[The Tories] favour a referendum because they think that they would win and, in doing so, would advance a position that is at best hostile to the Union and is frequently a flimsy cover for an eventual move to withdraw."

There seems to be a generational shift in the Conservative Party. The more experienced Tories are more pro-European and in favour of the treaty compared to the new more hasty Eurosceptic generation who unthinkingly follow the media-led euroscepticism. Do none of the younger Tories have the courage to stand out against the trend and think for themselves?

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!

The trend of grandiose titles

As next year's European election approaches, I am amused to see that some of my colleagues are prone to give themselves grand titles. I see that Edward Mcmillan-Scott refers to himself as "Britain's senior MEP". If he means the longest-serving member, he isn't: Bill Newton Dunn was first elected in 1979 and Stephen Hughes, Caroline Jackson David Martin, Glyn Ford and James Elles have all, like Edward, been in the European Parliament since 1984. If he means that he is an august former leader of the Conservative MEPs, he is one of four still in the Parliament (Kirkhope, Evans, Newton Dunn) as their in-fighting tends to oust their leader every two or three years. If he means he is one of the 14 Vice Presidents, he is not the only one, as Diana Wallis is also a Vice President.

Talking of Diana, she in turn has referred to herself as the "first woman Vice President" which is patently incorrect - there have been dozens. She is not even the first British woman VP as Lady Elles was one back in the 1980s.

Watch out for more imaginative descriptions as the elections approach!

Unruly MEPs deserve their fines

Parliament's President (Speaker) has this week fined the MEPs who took part in the attempt to drown out the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates in December.

Yorkshire’s very own Godfrey Bloom is in the hall of shame, though he may well not realise this yet as he wasn’t present for the parliament sitting when Hans Gert Pottering explained the reasons behind the punishments.

That’s a pity because Pottering’s explanation of exactly why Bloom and some others were punished made it quite clear that it was not their views that were the problem (as they claim) - they were in trouble for stopping others (notably the Portuguese Prime Minister) – from expressing their views with their hollering and howling.

Of course Dan Hannan has failed to note this in his demagogic Telegraph blog, as his crusade to convince the world that the European Parliament is "despotic" continues. He points out that other protests have been allowed to go on in the parliament, which is quite true but they made no attempt to disrupt parliamentary proceedings and prevent those with a different view from speaking. Similarly, in this protest, MEPs who merely waved banners have not been reprimanded (Hannan was one). The fines were imposed on those who aggressed ushers or who continued to disrupt the proceedings after being called to order by the Speaker.

Hannan well knows that the sort of behaviour he readily condones would have ended in far more rigourous disciplinary proceedings and suspension had it taken place in the Commons, but the guilty MEPs escape such punishment. Their rights to speak in debates and to vote remain intact and they have simply been fined.

Plenty of MPs have had their right to vote and speak suspended for far less in the Commons. There are myriad examples, a fair number involving Denis Skinner, who has been suspended for simply complaining that Deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst was being lenient to Theresa May because she was a Conservative. Another MP who was recently suspended was of course Lib Dem frontbencher Ed Davey, who earned a short ban after making excessive points of order during the treaty debate. Despite the frequency of these suspensions I have yet to see Hannan rally against "the despotism of the Commons."

The point is, that all parliaments have rules of procedure and when these rules are broken the people responsible face punishment and in this case, vociferously booing and heckling a speaker on the floor of the parliament, and continuing to do so when called to order by the Speaker, is clearly un-parliamentary behaviour.

You can read Pottering's explanation of the punishments in full here.

Murphy ends Commons debate in good humour

The Commons debate on the Lisbon Treaty finally concluded last night with MPs voting by a large majority to adopt the text, which means just the Lords’ approval is required for Britain to ratify the treaty.

Europe Minister Jim Murphy’s final speech was an amusing one, and included some some weird and wonderful facts, such as "the great unreformed instiution", Bill Cash, made 214 interventions (swiftly up 215), a fifth of all those made in the entire debate!

There were also amusing digs at the strange trend of MPs quoting themselves, quoting other MPs who had quoted them, and even quoting themselves from a speech they never actually made!

Murphy pointed out: "The hon. Member for Stone (Bill Cash) quoted an historic parliamentary debate and a speech—by himself—as a source of reference. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) did the same thing by proxy, quoting the right hon. Member for Wells quoting him. This evening we had another passionate speech by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Peter Lilley), who went one step further in our proceedings. Not only did he quote himself, which has become the new fashion — a fashion that I have not yet bought into — but, in a remarkable innovation, to make his specific point he did not quote himself from an earlier speech, saying,

‘I can demonstrate that by referring to a speech that I did not give’

when he was Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. A remarkable constitutional innovation! It is a first, and perhaps many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will take their lead from it in future debates."

Murphy also took time to list the other parties that support the Conservative's absurd position on the treaty – or "the 'not letting the matter rest' coalition" as he called them. It now includes, he said: "Sinn Fein, Marianne Thieme — who, as we all know, leads the Dutch party for the animals in its opposition to the treaty — and the now infamous Philippe de Villiers, part of the leadership of the French hunting party, we have three allies to fill this great chamber of Europe. That still leaves 23 empty seats for the great European coalition of international Governments.”

Red lines beat red herrings, as Commons votes against referendum

I was delighted to see the House of Commons reject the Tory proposal that Britain should start ratifying international treaties by means of a referendum. The vote, which finished 311 to 248, is a victory for parliamentary democracy.

While it was disappointing to see 29 Labour MPs vote against the Government, this number was far fewer than the 120 that Labour Europhobe Ian Davidson had predicted would follow him into the division lobby to vote for a referendum.

Credit should also be given to Kenneth Clarke, John Gummer and David Curry, who showed that there are still a few moderate Tories on Europe by voting with the Government.

As for the Liberal Democrats, their bizarre approach to the vote, in taking a three-line whip ordering their MPs to abstain, backfired, with a quarter of the parliamentary party voting with the Tories and four MPs resigning from their front-bench. The Lib Dems should have had the courage of their convictions. By using their (familiar) tactic of trying to be all things to all people, their opportunism has been exposed.

This country has a proud history of parliamentary democracy and an issue like the Lisbon Treaty is where MPs earn their salt. Britain has never ratified an international treaty by referendum and the House of Commons has rightly acknowledged that it would have been absurd to start doing so now. It is right that the Commons has dedicated so long to analysing and discussing the treaty, something most people simply don’t have the time to do.

Above all, this detailed scrutiny has revealed that this is a treaty which will make the EU more efficient, more democratic and more accountable and respects the British government’s red lines. The pathetic glut of Eurosceptic red herrings, including claims that the treaty would delete the Queen from our passports and allow armed French police to patrol British streets, has been exposed as nonsense by the Commons.

Prospective Conservative candidates know how to copy & paste

The hijacking of the Conservative party by their Eurosceptic wing has led a number of the remaining moderate pro-European Tory MEPs, including Christopher Beazley, John Purvis and Caroline Jackson, to decide to stand down at next years European elections.

By the looks of this survey on the Conservative Home website, the quality of their replacements is not high. When asked whether a prospective Conservative government should hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty even after it had been ratified by all countries and entered into force, most either agreed or decided to simply cut and paste the official guidance from Conservative Central Office.

However, a significant minority are brave enough to acknowledge that this decision would be folly.

The Tories are completely deluded if they think that pledging a post-ratification referendum would solve their divisions on Europe. The reality is that such a referendum would effectively be a vote on our membership of the EU, as no other member state would want re-open negotiations on a treaty that was in force and which had been recently agreed and ratified by all countries, and which most of them consider to have anyway been entirely tailored to Britain's desires.

As one of the Conservative commenters points out, with answers like this "it is obvious why we haven't been in power for (sic) almost 20 years"!

Tories a bundle of contradictions on climate change

I have followed some of the debates in the House of Commons on the Lisbon Treaty and I continue to be amazed at the disarray of the Tories.

I am told that over half the Conservative speaking time on this has been accounted for by just two MPs - Bill Cash and David Heathcoat-Amory. That the Conservatives allow these two extremely anti-Europe members dominate their contribution to this extent shows how far they have shifted in a Europhobic direction. These two denounce every aspect of the EU as the devil incarnate.

William Hague, by contrast, is now pursuing a different line. He says we don't need a new treaty reforming the EU because, in his words, "the EU is working perfectly well". Not a position Bill Cash would agree with!

The debate on the effect of the treaty on tackling climate change was a further illustration of Conservative incoherence. Two contrasting amendments were tabled by the Conservatives: one which stated that "the Treaty of Lisbon is effectively irrelevant to the vital issue of climate change" - (implying that the EU should be given more powers in tackling climate change), and another, which my regional colleague Hugh Bayley drew attention to, tabled by a number of senior Conservatives, including former leader Iain Duncan Smith and John Redwood, stating that the EU should have no role at all on climate change! Although this amendment was disowned by the Conservative front-bench team it offers another illustration of the Tories' divisions on Europe.

