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.

Gloomy weather on the campaign trail

I usually enjoy being out campaigning, putting arguments to people, entering into discussions, countering euromyths and arguing my case. This time, however, the mood is somewhat dampened by the weather: soaked in Sheffield, drenched in Dewsbury and even hailstones in Hull!

Of course, there is also another matter that has put a dampener on the elections – the question of the expenses of our Westminster colleagues. Public opinion has been rightly outraged by some of the revelations.

Clearly, the House of Commons system of allowing members to meet the cost of running a second home by claiming seemingly any household expenditure – without a tight definition of what qualifies – needs radical reform. Clearly, the judgement of many MPs in making claims within this system has to be questioned. It is also clear that those – from all parties – who have broken the rules or made inappropriate claims must be dealt with visibly and severely - as the Labour party has by immediately suspending certain MPs.

The system must be corrected and higher standards applied if public confidence in our elected representatives is to be restored. No doubt there are also rotten apples in the European Parliament too – and let us not forget that Ashley Mote, elected as one of the 12 UKIP MEPs at the last elections, actually went to jail for fraud during his term of office while another, Tom Wise, is currently facing prosecution. Last year, the Tories lost both their leader and Chief Whip in the European Parliament following allegations of financial misconduct.

But when all is said and done, when all the parties have cleaned their stables – as they must – there are still stark differences between them in what they stand for, in what they would do in government, or what they would do with their seats in the European Parliament. It is to be hoped that people will not lose sight of what elections are about: choice between competing policy options for the future – and not focus exclusively on the rotten apples, as long as the latter are being dealt with and if the system is being reformed.

Above all, a rush towards minor parties without duly checking what they stand for could subsequently be a cause for regret among many voters. Voting for the BNP is not voting for a squeaky clean, moderate alternative – it is voting for a Nazi party, which is no better demonstrated by their top candidate in Yorkshire, whose history of involvement in the extreme right and with neo-Nazis is clear for all to see. Voting for UKIP is voting for a party that is almost as extreme and would seek to tear Britain apart from its neighbouring countries and main export market (not to mention the MEPs elected for UKIP who have actually been jailed for fraud and charged with fiddling expenses). The Greens offer an apparently serious alternative, but their constant attempts to outdo every other party in terms of alleged “greenness” has often led to espousing some pretty untenable positions and, anyway, in most regions they do not have a chance of winning a seat. Certainly in Yorkshire & Humber, voting for them is a wasted vote in the battle to exclude the BNP.

I am finding on the doorsteps that once you get beyond the rightful indignation about some of the shenanigans in Westminster and come back to policy choices, the response to Labour’s message in the European elections becomes more positive. Not enthusiastic in all cases, but nonetheless, a recognition that it is clearly better than the alternatives.

Despite problems, a good response

Despite what has been going on in Westminster over the last week or so, out on the doorsteps and streets in Yorkshire we have been getting a remarkably good response from people.

After starting today door-knocking in Huddersfield, where I only encountered one Tory (who after a long chat, promised me to vote Labour for the first time in his life on June 4th) and a quick sandwich in the delightful Great White Beare pub in Norwood Green, I joined John Prescott and Alistair Campbell's "Go 4th" minibus tour for a rally in Keighley town centre.

Together with Ann Cryer MP, who is retiring at the next election, and her successor as Labour candidate, the popular and hard working Jane Thomas, and my fellow euro-candidates Linda McAvan, Emma Hoddinott and Mahroof Hussain, we attracted quite a crowd with soapbox style speeches and discussion.

Then on to Bradford, where I had the honour to speak at the opend day of the Ahmadiyya Mosque, whose youth wing is carrying out an explanation and outreach campaign with local communities to increase understanding and diminish prejudice and fear.

Finally to Leeds to re-join the Go4th team where Hilary Benn, myself, Alistair Campbell and John Prescott addressed an enthusiastic audience in Leeds Civic Centre.

There is no doubt that mistakes have been made at Westminster, whether the culprit is seen as the government (the Gurkha issue) or all parties (MPs' expenses). But the public is also aware that there are substantial policy differences between Labour and the Conservatives, who on Europe want to isolate Britain (and force their own MEPs to sit with extremist fringe parties) and on the domestic front want to let market forces run their course rather than intervene to make the recession shorter and shallower and help people through the recession. (Correction: they do want to help the richest 3,000 families in Britain through their proposed inheritance tax cut.) These differences do matter and people are becoming increasingly aware of them.

Tom Wise charged with money laundering

UKIP have been dealt a severe blow this week following the announcement that the Crown Prosecution Service is charging Tom Wise with money laundering and false accounting.

Wise will appear in court next week. The allegations that Wise had claimed just under £40,000 to pay an assistant, but then funnelled most of the money into his own bank account, came to light in 2005, prompting a lengthy investigation by the Parliament's anti-fraud office OLAF, before the case was passed on to Bedfordshire police.

Wise is, of course, not the first UKIP MEP to face criminal charges. Ashley Mote was convicted on multiple counts of benefit fraud and jailed for nine months in 2007.

Wise has not been convicted of anything and, needless to say, remains innocent until proven guilty. But for a party that often decries EU 'corruption' to have two of its elected MEPs charged with financial irregularities looks like more than carelessness. To have lost no less than one third of the 12 members elected under its banner in 2004 is shambolic.

