CentreRight

No EU Treaty, No EU tax, No EU budget increase …

Late last night, Bill Cash put down this Early Day Motion:

“That this House notes that there are increasing demands from France and Germany for a new European Union Treaty; further notes that the European Parliament itself has now proposed a 5.9 per cent. increase in the European budget; further notes that the United Kingdom Parliament on Wednesday 13 October 2010 rejected the increase; furthernotes that the EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski is proposing a European tax; recalls that the Coalition Agreement is committed to a referendum on `any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences'; calls on the Government to make it immediately clear to France and Germany, to the European Commission and to the European Parliament that the United Kingdom will reject a European tax and an increase in the EU budget and EU economic governance over the UK and will veto any such treaty; and reasserts and reaffirms the United Kingdom rebate and the sovereignty, in practice, of the United Kingdom Parliament, about which the European Scrutiny Committee is holding an inquiry.”

It has so far been signed by Brian Binley, Peter Bone, Graham Brady, Douglas Carswell, Christopher Chope, James Clappison, Philip Davies, David Davis, Zac Goldsmith, Bernard Jenkin, Edward Leigh, Peter Lilley, David Nuttall, Priti Patel, John Redwood, Richard Shepherd, Bob Stewart and John Whittingdale. I am told that more signatures will be added today.

Of course recent developments – such as EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski proposing a European tax and the irresponsible European Parliament itself proposing a 5.9 % increase in the European budget – remind us that the Conservative Party and the Parliament must push forward the sovereignty issue, because ultimately that is what decides ‘how we are to be governed’. For example, spending cuts and austerity measures in general must only be considered if a Government is prepared to make a comprehensive financial analysis of all elements of the nation’s finances – including the vast amounts of money we seem prepared to hand over to the European Union through our contributions to its budget.

How Cash and the Eurorealists are turning the tide

It is extremely encouraging to know from the debate on Wednesday evening on the EU budget that there are so many sound Eurorealists on Conservative benches. All of them who spoke, including Bill Cash, argued that they wanted a reduction in the budget – and of course a cut in the EU functions i.e. repatriation. This is about parliamentary sovereignty.

It was exhilarating to see that on the question of the assertions and the aggrandisement by the European Parliament over the 2011 Budget that Cash’s amendment was unanimously accepted by the UK Parliament (not just the Government). This challenge by the UK Parliament to a European Parliament proposal to increase the Budget was rejected on Cash’s initiative (and I might add, unprompted by the Government). However much one would wish it otherwise and because of other absurdly complex procedures laid down by the European Treaties, Justine Greening has to get on her side a blocking minority in the Council of Ministers to defeat European Parliament proposals. To win the argument, the wording of the amendments as part of this legislative procedure had to be effective to get the right result. And so we have it. And if you saw the debate on television, you will have seen the cheering on the Conservative benches as Cash’s amendment went through.

Interesting also how Cash announced in his speech as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee that there will be a milestone inquiry in his Committee into the whole issue of the compatibility of the European Union’s assertions of their alleged superior jurisdiction over the Constitution of the United Kingdom and other Member States. It is therefore critically important and profoundly encouraging to see so many new and well-established Eurorealists in the House of Commons converging together in this time of political, economic and constitutional crisis. The tide is turning. This is a new era – the Labour Party having held the Chairmanship of the European Scrutiny Committee since 1979. This is the first time the tide has turned against the integrationist assumptions, on which the Committee has been appointed consistently by Governments of all descriptions since 1972. On the amendment and what it means, it is worth reading the transcript in Hansard rather than making generalised assertions – there is too much at stake.

Bill Cash is right – we must insist Government rejects European Parliament proposals to increase the EU budget

I note with real interest that apart from one Tory amendment made on the EU Budget 2011 debate which did not get through, Bill Cash did manage to get through his own effective amendment which says, “That this House takes note of European Union Document No. SEC(2010) 473, Statement of Estimates of the European Commission for the financial year 2011; and supports the Government's efforts to maintain the 2011 EU budget at the cash levels equivalent to the 2010 budget, while ensuring better value for money in EU expenditure; and calls on the Government to reject European Parliament proposals to increase the budget.” Despite incorrect suggestions on ConHome that this was somehow meek, it is in fact a real milestone. I would not like to think anyone is missing the wood for the trees here. Even though in his speech Cash even agreed with the objectives of the other Tory amendment which did not get through, it is clear with the Cash amendment that we are now in a position where the House has supported the “calls on the Government to reject European Parliament proposals to increase the budget.”

In the debate, Bill Cash made it clear, as he has consistently, that we must deal with the functions of the EU and the Budget with it – but in order to achieve this, the first step is to confirm and reassert parliamentary sovereignty in line with a Sovereignty Bill. The Government has now conceded the principle of asserting sovereignty but Cash insisted in the debate that the judiciary must be obliged to override European legislation where the Westminster Parliament insists in statute.