The reality is that we cannot effectively tackle climate change and raise environmental standards without being engaged with the EU - a point emphasised by John Gummer, one of the few moderate Conservatives on Europe, who said that "it is not possible to have an anti-European position and have any kind of environmental policy".

Climate change policy is one of the policy areas where collective rather than individual action is most effective. The unlikely deal reached at the Bali summit on climate change was an example of the clout of the EU when we have a united position. Already committed to unilateral emissions cuts of 20% by 2020, European countries were able to speak with authority and a common voice. Unwittingly, the Tory amendment, in describing the provisions on climate change as "institutional tinkering" revealed the shallow opportunism of their demands for a referendum. The point is that the Lisbon Treaty is about institutional tinkering rather than giving the EU new powers. Therefore, if the Tories accept that the treaty is about "institutional tinkering" then why do they want a referendum?

This is not to say that the Conservatives are all climate change deniers. Indeed, Nick Hurd, Greg Barker, Peter Ainsworth and John Gummer all made speeches emphasising the importance of the EU in tackling climate change. However, their approach in the European Parliament is summed up by their choice of Roger Helmer (who believes that climate change is "a journalistic fiction") as the Conservative member of the temporary committee on climate change.

David Cameron talks a good game on the environment, but Wednesday's debate offered ample demonstration of how the Tories are all over the place. In the words of Caroline Jackson, the only Conservative woman MEP: "from the point of view of the Conservative Party, pursuing the green line is all talk and no action".

Labour's Spring Conference very positive on Europe

Strikingly positive and upbeat atmosphere on Europe at Labour's Spring Conference!

The various workshops, seminars and fringe meetings on Europe have been very well attended - indeed, I'm told the best of all. Certainly, the one that Foreign Secrtary David Miliband and I addressed on the subject of the Lisbon Treaty was packed, and positively enthusiastic.

Why? A combination of the vehemence of the Tory attacks on the EU, the pedagogic spin-off of the long Commons debate on the treaty, and the fact that Labour party members are currently voting on the choice of candidates for the next European elections has led to heightened awareness about Europe in general and the treaty in particular.

Gordon Brown too spoke at the conference of how Europe is vital to our objectives on climate change, development, trade and security, all areas where Europe is leading the way. He also said that the Tories are making a strategic error in turning their backs on Europe and focussing on the past, not the future. As Gordon has sometimes been accused of being luke-warm about Europe, this strong message reinforced the sense that Europe is now one of the major dividing lines between the two parties, and one which will work to Labour's advantage.

Eurosceptics admit they are "a small hardcore going nowhere"

The utter failure of the campaign by British Eurosceptics against the Lisbon Treaty was amply demonstrated by their protest yesterday outside Parliament. This demonstration was, after all, billed by some hardline Eurosceptics as 'the last chance to save Britain' (no less!). However, they organised the protest on the wrong day - the key vote they were targeting in the Commons will take place next week - and the so-called "mass" protest was attended by a mere few hundred people.

This has been the hallmark of the campaigning against the Lisbon Treaty: plenty of bluster about the treaty spelling the death of Britain and the end of the world as we know it, (and avoiding the real substance of the treaty), but total failure to make more than a small minority believe them enough to go out and back their campaign.

Despite backing from a media that is notoriously hostile to the EU and despite having a great deal of financial muscle, the motley crew of UKIP/Open Europe and the Conservatives have failed to make their message resonate with the British people. I never thought I would say this, but the analysis of the protest on the EU Referendum site is pretty close to the mark when it states that "Euroscepticism remains in the doldrums, a small minority of hardcore activists who are going nowhere".

Cameron's Euroscepticism loses more friends of influence

There’s an interesting post on the Times blogs by Sam Coates, about the awkward relationship between David Cameron and Republican front-runner John McCain.

In 2006 McCain was invited to speak at the Tory conference (it was less than thrilling) yet in the same year he criticised Cameron’s plans to pull out of the EPP, saying "I would hope they [the Conservatives] would appreciate the support they received from the EPP when they were wandering in the wilderness."

The Times blog quotes McCain as saying, "Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union. The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, and institutionalising our co-operation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance and democracy promotion."

Which perhaps explains the warm glow Dan Hannan feels everytime he mentions Obama’s name here and here

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?

Revealed, the way the Tories voted on the treaty

Which way individual Tory MEPs voted on yesterday’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty makes interesting reading.

The vast majority voted against the treaty, in accordance with the Cameron/Hague line. They were, as I said yesterday, the only major party in the whole of the EU to do so.

But nearly a quarter did not follow their party dictat. Christopher Beazley voted in favour as did Tory new boy Sajid Karim, who having defected last year from the Lib Dems, has obviously failed to make many of his new colleagues see sense.

Five more avoided voting. Caroline Jackson might have been simply trying to avoid her colleagues after fiercely attacking them in the Financial Times.

But what of Syed Kamall, who has spent the past few sessions tediously squeezing in references to having a referendum in almost every speech he has made, regardless of the subject being debated, but on Wednesday, when he had a chance to vote on the treaty, he didn’t? Christopher Heaton-Harris and James Elles were also notable by their absence, though the former, at least, is an unlikely closet federalist.

As to Edward McMillan Scott, he can sometimes be very sensible, so not voting against was surely deliberate. And I won't reveal the names of those who apologised to me for not voting for my report on the treaty, citing unbearable pressure from on-high.

Lisbon Treaty overwhelmingly adopted by European Parliament

My report on the Lisbon Treaty, which I co-authored with Íñigo Méndez de Vigo MEP, pleasingly sailed through the European Parliament today, with 525 votes in favour and just 115 against.

Every single party that is in government in the EU’s member states and almost every single one of the principal opposition parties in every member state – except the British Conservatives - showed their support for the treaty in today’s vote.

All the main Christian Democrat parties, all the Socialist parties and the Liberal parties in each of the 27 member states supported the treaty. The same is true for the majority of the Green parties and even Conservative parties, except, of course, the Tories.

Opposition to the treaty came mainly from the far-right and some on the extreme left of the political spectrum. It was, though, curious to see a new political alliance being forged between Sinn Féin and the British Conservatives in opposing this treaty!

Bizarely, some opponents of the treaty argued that it was being adopted without them having access to the consolidated treaties (i.e. the treaties as they will be after being amended by the Lisbon Treaty) and the poor souls find it too hard work to cross reference the amendments. But in any case, consolidated treaties have been published by several member states. Frankly, any Member of the European Parliament who says he or she has not been able to study the texts is not doing the job which they are paid to do. It is pure laziness.

There were also some strange calls for the European Parliament to demand referendums in each member state to ratify the treaty. I find it quite amusing that those who oppose the European Union now want the European Parliament to tell sovereign member states what their internal procedures should be to ratify an international treaty. That is hypocrisy in the extreme!

Finally, I suppose I couldn’t blog on today’s events without mentioning UKIP’s chicken stunt. There were rumours every UKIP MEP was going to dress as a chicken during today’s vote but sadly the sight of Godfrey Bloom in a chicken suit was not to be and in the end they settled on wearing yellow t-shirts with a chicken print. At least they didn't try to disrupt the Parliament this time, but they didn't half look silly!

However, they spent so long parading outside the chamber for the benefit of the press that it became clear to everyone that what they were really "chicken" about, was taking part in the debate - presumably because they can't stand hearing views they disagree with. They simply dislike democratic parliamentary debate.

For my speech opening the debate click here and for my speech winding it up click here.

Eurosceptics at sixes and sevens

The old saying about not being able to organise a piss-up in a brewery now has a new version: not being able to organise a political event in a parliament!

Showing that there is seemingly no limit to their talent for incompetence, some hardline Eurosceptic Tories and UKIP MEPs have organised a "demonstration" against my report on the Treaty of Lisbon - but managed to choose the wrong day! Intended to coincide with the debate on my report (Wednesday), they have invited the media to come to watch their antics today (Tuesday), the day before it is to be debated.

Meanwhile, I gather that the expulsion of Tory malcontent Dan Hannan is on the agenda of the EPP Group later this evening. Today, Hannan got up in Parliament to apologise to President Pöttering for his comments last month when he compared the Parliament's President to Hitler. It is deeply ironic that an arch-Eurosceptic like Hannan who is desperate for the Conservatives to leave the EPP, is now trying to squirm his way out of being expelled from it. Has he done a U-turn, or has he been lent on from on-high to avoid further embarrassment for the Conservative party?

Later, not a single British Conservative MEP was in the chamber to hear the speech of the Swedish Conservative Prime Minister. Tory leader Giles Chichester did turn up briefly towards the end of ther debate, made a short speech, but didn't even have the courtesy to wait for the reply from the Prime Minister.

Why this striking absence? Can't they stand hearing from a Conservative leader about how good the Lisbon Treaty is? About how an effective European Union is the only way to meet common transnational challenges? Or are they embarrassed about how a Conservative Prime Minister dismisses out of hand arguments claiming that this treaty has constitutional implications or transfers sovereignty and therefore warrants a referendum?