EU scare stories coincide with Euro election build-up

First, Bruno Waterfield, Telegraph correspondent in Brussels, fills in a lull in interesting stories coming his way, by reporting that "MEPs" want to build a swimming pool in the parliament at taxpayers' expense. Never mind that the idea has already been rejected bt the Parliament's bureau. It is sufficient that one French Green party member continues to support it, for Bruno to generate his headline, which has inevitably been taken by many readers as meaning that the parliament has decided to waste money on a luxury - the opposite of what it really did. Already, newspapers across Europe, from Athens based "New Europe" to Scotland on Sunday repeating and embellishing the story.

Then, of course, several British tabloids report that MEPs could become millionaires if they were to divert their expenses into their own pocket. Never mind that Labour MEPs, recently followed by the Conservatives and the LibDems, have their accounts reviewed by independent auditors to make that impossible. Never mind that this story is a re-hash of one last year, about an alleged abuse by a number of MEPs, which spurred on a reform of the Parliament's own system. The key thing is to implant in the public mind the image of MEP = corruption. Expect more of this as Eurosceptics seek to discredit the whole Parliament ahead of June's elections.

Not to be outdone, UKIP indulged in their own distortions this week by saying that Parliament's President Pottering had endorsed their claim that 75 percent of legislation in our countries is EU law. He did nothing of the sort. EU law is, according to most studies, a much lower proportion (9 percent according to the House of Commons library, 6.3 percent according to the Swedish parliament, 12 percent according to the Finnish parliament and between 12 and 19 percent according to the Lithuanian parliament). But such low figures undermine UKIP's claim that we are creating a centralised superstate.

So they have misinterpreted a comment by Pottering that 75 percent of EU legislation (i.e. of the proportion that IS adopted at EU level) is adopted by the European Parliament (through the co-decision procedure with the Council of Ministers) and that this will rise to (nearly) 100 percent with the Lisbon treaty, to imply that he said that 75 percent of legislation in Europe is EU legislation.

UKIP (unless they are even more stupid than most people think) obviously know that that is not what Pottering was saying - it is clear from the context and in his original German (though not in the English subtitles used on UKIP's video). But again, why let the facts spoil a scare story?

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.

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.

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 likes of Wise mean reform of expenses is essential

Anyone who flicked through the News of the World on Sunday will have seen the report on various MEPs - none of them Labour - who allegedly abuse their expenses.

The one who featured the most prominently was UKIP MEP Tom Wise, who was even caught bragging to an undercover reporter about the amount of money he says he makes from his expenses. You can read the story here but perhaps what is most embarrassing is his attitude which, for a man who remains under investigation by the anti-fraud office OLAF, is one of breathtaking arrogance.

The News of the World highlights a loophole in the European Parliament’s rules which is exploited by some people who claim the maximum amount they can for plane tickets (which is fully flexible economy tickets) but actually travel on a budget airline to Charleroi airport 50 miles from Brussels, pocketing the difference. Wise told the reporter: "When I fly Ryanair I say 'Thank you very much!' I could actually put the Ryanair ticket in and just get that back— but that would be denying me a legally, well I say legally, a genuinely available funding."

So despite appearing to acknowledge what he is doing is wrong he boasts about the amount of money he is claiming while admitting he doesn’t have a clue what he is supposed to do as an MEP. What a shower!

The good news is that the particular loophole Tom Wise is so fond of will be closed shortly but this is not enough. Rarely do I find myself nodding in agreement with the News of the World but their demand that "every member should provide receipts for everything they claim" is a must.

Of course, the News of the World did not mention that every Labour MEP is already required to have their office and staff expenses audited and approved by an independent auditor each year and I can see no reason why this isn’t replicated by UKIP and other parties.

It is a simple measure that would go some way to repairing the damage caused by the greedy minority like Wise.

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.

The Council of Ministers today formally approved our reform of MEPs' pay and expenses (more details here).

At long last, an end is in sight to the European Parliament’s embarrassingly outdated system of pay and expenses. We voted today by a huge majority to endorse a new members’ statute. The long-awaited new rules need to be approved by national ministers too, but this ought to be no problem.

First and foremost, the new agreement settles the issue of MEPs’ salaries. At present, each MEP is paid the same as a member of his or her national parliament. This leads to huge discrepancies among the sum being paid to different MEPs for doing essentially the same job: Italian MEPs earn €12 435 per month before tax, while Hungarians are paid just €840. The agreement is now that, from the start of the next parliament, all MEPs will be paid the same sum of €7000 per month — which will naturally be a pay cut for some MEPs (including the British), but a rise for others (including the poor Hungarians).

Another big breakthrough is the reform of travel expenses. MEPs are currently paid a lump sum for flights to and from Parliament, equal to the cost of an economy class ticket for every flight. This leads to problems since many budget airlines these days offer tickets at substantially cheaper rates than standard economy class, but there is no mechanism for taking account of this. The loophole quite rightly tarnishes Parliament’s reputation. Under the new agreement, fares will be refunded on an actual-cost basis, as they always really ought to have been.

As for the other expenses, namely office and staff allowances, these remain very similar to the House of Commons system. (For a detailed comparison of the current system, click here.)

For the record, all Labour MEPs have their accounts examined by external auditors every year to ensure they have only been used for legitimate expenses with proper receipts. We wish other parties did the same!