This applies to the Budget and to a vast range of functions under the European Union Treaties, including the Lisbon treaty, on which Bill Cash led a determined campaign to reject the Treaty with well over 100 comprehensive amendments. Despite implied suggestions that this is somehow a meek approach, he put down his own amendment without any reference to Government in the debate because as he said in his speech it is essential because of the nature and procedures given in the European Treaties – which as many will know, Cash wishes to change – to ensure that the process of repatriation is done properly and the Government is given every opportunity to gain the 91 votes required in the Council of Ministers to form a blocking minority and force the Commission to withdraw the Budget and produce a new one.

This is not the thinking, work or actions of a meek approach to this subject – indeed, Cash’s amendment was accepted unanimously by the House. Cash made it clear in his speech that he supported the sentiments and objectives of cutting the Budget and furthermore, he insisted that this had to be done in a way that would help the Government to achieve the right results in the negotiations which (rather regrettably) are part and parcel of the continuous stream of legislation under the Treaties which he has opposed.

Contrary to other comments, I believe that by achieving a unanimous acceptance of his amendment, Cash has achieved a significant advance in demonstrating that the UK Parliament will not be pushed around by the European Parliament.

The voters should reject this farce over electoral reform

THE principle of putting to the British people a voting system such as the Alternative Vote (AV) which violates the basic principle of the individual use of freedom to exercise choice at the ballot box, and not to have that vote reallocated in any other way, is indefensible and dangerous. I said as much in my Yorkshire Post article on Monday. It is an assault on democracy.

The Conservative Party manifesto 2010 actually stated: “We support the first-past-the-post system for Westminster elections because it gives voters the chance to kick out a government they are fed up with.” Yet its leadership and majority of MPs passed the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill at Second Reading on Monday of last week to give people the choice over a flawed AV system.

The point of creating freedom of choice turns on the issue of democracy and not to give the electorate a choice of surrendering their vote to a shoddy, half-baked, proposal to reallocate many lesser-preference votes to third-rate lesser candidates.

The Government should reject decisions made at this week's UN Climate Change Conference and stand up to the dogma of global warmists

By Jim McConalogue of the European Journal

You may have noticed or been watching the United Nations Climate Change Conference of UN Ad Hoc Working Groups taking place this week and ending today at the Hotel Maritim in Bonn. Because the untruths about global warming were exposed at the UN Copenhagen summit last year, and which ultimately led to negotiations failing, they have kept a tight lid on the public relations for sessions this year but the deception continues. 

This week has seen the third round of UN climate change negotiations with representatives from 178 governments meeting in Bonn to pave the way for the major UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún in November and December, even though there is no real scientific proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity.

It raises the question of why politicians should devote our scarce resources in a globally competitive world to a false and ill-defined problem, whilst ignoring the real problems the entire planet faces, such as extreme poverty, hunger, disease or terrorism.

Copenhagen failed for a reason – the rationale and theory behind targets and mitigation measures are false and misleading. The same is still true in Bonn as the prepared text to facilitate negotiations demonstrates.

Has the European Commission been given further powers to control the UK Budget?

After David Cameron’s attendance at his first EU summit, in a statement to the House on the European Council, the Prime Minister said on Monday, “So on budget surveillance let me be clear – the UK Budget will be shown to this House first – and not to the Commission. … Of course we will share projections and forecasts just as we do with the IMF and other international bodies. … Co-ordination and consultation – yes. Clearance – no. Never.”

Alistair Darling on reducing the deficit

On 29 July 1997, Alistair Darling said: “The Government have also introduced measures to begin a programme to reduce the deficit—the massive debt—that we inherited because of the outgoing Conservative Government's mismanagement of the economy. It is necessary to reduce debt if we are to secure the stable platform that the country needs to build for the future.”

How wrong he was back then on reducing the deficit and how times change. As David Cameron made clear yesterday – in 1997, debt was £350 billion – now it is getting on for £860 billion. In 1997 Labour inherited a £6 billion deficit – today it is £167 billion. In 1997 we were ranked seventh in the world for competitiveness – now we are 13th. Gordon Brown once said he’d abolished boom and bust, but has actually given us the longest and deepest recession since records began. This Budget was a nonsense.

Time to save the voice of the British people

“… I think the time has come for us to have a massive national debate about the future of who governs Britain because this affects people in their everyday, daily lives on a massive scale and we need, as I have just done, a new Parliamentary Sovereignty Bill, the object of which is very simple – to return to the British people the powers to govern themselves.” (Bill Cash MP) See his EU Tube.

100 Reasons why the ‘Copenhagen’ Governments and other proponents of “man-made” Global Warming theory of Climate Change are completely wrong

1. Politicians and activists say we must tackle global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but there is no real scientific proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity.