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So much for the British Conservatives wanting a wider and deeper debate on the future direction of Europe! They prefer to hide outside the chamber (presumably in the bar with the equally absent UKIP MEPs) than hear arguments that many of them recognise as correct, but which their public position precludes them from applauding. Another step in their self-imposed isolation from mainstream centre-right parties in Europe!

Referendum campaign still flagging

The Conservatives were struck another blow in their failing campaign for a referendum on the Reform Treaty. Their petition demanding a referendum on the Reform Treaty, and posted on the Downing Street petitions website by Tory MEP Geoffrey Van Orden, received only 4,057 signatures. This shows how little public backing they are gaining for David Cameron's calls for a referendum on the Reform Treaty.

Hannan's calculated attack just an embarrassing stunt

There were controversial scenes in Parliament today as Conservative MEP, and Telegraph columnist, Dan Hannan stood up and compared his fellow EPP colleague, the Speaker of the Parliament, Hans Gert Pottering, to Hitler. Joseph Daul, the EPP leader, responded by telling the Parliament that he would propose to expel Hannan from the EPP.

This was a calculated attack by Hannan who will probably have already penned his Telegraph column which will accuse the Parliament of gagging him, and acting to ban any opposition to the EU.

Of course the reality is that anyone who stood up in any parliament would face opprobrium if they compared the Speaker to Hitler. Indeed, it was merely a petty stunt to support his claim that the European Parliament will not tolerate minority views.

This is simply not true. The European Parliament has a very wide range of political views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views are heard in the debates.

The incident which provoked his carefully choreographed outburst was a vote on an interpretation (by the relevant committee) of the rules of procedure of Parliament. The rules have not been changed, but it was confirmed that they already allow the President of Parliament to call an end to excessive use of points of order, procedural motions, etc where they are "manifestly intended to cause, and will result in, a prolonged and serious obstruction of the business of the House ."

This is a reserve power that has only once been used - by President Pat Cox some five years ago - but is there to protect Parliament, if necessary, from attempts to bring it to a complete halt. The President of the European Parliament anyway has far less drastic powers than the Speaker of the House of Commons

If Hannan and co are upset about that, it is probably because they are indeed intending to bring democratic debate to a halt, possibly next month when Parliament debates and votes on the Reform Treaty, which they oppose.

The interesting question now is whether Hannan will be disowned by his Tory colleagues in the EP (who, at committee stage, supported this interpretation of the Rule). It is certainly an embarrassment for the Conservative Party and it will be intriguing to see what David Cameron has to say about it. Probably nothing!

The debate begins!

The first hurdle to the parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty was easily cleared in the House of Commons last night. Despite extravagant claims in some newspapers that up to 100 Labour MPs would defy the government by voting against the treaty, the bill's second reading was passed by 362 to 224, with 19 rebel Labour MPs, (a small group with a history of being Eurosceptic), voting with the Conservatives.

Let us be clear - leaving aside the hyperbole, the Lisbon Treaty amounts to a set of modest adjustments to the EU's institutional framework such as replacing the rotating six-month presidency with a full-time one on a 30 month term, reducing the number of Commissioners to 18, altering the voting system in the Council to be based on population and increasing the role of elected parliaments in EU law-making. But in terms of what the EU can and cannot do, it changes little. Unlike the Single European Act or Maastricht, there are no new subjects added to the EU's field of responsibility - put bluntly; the Lisbon Treaty is about reform, not new powers.

The Tories' opposition to this treaty is nakedly opportunistic and lacks credibility. As David Miliband put it: "Left of centre parties in all 27 European countries support the treaty; liberal parties in all 27 countries support the treaty; and Conservative parties in 26 countries support the treaty. Only in Britain do we have a major party opposed to the contents of the treaty."

Indeed, William Hague's speech for the Conservatives was long on jokes (no one can accuse Mr Hague of lacking a rhetorical flourish) but fell short on substance. At one point, he defended his party's opposition of the treaty on the grounds that it would "weaken democracy" by taking "more decision making away from democratic control". This argument simply does not stand up. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty, by making virtually all EU legislation subject to the prior scrutiny of national parliaments (with the power to object to a proposal) and to approval by both the Council of Ministers (representing national governments) and directly elected MEPs in the European Parliament. This would amount to a level of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability that exists in no other international structure. To claim that this is a diminution of parliamentary democracy is no more than intellectual laziness.

My analogy that, just as the Lisbon Treaty is estimated to be 90% the same as the Constitutional Treaty, human beings and mice are 90% the same in terms of their DNA but the difference is pretty important, also made an appearance in Hansard, being quoted approvingly (and with acknowledgent) by the new Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesman Ed Davey, who also made a fine speech. It was also cheering to hear Nick Clegg's interview on Radio 4 this morning, during which he appeared to state that the Liberal Democrats would not support any Tory attempts to defeat the Government in demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Although the Lib Dems have a reputation for saying different things to please different people, voting in favour of a treaty that they support rather than voting against it in a bid to embarrass and score points against the Government, would be an honourable approach.

Tories and UKIPs in cahoots once again

A month after bringing the tactics of football hooliganism to the European Parliament, four or five Tory Eurosceptics and UKIP have again worked in cahoots to undermine the work of the European Parliament.

They hit on two tactics. The first was to demand a full roll call votes (instead of a show of hands) on every paragraph and every amendment before the house. (Imagine that the House of Commons had a division on every paragraph of a bill). This slows down voting and costs £300 per vote (but they don't really care about taxpayers money).

The second was to use the procedure of "Explanation of Votes" which allows Members to speak after a vote, even if they have already spoken in the preceding debate, to explain why they voted in a particular way, for instance if they change their mind following the debate. Usually, only a few members avail themselves of this possibilty, and often do so in writing, which is also allowed. But yesterday, every UKIP member and several Tories asked to explain their vote verbally on every item on the agenda, whether or not they had already spoken in the debate. This would have held up the next scheduled debates for several hours, so the President proposed to take these explanations after those debates. This was agreed by the House, but UKIP and Dan Hannan protested that they were being "censored", that minority views were being crushed and that they had an absolute right to delay proceedings if they chose to do so.

Let one thing be clear, this is not about their freedom of expression. The European Parliament has a very wide range of poitical views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views will have been heard in the debates.

Most MEPs take their role as elected representatives seriously, working to deliver legislation and policy outcomes for their voters. In contrast, some Tories and UKIP are apparently only interested in disrupting the work of the elected Parliament either through behaving like football hooligans or procedural jiggery-pokery. The sheer contempt they show to democracy is breathtaking.

Mistaking your constituency for Alabama, USA

There has been much guffawing at the three West Midlands Tory MEPs, Philip Bradbourn, Philip Bushill-Matthews and Malcolm Harbour, after a blogger spotted that the picture on the front of their website, purporting to be of the largest city in their constituency, was actually of Birmingham Alabama, USA.

It was swiftly removed and replaced with a picture that anyone can find a few pictures down on a google image search, but you can see the original, and just how far it is from the UK's second city on Tom Watson's site.

Coincidentally there is a Leeds just a short drive from the Tory's newly expanded constituency and mistaking the two is easier than you might think. I'm sure the Tetley's Brewery is just round the corner from the station.

Bill Cash is utterly deluded

On 12 December, I quoted Bill Cash's European Journal when it described how their anti-treaty campaign was running into the sands, failing either to persuade a majority of MPs or to ignite public opinion. The holiday break allowed me to read through a long diatribe by Bill Cash in the same issue.

Cash tries to rewrite European history and to place himself as the hero of some great struggle against the might of the European superstate. Initially, he and Enoch Powell stood alone in resisting this, were gradually joined by others, and now he stands on the verge of his views becoming Conservative party policy, resulting in an immediate swing of more than 8% to the Tories, which would lead to an election victory, a "fundamental renegotiation of the existing treaties" in an Intergovernmental Conference with "Britain in the lead… at which point many other Member States would back us" and which would "unravel the undemocratic European superstate". Wishful thinking is something we are all prone to, but this must surely take some beating!

Cash’s central theme is that the EU started as benevolent economic cooperation focusing on trade with no political implications and has somehow surreptitiously been hijacked by those intent on creating a political union leading to a superstate. He says that the original aim of the ECSC and the EEC "can be described in two words: FREE TRADE" (his capitals) - blissfully ignoring the fact that Britain actually left a free trade area (EFTA) to join the EEC, which has always been a political project, but has never aimed for the mythical "centralised superstate".

The Wilson government's application to join stated that "Europe is now faced with the opportunity of a great move forward in political unity and we can - and indeed we must - play our full part in it". Similarly, the Heath government White Paper on the British application stated that "if the political implications of joining the Europe are at present clearest in the economic field, it is because the Community is primarily concerned with economic policy. But it is inevitable that the scope of the Community's policies should broaden".

Cash is so obsessed with the EU that he must know that – but deliberately ignores it. Indeed, he claims that he was the one who "uncovered" that "significant political ambitions were afoot in the 1990s" when the drive for a single European market (which, he says, "came largely from the Thatcher government", which will be news to those who recall Thatcher trying to block the IGC which negotiated the single market timetable) was, according to his conspiracy theory, hijacked by the European Commission which "abused its powers, accorded under article 100a and similar provisions, and tried to interfere excessively". Never mind that the Commission could only propose and it was up to the elected governments in the Council to actually take the decisions.

He embellishes all this with ex cathedra comments to the effect that "it can never be right for a democratic country to abandon its own self-government", that the EU means we are ruled by people "we do not elect and cannot remove" (as if Ministers in the Council and MEPs were not elected and are non-removable!) and all, apparently, with the connivance with the Conservative party leadership for which "there can be no excuse for this failure of nerve, abandonment of principle and the gross incompetence which it reflected" (a comment apparently directed at successive Tory leaders right up to the present day).

Cash takes great pride in the backbench revolt that he organised in the 1990s, describing in detail how he tabled 240 amendments to the Maastricht Bill, set up the Great College Street group of Conservative rebels to organise their own whip and briefings against their own government, and how he attempted to repeat this again by tabling some 400 amendments to the second reading of the bill on the Constitutional Treaty (which, by the way, the Commons approved by a majority of 250). Given his history as a rebel, it is somewhat hypocritical to moan, as he does, about Ken Clarke, David Curry and Quentin Davies for supporting the Constitutional Treaty despite the Tory line on that treaty - a line that his the party leader, Michael Howard, did not even turn up to support.

But then, he is a bit full of himself, describing his defeated minority report of this year in the European Scrutiny committee as "totally undermining the government's arguments for the Reform Treaty". His own arguments are themselves undermined by his distortion of facts, such as when he rails against Britain's share of the votes falling from 11.5% to 8.4% without mentioning that this was the result of the enlargement of the EU to 27 members - and also without mentioning that the Reform Treaty would restore Britain's share of the votes to 12.2% by linking them to population size.

The article also reveals some of his other political positions: that the Human Rights Act should be repealed on the grounds that it is impossible to reconcile human rights with "policies to enforce public safety". He believes that the "vast quantities of British coal could continue to supply us with virtually limitless energy" making us completely free from imported energy (and, presumably, damn the ecological consequences). He worships Enoch Powell: "only much later did most people begin to see that Enoch Powell was right", he says - without, apparently, having as a result been censured by the Tory front bench in the way that the recently sacked Tory candidate Nigel Hastilow was. He even fondly recalls tabling an amendment with Enoch Powell at the time of the Single European Act back in 1986.

To sum up, this long and rambling article does much to reveal the state of mind of Mr Cash, his obsession with destroying the European Union by any means and his self-belief as the hero who will save Britain from having to cooperate with its neighbours.

Cameron still playing with fire over Europe

The new year has started but David Cameron is still equivocating over whether to pledge a post-ratification referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

This piece in the Daily Mail has been cleverly spun to make it seem as though a referendum will be promised – however, on closer inspection, Cameron parrots the same words as his Foreign Affairs spokesman William Hague did during a Commons debate a month ago, that an incoming Tory government "wouldn’t let matters rest there".

This ambiguous phrase is designed to appeal to the hardline Eurosceptics, whilst not quite committing the Tories to hold a retrospective referendum on a treaty already in force. As former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke recently pointed out, the Tories had "always accepted treaty obligations accepted by previous governments" when they came to office. Former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (by no means a Europhile) described demands for a post-ratification plebiscite as "silly and wrong".

By ratcheting up Eurosceptic fervour by implying that a post-ratification referendum would be held in the unlikely event of a Tory government being elected, Cameron is effectively digging a big hole and then throwing what remains of his credibility into it. A referendum on the Lisbon Treaty some years after its entry into force would, in effect, be a referendum on whether to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the EU. The Tory hardliners are quite candid that they would view this as an opportunity to engineer British withdrawal. Cameron needs to stop playing with fire and state once and for all whether his Tory party would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty even after it has been implemented.

A new low

The Parliament plenary session was marred today by some disgraceful scenes during the signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by the Presidents of the Commission, Council and Parliament with a handful of (sadly, British led) MEPs behaving like hooligans.

Led by (needless to say) UKIP (clad in black shirts with banners calling for a referendum on the Reform Treaty) and joined by the Tory hard-right including Dan Hannan, Roger Helmer, Martin Callanan and Nirj Deva, this group shouted down and booed the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and President Barroso as they tried to deliver speeches on the importance of respecting basic human rights. In any national parliament (not least the House of Commons) such behaviour would have resulted in instant expulsion from the Chamber and suspension.

Such behaviour was both a disgraceful way to treat a visitor to the Parliament and also deeply embarrassing to myself as a British MEP to see the image of Brits abroad tarnished by a group of malcontents acting like football hooligans.

Vice-President of Parliament and fellow Yorkshire MEP Diana Wallis injected some welcome rationality to proceedings poining out that the Parliament had, the previous month, endorsed the Charter by over 500 votes to 84. The Charter sets out a range of civil, political, economic and social rights which, largely speaking, already exist at national level, but will, if the Reform Treaty is ratified, be binding on the EU institutions when formulating European legislation.

It is perhaps unsurprising that UKIP, who frequently resort to such bully-boy tactics when the democratic will goes against them, but shameful that MEPs from a supposedly serious party like the Conservatives would act in such a contemptible way.

More Tory divisions on Europe

Tory divisions on the Lisbon (or "Reform") Treaty are hotting up. While the hardline Eurohobes are calling for a retrospective referendum to be held if the Conservatives ever return to power, this idea is repudiated by their wiser, senior figures. In the House of Lords debate on the treaty, Geoffrey Howe, who was Thatcher's Deputy Prime Minister, said:

"I say one word beyond that; a word to those who would urge leadership of my own party, when elected, after the treaty has been ratified by the parliamentary process, exactly as it was in 1972 and 1986, to set about having a referendum on the approval or otherwise of the treaty. That would be a profoundly mistaken move. It would be entirely wrong to consider embarking on that course which might involve deliberately repudiating an international obligation. It would be extremely damaging to our position in Europe since it would inevitably be interpreted as a first step towards withdrawal from the Union. It would be equally damaging to our own domestic agenda, to have the early years of a Cameron Government dominated by that problem, as the Labour Government of 1974 were, which is now some 30 years ago."

The Tories and Schengen

It is always pleasantly surprising to see pro-European Tories fighting back against their party's all-consuming Euroscepticism. Last weekend saw Christopher Beazley MEP joining his new colleague Saj Karim in supporting the EU Reform Treaty. More unusual, however, was John Purvis's recent letter to the Financial Times supporting British accession to the Schengen free movement area.

At present, the UK and Ireland are the only two EU members to not have signed the Schengen Agreement: both have an opt-out. As islands, who do not have land borders with mainland Europe, the two countries share a Common Travel Area with no systematic border controls between them. Ireland is thus unable to join the agreement without dissolving this agreement with the UK, and incurring border controls at its land border with Northern Ireland. However, the UK remains reluctant to surrender its own border controls and work permit system. Therefore, while the UK and Ireland cooperate closely within the Schengen arrangements on matters such as police cooperation, judicial cooperation, and tackling organised crime, there are no imminent plans to be full members of Schengen.

In Mr Purvis's words, however, "any business person looking to the Schengen market would be crazy to site his head office in the UK. His staff would spend most of their time wrecking their productivity targets in disorganised queues waiting for the four available HM Revenue and Customs operatives in their fancy new uniforms to let them cross the "UK Border" - emblazoned on the wall behind them. If it is bad enough for UK and EU citizens, it is even worse for American, Chinese, any other business people and tourists - "guests" to our country."

It finishes with "once in the Schengen area (and that is now well controlled) they will next year have over 25 countries they can visit without hindrance - but not the UK. Be warned, foreigner!"

All of this is a far cry from William Hague's claims that British membership of Schengen would see us lose control of our borders and be flooded with immigrants!

Tory comes out against referendum

With Timothy Kirkhope ousted as leader of the Tories in Europe, it has been interesting to read the response on the Conservative Home website (here and earlier here. Nearly all Conservative attitudes to Europe are represented and nobody seems particularly happy with the result, with new leader Giles Chichester considered too Europhile by some and too Eurosceptic by others. Some are even demanding that any MEP not in favour of leaving the EPP should be automatically deselected for the next European election which, considering Eurosceptics like Parish and Heaton-Harris are destined for safe Westminster seats and others like Kamall have similar ambitions, could mean an almost completely new group of Conservative MEPs in 2009.

With that in mind it will be intetresting to see the reaction to Christopher Beazley’s decision to speak out against a referendum on Europe in a radio debate with my colleague Richard Howitt and the Lib Dem’s Andrew Duff. Not only that, Beazley actually requested that the debate focus on the contents of the treaty rather than on calls for a referendum. It’s a bold move by Beazley and should be welcomed, though it clearly won’t be by Tory Eurosceptics who will be baying for his blood.

Cameron the real loser in the Tory's leadership battle in Europe

The Conservative delegation in the European Parliament was plunged into fresh turmoil tonight after Timothy Kirkhope, a pro-European moderate who has led the delegation since 2004, was defeated by a solitary vote by the Eurosceptic Giles Chichester. Meanwhile, the Europhile Robert Atkins was ousted by Phillip Bushell-Matthews as Deputy Leader.

This is a real kick in the teeth for the moderates in the Tory delegation - the Tory delegation is bitterly divided - but Kirkhope has always been dignified and tried to bridge the yawning divide between the moderates and the head-banging Europhobes. Still, after three years of plotting and failed coups, the sceptics have finally got their man, with Chichester willing to be sceptic enough to get the support of Heaton-Harris, Callanan et al.

However, the main story was that both candidates refused to back Tory leader David Cameron's pledge to withdraw from the centre-right European People's Party, causing Dan Hannan, arguably the most anti-European Tory MEP, to abstain in the leadership vote. Apart from Hannan, and maybe one or two others, even the anti-European members realise that leaving the EPP is a route to isolation and impotence.

It is astonishing that Cameron's colleagues in Europe, so divided on climate change, women's rights, consumer protection legislation (just to name a few), are seemingly united in their opposition to their party leader's main promise. Either way it shows that Cameron will have grave difficulty in honouring his pledge to withdraw from the EPP (short of having more than half his delegation de-selected). It shows that despite Cameron's populism on Europe, he is a leader not being followed.

Giles Chichester has been an MEP since 1994. Interestingly, he was first elected by mistake. Under first past the post for Devon and East Plymouth, the Liberal Democrat vote was split with a Richard Hugget standing as a "Literal Democrat", gaining over 10,000 votes and stopping the Liberal Democrats from taking the seat, which they otherwise would have done with ease.

The narrowness of his leadership victory means that Chichester is going to have a real battle to reconcile the two warring factions. I for one wouldn't relish the task of trying to unify a party that has such polar opposites as Christopher Beazley and Roger Helmer in it!

Karim crossing the floor

Interesting to see Saj Karim's defection from the Lib Dems to the Tories this week, which may not have been for entirely altruistic reasons.

It appears that rather than a principled decision, Saj's defection is the result of a fit of pique after only securing second place on the Liberal Democrat list for the next European elections in 2009. The maverick Chris Davies took 63% of the votes cast by party members across the region, and Saj Karim was the best of the rest. The North-West is set to lose one of its nine seats at the next elections due to enlargement, putting Karim in danger of losing his seat. One can safely assume that the Conservatives will ensure that this does not happen now (to the annoyance of other Tory hopefuls in the North-West, including former MEP Jackie Foster).

Still, I presume that Saj, who strongly supported the constitution, will set about converting the likes of Dan Hannan, Chris Heaton-Harris and Martin Callanan of the benefits of Britain's EU membership and will convince his new colleagues to support the Reform Treaty!

In praise of the Western Morning News

For a newspaper in the Daily Mail group and which regularly allows UKIP MEPs and other Europhobes free reign in its letters page, the Western Morning News editorial yesterday was an extraordinarily well-argued comment in favour of the Reform Treaty. There was a precise explanation and evaluation of what exactly the treaty contains, a rebuttal of the myths that have prospered and an articulate attack on a local Tory MEP heading for the House of Commons.

The editorial asked: "If the Reform Treaty is going to crush our sovereignty so much, why is it that an ambitious politician like the South West Conservative MEP Neil Parrish is bidding for a Westminster seat even though the powers of MEPs are going to be increased?"

They then quote an answer from the man himself: "People keep asking me why I want to make the leap to Westminster. I tell them I will sincerely miss serving the South West in the European Parliament but ultimately for anyone who loves political service, the Commons is the place to be." Maybe – but if so, this hardly tallies with the line that Westminster is being reduced to a parish council!

The Guardian chose the same day to take a lighthearted look at the variety of myths propagated since the arrival of EU migrants from eastern European countries. EU migrants have been blamed for the quality of service in restaurants, a shortage of £50 notes and even accused of eating swans and poaching carp! It also points out how statistics are used to denigrate migrants, by never bothering to explain that things like a rise in foreign cars involved in accidents is entirely logical because there are now more foreign cars on the road.

As if to prove certain attitudes towards migrants the Daily Telegraph’s Village Britain series concluded with the headline "Village Britain: Half the population is foreign". The article actually says that 10 per cent of the population of Boston are migrants, with the "half" claim coming from someone pruning flowers in an entirely different village! The article goes on to acknowledge that migrant labour hasn’t taken jobs from local people, has helped the area boom and that there is a history of migrant labour in the area (Irish migrants and unemployed miners have done the work in the past). So, why then the sensationalist headline?

Tory sleaze

Cameron's astonishing appointment of former minister Jonathon Aitken to head a Tory working party shows how desparate the Tories are to bring back wayward former Conservatives to the fold.

Aitken, who supported UKIP at the last European election, was not only jailed for perjury (having initially tried to sue the journalist who blew his cover!) - he has to this day not revealed what he was up to in the Paris Ritz as a guest of the Saudis while he was defence procurement minister.

I was reminded of some of the other sleaze cases of the last Tory government - far more spectacular than any of the supposed sleaze allegations made nowadays - when Neil Hamilton popped up the other day to accuse the EU of... fraud. Coming from the man who received cash in brown envelopes in return for favours in parliament, this is a bit rich. Hamilton is also UKIP - is there something that magically attracts discredited Tories to them?

But, if they want him back, why don't the Tories appoint Hamilton as head of a working group on parliamentary standards? And Jeffrey Archer on prisons? Cecil Parkinson on child support by absent fathers? John Wakeham (of Enron fame) on corporate social responsibility? And Piers Merchant (of teenage mistress fame, but now Chief Executive of UKIP) on teenage sex?

The Tory's jumbled mess of referendum promises

The Tories are in complete chaos over whether to call a post-ratification referendum following the speech by Foreign Affairs spokesman William Hague in the Commons on Monday, in which he stated that the treaty ratified by Parliament without a referendum would "not be acceptable to a Conservative government and we would not let matters rest there". He started to expand beginning, "in such circumstances" before deciding not to complete the rest of the sentence.

As Ken Clarke noted several moments later, Mr Hague had "given a helpful new statement of Opposition party policy, although it came to a rather vague conclusion". Clarke added that the alternatives were either "repudiation of a treaty that this country has ratified; an attempt to renegotiate or reopen that treaty; a parliamentary process of some kind; or a referendum" and pointed out that the Tories had "always accepted treaty obligations accepted by previous governments" when they came to office.

Meanwhile, the highly Eurosceptic Tory MEP Martin Callanan claimed yesterday in the Northern Echo that "David Cameron has even committed to a referendum after the treaty has come into force". This, presumably, will come as news to Cameron, who has so far refused to pledge a post-ratification referendum. Indeed, after Hague's speech, Cameron's spokesman told the press that that had been "no change" to party policy.

Once again the Tories are divided on Europe. Less than two weeks ago former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (no Europhile he) urged Cameron not to allow the debate on the Reform Treaty to be "dominated by the small group of hardline Europhobes" and described demands for a post-ratification plebiscite as "silly and wrong".

Let us be clear - a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty after its ratification would, in effect, be a referendum on whether to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the EU. The Tory hardliners are quite candid that they would view this as an opportunity to engineer British withdrawal. No amount of sophistry from Cameron can hide the fact that by refusing to take on the Europhobes he reveals his parties complete lack of credibility on Europe.

To add to the confusion (or maybe to deflect attention away from their dilemna over a European referendum), Cameron is now promising local referendums on council tax rises. He has vowed to make councils offer a referendum if they want to raise their council tax beyond a certain threshold and said, "I want to replace bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability".

He seems to think local councillors are bureaucrats (much as he seems to think MEPs are) and not elected. In most areas there are council elections three years out of four - plenty of opportunity to vote out an administration you don’t like. A referendum each year added to this is preposterous.

But what about this? Cameron went on to say, "Council tax referendum ballots would be sent out with the annual council tax bill". Does this mean people who don’t pay council tax, like students, will not get a vote? If so that also spells the end to universal sufferage!

As poorly put together as this idea is, it is merely a sideshow to the real argument do we want a parliamentary democracy or do we want a plebiscitory democracy? By offering a series of referendums the Tories would fundamentally change the way Britain is governed, surely a bigger threat to Britain’s tradition of parliamentary democracy than either a new treaty being ratified through the Commons and Lords, or elected Councillors deciding a budget for a council.

David Cameron is dithering in the face of attempts by right-wing Tories to bounce him into pledging a post-ratification referendum on the Reform Treaty, refusing to answer when challenged by Gordon Brown in this week's Queen's speech debate. But while he fails to give leadership, others around him are trying to force a decision.

The idea to hold a post-ratification referendum is being pushed by the fiercest Eurosceptics in the Tory ranks who see it as a way to engineer British withdrawal from the EU. Indeed, the Early Day Motion on the matter that has been tabled in the House of Commons by John Redwood has been supported by 47 Tory MPs.

Meanwhile, former Thatcherite Cabinet minister Norman Tebbit (also a member of Better Off Out) has stoked up the fire, claiming that Cameron has already promised a post-ratification referendum in the Sun. Similarly, a Conservative poster released last week promised that a referendum on the treaty had been "delayed until the election of a Conservative government", although Tory central office later backtracked.

During the Queen's speech debate Gordon described the Tories' proposals as "confused, contradictory and not thought through". Quite.

Interesting point by Peter Preston in today’s Guardian: if UKIP and some Tories got their way and Britain were to withdraw from the European Union, then the "route to the exit is littered with obstacles: four decades' worth of directives to unscramble and replace, funding promised or under way to be reappraised, fishing and agriculture deals to be haggled afresh, trade and immigration understandings to be understood again. This won't be like breaking your tennis racket and storming off court. This has to be a long, deadly serious business"

Not to mention that there would be precious little goodwill from our partners if we were to storm out slamming the door of the house we have helped to build over several decades. Nor could we rely on economic muscle: we represent a smaller percentage of their trade (under 10%) than they do of ours (62%). And once we were out, we would no longer have a voice around the table in making the common rules for the common market - our main export market which our producers have to adapt to anyway.

Seems to be a no-brainer – maybe that explains who is supporting it!



PS I see Mark Mardell has also blogged on this today for the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/

The commitment of the Conservative Party leadership (breaking their previous manifesto pledge) to leave the Christian Democrat group (EPP) in the European Parliament and set up a new political group has still not been carried out, as they have failed to find enough allies from the other member states.

The one ally they have found - the Czech Civic Democrats - are now in government in Prague. Having been strongly opposed to the previous constitutional treaty, they now plan to ratify the reform treaty without a referendum. Their leader in the European Parliament, Mr Zahradil, explained this to the European Parliament last week, seeing this as a treaty that "sets Europe on an intergovernmental path" rather than in a federal direction, and is quite different from the constitutional treaty.

Curiously, Conservatives in Britain seem to be keeping quiet about this view of their closest partners in Europe.

Yesterday's Commons debate on the European Council was marked by the pompous and unconstructive Euroscepticism of every Conservative that took part in the debate, with the sole exception of David Curry. David Cameron's speech made absolutely no reference to the future agenda of the EU - in stark contrast to Gordon Brown's presentation of a paper looking at the way that the EU can contribute to economic prosperity, security, job creation and tackling climate change. This paper serves as Britain's agenda for the future of the EU in the 21st century. Indeed, as Gordon put it, "it is right that Europe now focuses not on more institutional change, but on the reforms that are needed to meet the challenges of the global era".

It was interesting to hear Michael Connarty's contribution to the debate. The Conservatives have made much of the report by the European Scrutiny Committee (chaired by Mr Connarty) on the treaty, citing a passage in the report stating that "the new Treaty is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty", conveniently forgetting to include the previous half of the sentence which states that this is only the case for countries that "have not requested derogations or opt-outs from the full range of agreements in the Treaty". This is yet another example of the way Eurosceptics use selective quotation to mislead and distort debate on the EU.

Indeed, as Michael Connarty pointed out, Britain does have derogations and opt-outs which mean that, as far as Britain as concerned, the Lisbon Treaty is significantly different from the Constitution.

I was particularly struck by David Winnick's comment that most of the Tory objections to the treaty "amount to little more than xenophobia". It is a sad indictment of the Conservative leadership that, even though they have quietly drafted an "Alternative Treaty" that is very similar to the Reform Treaty, they none the less give free reign to the obsessive Eurosceptics in their party, An example of how they are losing control of their extremist wing is the Early Day Motion tabled by Bill Cash and John Redwood. It calls for the Government to reject the Reform Treaty and for a referendum to be held on it either before or AFTER ratification.

This implies that, in the (albeit unlikely) event of the Tories winning the next election, they would hold a referendum after the treaty entered into force, and campaign for a 'no' vote. If they won it, the other 26 EU countries would almost certainly refuse to agree to re-open the treaty and completely re-write it. Britain would be offered a simple choice - are you in or out of the EU. This, of course, is what Messrs Cash and Redwood know and want. It will certainly be interesting to see which Tories sign this EDM.

I was delighted to share a platform in London this morning with Lord Brittan - formerly Sir Leon Brittan, Conservative Home Secretary. He made it absolutely clear that he supports the Reform Treaty and does not think much of the posturing of the current Conservative leadership in opposing it and demanding a referendum, especially as they would - if they were in power - sign up to essentially the same package. Other Tory grandees such as Douglas Hurd and Chris Patten also support the Reform Treaty.

In the afternoon, I and other Labour MEPs met Gordon Brown, who is upbeat and confident about securing a deal on a new treaty at the end of this week. Other meetings with ministers, and with TUC, improved my mood of optimism.

In the evening, I gave a lecture at the Italian Cultural Institute in London on the life of Altiero Spinelli, who was born 100 years ago. I thought there would be a dozen people attending, but was delighted when some 100 turned up - perhaps there is greater appreciation for Spinelli in the UK than the state of our public debate on Europe would suggest!

Timothy Garton Ash’s latest column for the Guardian gives five good reasons for not having a referendum on the proposed EU Treaty, though he admits to being utterly fed up that we are back having the same old arguments about Europe.

His previous week’s column is also a very good read and simply points out the contradiction between many of the Foreign Policy aspirations the Conservatives spelt out at the Conference and their continued distaste for anything to do with the EU.

He points out it makes no sense to call on the EU to take action against Burma and put pressure on Zimbabwe while in the next breath condemning the Reform Treaty and screaming hysterically at the merest mention of any common foreign policy.

He also backs up the point I made last week which was that the Conservatives’ attitude to Europe in opposition would be completely and utterly untenable in power.

Just imagine - however unlikely that may seem - that the Conservatives win a general election next month. They would unavoidably face an immedite split on Europe.

First they would have to decide whether or not to sign the EU Reform Treaty, the text of which will already have been agreed by 27 national governments, or whether to seek to re-open negotiations. No other EU country will want to re-open issues, when Britain is already perceived to have won all of its negotiating positions in the IGC. This could easily turn into a major crisis, with the most Eurosceptic wing of the Tories (and of the press) keen to escalate it into a battle for withdrawal from the EU.

In fact, we know from the Tory "Alternative Treaty", which they have recently been keeping quiet about, that their leadership actually accepts almost all of the Reform Treaty's actual content. It is for electoral reasons that they are now playing up their opposition to it, but without spelling out what they would do. Presumably, they will seek some cosmetic changes that they can present as victories - but then they will have to sell the package to the British people in the referendum that they have promised on it.

Imagine them having to go out and defend a package 95% identical to the one they were so recently rubbishing! The charges of cynicism and dishonesty, that they are all-to-keen to make now, would come home to roost.

In any case, it would be difficult to see Bill Cash and his ilk campaigning for the new treaty! So the far-right of the Tory party would campaign for a "No" vote, egged on by much of their press. Even if the government won the referendum, it would cause them lasting damage.

Then, to fulfill their conference pledge to hold referendums on ANY new treaty, they would within a couple of years have to hold another referendum on the Treaty of Accession for Croatia.

And if they really did pursue their proclaimed objective of withdrawing Britain from the Social Chapter of the Treaty (assuming they could pursuade all other EU countries to let Britain have a free ride and undercut the basic standards that apply to everyone else in the single European market), they would then have to put that treaty change to a referendum too. In this case, Labour, Liberals and vehement trade union opposition, presumably mid-term of a Conservative government, would make defeat a likely scenario.

I rather suspect that the Conservative leadership would rather not come to power now, and would actually prefer to wait until this issue is settled, with the Reform Treaty ratified, while trying to milk the issue for all its worth in the meantime.

Leaping nimbly from Bournemouth to Strasbourg, I had the pleasure last night of being the guest speaker at the dinner of the British Chamber of Commerce, where I was flattered to see that the Conservatives had sent no fewer than 9 MEPs to counter me with the odd heckle and questions from the floor.

"Chatham House rules" preclude me from revealing which ones said what, but it was fun to tease them by referring to the "Alternative Treaty" published by their leader in the EP, Tim Kirkhope MEP and warmly endorsed by William Hague, which retains almost all of the practical changes contained in the Reform Treaty. It was interesting to see how they disagreed among themselves with some of them welcoming specific reforms, such as the longer-term presidency of the European Council or the new provisions for involving national parliaments, while others felt they had to oppose them (at least in public). Tory divisions on Europe remain spectacular, with views ranging from secret support for the Reform Treaty to those who support British withdrawal from the EU.

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.

The European Parliament was yesterday lucky (?) enough to be treated to a hilarious spat between arch Eurosceptic Tory Roger Helmer and the former leader of the Conservative MEPs (turned Lib Dem) Bill Newton-Dunn. Both aired their dirty washing in a series of reply-to-all emails that dropped into the inbox of every British MEP and their increasingly amused assistants.

For your enjoyment I'll re-print the row in full (to make clear who's saying what I've italicised Roger Helmer's comments):


"It makes me proud to think that we have to go cap-in-hand to the EU Commission for permission to spend our own money."


"But, as even Roger knows but is unwilling to admit, it is not UK money. Years ago the UK parliament made over part of its VAT revenues to the EU to be the EU's own resources."


"Yet another reason why we should be Better Off Out".


"Which is not your party's policy. Why not be honest, just for once, and join UKIP?"


"Dangerous ground, here, Bill. You may accuse me of many things, but dishonesty is not one of them. I have been absolutely clear and direct about my views on Europe -- which is what gets up your nose."


"Not at all. You twist, distort, sail close to the wind implying things...you are deeply dishonest - not least with yourself, since everybody knows you should be in UKIP"


"As I have frequently observed, Bill, you need a dictionary, as you seem to have a poor grasp of the plain meaning of words".


"Your self-delusion is that you are honest - like fundamentalist religious preachers who preach one thing but are really something very different. Ring any bells ?"

Back at work in the European Parliament

While the Tories have been loudly demanding a referendum on the proposed EU treaty, they have also released an alternative treaty of their own, though without so much fanfare.

Their “Simplifying Treaty”, is written by Timothy Kirkhope MEP, the Conservatives’ leader in the European Parliament, and is warmly endorsed in the preface by William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary.

Having read it, it quickly becomes clear why the Tories have not been shouting from the roof tops about their “Simplifying Treaty”: because it includes the bulk of the proposed new treaty Tony Blair agreed to in June.

So, senior Tories know the EU needs reform and agree with much of what is already proposed but they also know that calling for a referendum wins them easy headlines in a period when positive coverage of their party has been at a premium.

It also highlights the Tory’s usual divisions over Europe. The extreme Eurosceptics are discontent and very vocal and, while leading figures in the Conservative Party know reform of the EU is essential, they are too scared to back the treaty (even though they largely agree with it) because it would cause an ugly spat between the two sides.

There is a detailed analysis of Kirkhope’s Simplifying Treaty on my website. You can read it by clicking here.

So, the Tories seem to have abandoned their short-lived, "moderate" strategy and taken a turn to the right and deeper into anti-European territory.

The move comes in a desperate attempt by Cameron to boost his lagging popularity. It might help him placate the right wing of his party, and save him from attempts by them to oust him, but it will not help with the wider public.

The manoevre comes via a report drawn up by former cabinet minister John Redwood who claims his “war on red tape” will cut £14 billion, in what he described as “a tax cut by any other name”. But this money isn’t going to magically appear out of thin air. It will come at a cost: less safety protection at work, no statutary paid holidays for employees, no guaranteed maternity or paternity leave, lower standards of consumer protection and more damage to the environment.

Such ‘magic money’ is guesswork as to how much it will really save companies, but it is extraordinary to focus on cutting health and safety legislation where any short term saving will be outweighed by long term costs to the Health service.

Will they spell out to people that "we’ll give you tax cuts, but by the way you might not be able to have any paid holidays any more at work"? A strange way to win hearts and minds!

As to the promise to opt-out of European legislation, they have (of course) totally ignored the point that many of these rules are intended to cut red tape. The fact that a small firm can now register a trademark once and it is valid across 27 European countries, instead of having to go through 27 different national procedures each with their own forms, fees and hassle, is a benefit from EU legislation. So is the ability of British lorries to take our exports to, say, Milan, showing only a single administrative document at frointiers instead of the dozen or so at each frontier that used to be necessary.

And unilaterally opting out of the common rules for the common market that we have agreed with our European partners is not so easy. Do the Tories really think that they will say "yes, by all means, play to a different set of rules from the rest of us, we don't mind"? Would they let British companies alone not abide by minimum standards for environmental protection, consumer protection, workplace safety, decent treatment of staff and so on?

Of course they wouldn't. It would mean the end of the common market. The Tory Eurosceptics know this. They see it as part of their strategy for leaving the EU, by making demands they know cannot be met, but they prefer not to spell that out openly.

All this is further evidence of a clear lurch to the right, even beyond traditional Tory values, to a new hard line approach that even traditional tories should find difficult to swallow.

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.

William Hague is now joining the clamour that the Reform Treaty is identical to the abandoned Constitutional Treaty - but even with his position of responsibility, without looking very far into the facts.

As I said in the parliamentary debate (see blog entry July 11), the proposed Reform Treaty may indeed salvage 90 percent of the pragmatic changes to the EU institutions that had been in the Constitutional Treaty. But recent scientific research shows that human beings and mice are genetically 90% identical. However, the 10% difference is crucial - and the same goes for the Reform Treaty!

The constitutional concept has been abandoned; the High Representative has not been changed into an EU Foreign Minister; symbols such as the EU flag and anthem have been dropped; and the numerous derogations and opt-outs for the UK means that, even more for us, the Reform Treaty is substantively different from the Constitutional Treaty.

But if you don’t want to take my word for it, why not ask David Cameron’s European allies in the Czech Republic?

Cameron had pledged to create a new centre-right group in Europe to rival the EPP which would include the Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’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's faltering leadership means that, in desperation,
he is turning to euroscepticism to placate the right-wing of the Tory party. But, in trying to stir up fears and create myths about this treaty, he is undermining his national and international credibility as a potential Prime Minister.

David Cameron's desperate calls for a referendum on the Reform Treaty have been dealt another blow.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who launched the Movement for European Reform with Cameron this year, and whose Civic Democrat Party is one of the parties with whom Cameron plans to set up a break-away party from the EPP in the European Parliament, has said that the proposed treaty is not significant enough to require a referendum.

Topolanek told the Czech Senate last week that the planned reform of the EU institutions did not create any new framework or powers for the EU, but only modified the existing treaties. He added that a referendum on the new Treaty would be "impractical" and would see the Czech Republic marginalised from the mainstream of the EU.

The fact that even Czech eurosceptics are happy with the Reform Treaty again demonstrates just how extreme the Tories still are on Europe.

Bill Cash MP - whose sole activity in the House of Commons seems to be to campaign against everything to do with Europe - has had some success on the Conservative benches with his plan for a Bill that would oblige British courts to give primacy to British statutes over European law whenever there may be conflict between the two.

No doubt this is appealing to those who do not give much thought to the issues involved. But its effect would be to undermine the primacy of European law, which is one of the foundations of the European legal system.

The reason for the primacy of European law is that there is actually not much point in us agreeing with other countries on common rules if each country is then free to ignore them. What would be the point?

The whole purpose of having common rules for the common market or common environmental standards is that we all live up to what we agree in the European context. Divergent national rules would soon end the single market which successive British governments have proclaimed to be vital to our prosperity. Allowing countries to ignore agreed environmental standards and free-ride on the efforts of others is also not something to commend.

Nor should we forget that we rely on the primacy of European law in other countries. Britain won its our court case against France over its ban on British beef thanks to the primacy of European law. If French law had primacy, then they could have continued to ban our beef in complete violation of the rules we had agreed for the common market.

It's now been several days since the outline of an EU Reform Treaty was agreed at the European Council summit, and the Open Europe/Tory/UKIP campaign against it has got off to a bad start. Despite being loud and shrill it is clearly not convincing many people.

Although Open Europe are fond of claiming that British businesses are sceptical about the EU and the benefits of the internal market, this is not borne out by the evidence. A poll released by Business for New Europe showed that 52% of business leaders supported the new Treaty with just 31% opposed. The Confederation of European Business (Business Europe), which includes the CBI, is the latest organisation to welcome the proposed new treaty, saying that "the European Union comes out reinforced and reinvigorated".

Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Tony Blair used his penultimate appearance as Prime Minister to demolish David Cameron in a debate over the new treaty. While the usual suspects on the Tory benches, led by Bill Cash and David Heathcoat-Amory, made their outlandish claims about 'Brussels' taking over Britain, Ken Clarke pointed out to his hapless 'leader' that the provision in the new treaty to increase the role of national parliaments in EU legislation was one of the recommendations made by the Conservative party's "Democracy Taskforce". Cameron could not produce a single substantive reason why a referendum should be held on the treaty and was, as Blair pointed out, just "going through the motions".

The surprise defection of Quentin Davies from the Tory benches to Labour was a huge shock to Cameron and marked the end of a very successful final week for Tony Blair. Davies, who was the Chairman of the Conservative Group on Europe, denounced his leader in an incendiary letter saying that the Tory party had "ceased to believe in anything" and that "a sense of mission had been replaced by a PR agenda". He added that he could not remain in the Conservative party if it sought to leave the European People's Party.

Quentin Davies is the thirteenth MP or MEP to leave the Conservatives to join Labour or the Lib Dems since 1992. During this time, just two Conservative peers have joined UKIP. Mr Davies' defection underlines how Europhile Tories have been marginalised by successive party leaders and that after fifteen years of vicious infighting, the pro-Europeans are still being pushed out.

So, the deal has been done - in the early hours of this morning. Many of us in the Council building feared that Polish intransigence would last throughout the night and longer, but eventually they too compromised at about three a.m.. I've lost count of the number of interviews I've done for British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg TV and radio throughout the long day and night, but hopefully there will be no need for another summit on these issues for many years to come.

The Constitutional Treaty has been replaced by a practical set of reforms to the current European Union. They will make it work more efficiently and will improve parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability. This is a result to be welcomed. Euro-obsessives that want Britain to leave Europe (and, presumably, become part of America) will try to scare people with their ususal froth, but any objective look at the agreement shows that their complaints are fibs or exaggerations. Indeed, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was looking distincly forlorn, not sure what he could complain about, when I debated with him on BBC this morning - he fell back on quoting an article that has been in the treaty since Maastricht, 15 years ago.

Indeed, of the issues that the Eurosceptics focussed on, almost all have disappeared or been neutralized:

* The term "constitution" has been abandoned.

* On the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a new clause says "In particular, for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in title 4 of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom."

* On the Foreign Minister, the role stays as High Representative, as it is called already now, and EU foreign policy will be decided by "The European Council and the Council acting unanimously", without the European Courts having a say over it. It is specified that none of this will effect the "existing legal basis, responsibilities, and powers of each member state,"

* In the field of justice and home affairs, where there is a switch from unanimity to majority voting, there are opt-outs for Britain.

Curiously, two items which Eurosceptics continue to criticise are things that, if they thought about them for a few seconds, they might appreciate.

* One is the longer-term president of the European Council (30 months instead of six months). This could lead to a strengthening of the intergovernmental European Council presidency at the expense of the Commission presidency. That is certainly why the anti-federalist French support it.

* The other is the "External Action Service". At present, EU external representations across the globe are run by the Commission. This change is designeed to give Council (i.e. national governments) a say in running and staffing them. Another step away from, rather than towards, a federal system.

However, Tory and UKIP critics just don't want to know and are simply focussed on finding fault with any change.

On the other side, federalists will be disappointed. The Italian and Belgian governments are muttering about too much having been sacrificed to placate the Brits, the Dutch, the Poles and the French. The European Parliament will be unhappy, as will the 22 countries who wished to retain the Constitutional Treaty intact.

BBC Europe chief and blogger Mark Mardell's assessment is interesting. Although BBC impartiality means he has to treat the Eurosceptics seriously and give them coverage they don't deserve, he clearly proclaims a victory for the government, saying: "Tony Blair can claim that he has won all his red lines. Of course, many will feel this was utterly predictable and of course Conservatives and other will say that there is plenty here that deserves a referendum. But Mr Blair has made their job that much harder."

Indeed a referendum seems hard to justify. Britain has never had a referendum to ratify an international treaty, and it would be odd to start with a minor one. We similarly have never had a referendum on issues that are far more important and that really interest the public, like the creation of the national health service, compulsory education, university fees, the death penalty, the monarchy. We are a parliamentary democracy - a British tradition we are generally proud of. To argue that a referendum is justified because the president of the European Council will have a 30-month instead of 6-month term of office is ludicrous.

But I predict that it won't stop the Torygraph, the Mail, the Sun, the Express UKIP, the Conservative party and the BNP demanding one!

Have just seen an utterly ridiculous press release from the Conservative leader Tim Kirkhope MEP, accusing Labour MEPs of being “in chaos” and contradicting the government’s position on the Constitutional Treaty in today’s vote in the European Parliament.

The Tories desperately cobbled together a press release with some outrageously selective editing of the report; once the report is read in full it is quite clear the press release is complete tosh.

The Conservative press release reads: “17 Labour MEPs voted in favour of the Brok report which committed the European Parliament to ‘reaffirm its commitment to achieving a settlement of the ongoing constitutional process of the European Union which is based on the content of the Constitutional Treaty, possibly under a different presentation’"

A quick glance at the actual report shows that the paragraph above (paragraph six) is cut off mid-sentence. It actually finishes “but taking account of the difficulties that have arisen in some Member States" – the key point which they deliberately cut out.

The Tories also conveniently ignored any mention of the following paragraph (paragraph seven unsurprisingly), which is also the exact position of the Labour government, namely to have an inter-governmental conference this autumn to negotiate a new treaty.

It will be interesting to see if this weak concoction actually makes the papers. Hopefully not, but if it does it will not have been the first time an absurd Tory press release from Europe has made column inches in some of the right-wing rags.

UK Sports Minister Richard Caborn was in Parliament today to meet MEPs to discuss the Commission's forthcoming white paper on the future of sport in the EU.

There was a general fear that the Commission white paper will not adequately address three major issues: the number of "home-grown" members of a team; the collective sale of TV rights; and placing spending caps on teams.

Qualified football referee (and Conservative MEP in his spare time) Chris Heaton-Harris was alone in taking a different view on TV rights. While he believed that selling TV rights collectively is better for the game, he stuck to his guns about the rights of some clubs to sell TV rights individually, such as Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. This is not a view widely held as not only does this give these two clubs an unfair advantage in their own leagues, it also gives them an unfair advantage when competing in European competition. Chris also argued against spending caps (which have proved successful in the Rugby and Football leagues), saying they contravened the free market.

An area everyone agreed on, and an area Richard was extremely keen to see at the fore of the discussion was the issue over "home-grown" players. How could we implement this objective, that sport's governing bodies (such as UEFA), national governments and the European Parliament all support, without falling foul of EU employment laws? "Leave it to the Courts" is the Commission's recommendation but unfortunately the Courts might declare the practice illegal under current legislation regarding the free movement of labour. It would be better to have clarification that the Commission considers the UEFA 'home-grown player' rules to be acceptable.

After the meeting, I had lunch with UEFA President Michel Platini and Press Officer William Gaillard who agree with the above. However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to upbraid them on their comments on Liverpool supporters at the European Cup Final in Athens, and implicitly, all English club supporters for travelling to matches without tickets. They are not the only ones to do that and there is little that can be done about it. What UEFA should do is focus on what it CAN do, namely have a proper system of checking tickets at the stadium. I know people who walked straight in without tickets, which is ludicrous and will only encourage ticketless supporters to try it on in the future. There was also a problem of forged tickets being sold to supporters.

On the last point the University of Leeds is setting up a new Anti-Forgery Research Centre (ARC) which is at the forefront of developing technologies such as invisible barcodes that could help prevent this problem in the future. I am putting them in touch with UEFA.

Like many national parliaments, the European Parliament has rules that members may not vote on matters where they have a pecuniary personal interest. This is intended to stop, for instance, members who hold shares in a company that might be affected by a decision from benefitting from the way they vote.

In yesterday’s vote on capping mobile phone charges, two of the Eurosceptic Tory MEPs got up to say that they would not be voting because they stood to gain financially if phone charges went down, because they owned mobile phones. Following their logic, I suggested that the President find out if there was any member who did not possess a mobile phone and that member alone might decide on this particular piece of legislation!

Obviously, MEPs benefit from any consumer protection measure that protects the general public, since they are themselves also members of the general public. The attempt to make it impossible for any member possessing a mobile phone to vote on this measure was in fact no less than an attempt to sabotage it – though an amusing one!

The media is buzzing following today's decision by MEPs to adopt measures that will place caps on mobile phone roaming charges. Labour MEPs have spent the last two years campaigning on behalf of consumers for these rip-off charges to be capped, and today our hard work paid off as the new law was passed.

Currently when you use your mobile in another EU country you will be charged by your phone company extortionate fees not only for making calls, but also for receiving calls. Today’s decision will put a limit on those fees across the EU, so now when you make a call on holiday in another EU country, that fee will be capped at approximately 39p per minute (falling to approximately 34p per minute after two years) and when you receive a call, the fee will be capped at approximately 19p per minute (falling to approximately 15p per minute).

So one more of many victories for consumers thanks to European legislation applicable across the whole of the European market. But why then did Conservative MEPs oppose this? Tory MEPs voted against caps on mobile roaming charges, championing the cause of big businesses to charge their customers what they like – so no change there then from the Tories.

No change from UKIP leader Nigel Farage either, who unsurprisingly stated his opposition to the new law by saying it was merely a "giant publicity stunt" – presumably because the EU that introduced this law . Yet, it would not have been possible to introduce a law of this kind at all without the EU, but we can’t go around praising the EU can we Nigel?

This week saw a flurry of coverage on the environmental cost of obliging the European Parliament to sit one week per month in Strasbourg instead of staying put in Brussels, thereby generating (according to a report by Professor John Whitelegg of the University of York) more than 20,000 tons of extra carbon dioxide (CO²) emissions due to the additional travel between the sites by MEPs, their assistants, journalists and lobbyists, not to mention the truckloads of documents transported each month.

Most MEPs, who also face considerable travel hassle in getting to Strasbourg, would love to change this situation. Unfortunately, it is not the Parliament itself that decides on the location of EU institutions, but the national governments, and it was the Edinburgh summit, chaired by John Major, that made it legally binding on the European Parliament to go 12 times a year to Strasbourg. So thanks John!

To sign the petition to have the Parliament located only in Brussels (saving the European taxpayer €200m per year as well as the environmental benefits) please visit www.OneSeat.eu.