2. Why should politicians devote our scarce resources in a globally competitive world to a false and ill-defined problem, whilst ignoring the real problems the entire planet faces, such as: extreme poverty, hunger, disease or terrorism.

3. Politicians and activists say we must tackle global warming, pointing to rising sea levels but the ongoing rise in the sea level does not depend on short-term temperature changes, and in any case the rate of sea-level increases has been steady since the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

4. Activists and dubious “scientists” provide ice core proof of how warming over the centuries has been accompanied by raised CO2 levels, but as Professor Ian Clark, an expert in Palaeoclimatology from the University of Ottawa, and other scientists have claimed, warmer periods of the earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

5. For activists, global warming is accompanied by raised CO2 levels but after World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions – while global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.

A post-ratification referendum is essential for a meaningful Tory policy

I have already made it clear that the Tories broke this ultimate promise. The voters will not stand for it. Any Tory politician worth his salt won’t stand for it.

There is a great precedent in the United Kingdom to issuing a referendum now. There is no difference in political principle or in law between what happened in the post-ratification referendum of 1975 on the then European Community and the granting of a referendum following the EU-wide ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The mere transition of the Treaty to a post-ratification stage is being used as a poor excuse by the Tory leadership to get out of dealing with Europe at all.

But don't ask me if it bothers others. See the comments published on this blog:

Dear David, a post-ratification referendum does matter

A post-ratification referendum on Lisbon does matter. It matters because of the mass of provisions over almost every aspect of our daily lives provided for in the treaty, for what it now means to undemocratic governance in Britain, and in the interests of democracy. The Westminster Parliament has become a sham, or a conveyor belt, in which 70% of our laws originate from Brussels and are accepted blindly by politicians at Westminster.

All three key political parties pledged a referendum. All three political parties have now abandoned that promise, in their own unique ways, and the electorate’s faith in politics – in return for the ability for a politician to do something in line with their wishes – is dying its death. The British people are sick of the traitors who govern them.

Those who hold the power in the mainstream parliamentary parties, who simply choose to renege on promises when the going gets tough, are watching their votes slip to ever-extreme parties with increasingly dangerous messages on Europe and immigration. And we have a General Election approaching. I would not have thought the Tory party would have joined the ranks of the mainstream who had abandoned their promises and integrity on an issue so central to the governance of the United Kingdom.

So, there goes Mr. Cameron’s promise. And now we wait. What for? All I can advise is that voters will not look favourably on another empty, referendum-less, policy-less mandate. They wanted their say and it has been denied.

Is the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty legal?

It is astonishing to think that the ratification of the Lisbon treaty has been rammed through 27 national parliaments, including in the UK, with very serious questions over legality. That is not my opinion. That is the view of the UK Parliament’s own European Scrutiny Committee.

I had already written briefly before how the European Scrutiny Committee questioned David Miliband over the legality of the Irish guarantees on 2nd July.

The Committee then sent him a straightforward letter on 21st July over specific legal claims, asking him to answer several questions on the legal validity of the Irish guarantees in relation to the Lisbon Treaty. View this page and this one. 

Miliband then sent an awful and apologetic letter on 13th October, which failed to address any of the issues seriously (notice it was issued after the Irish referendum and almost 3 months late).

I now see that the Chairman (Labour) and the rest of the Committee are still astonished by his reply and have sent another letter on 21st October to continue their questions over legality. View this page and this one .
.

Czech Republic: President Klaus told ‘too late’ to seek exemption from Treaty

I have just heard that President Klaus is now being accused that it is too late for him to demand the    exemption from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and that he should have done it earlier. The difficulty is that “earlier” the Lisbon Treaty was dead because it was rejected in Ireland, as you know, and unanimity was and is required for its ratification and implementation, if the EU follows its own rules.

That is why President Klaus came up with this demand after the second Irish referendum. He is not demanding anything special, but “only” a legal guarantee which the EU has already granted to two other EU member states. And he requires this guarantee to be legally binding.

(I am currently writing this up in The European Journal).

Jim McConalogue: Ireland's lost powers over arranged marriages, social security benefits and a 30% corporation tax

By Jim McConalogue of The European Journal

A neat and digestible book, published this year on the corruption and waste in the European Union, The Great European Rip-off, written by David Craig and Matthew Elliott, is well worth mentioning in relation to our understanding of the Irish referendum.

Craig and Elliott refer to how, last year, Ireland and Denmark were given a tough lesson on the excessive powers they had already ceded to the EU. Alongside Denmark, Ireland had introduced new immigration laws to control the number of arranged marriages. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared those laws to be in breach of EU law, forcing their repeal – with the possibility that Ireland would have to pay compensation to those who would claim that their “human rights” were breached by the illegal national laws (page 92).

Last year, Ireland also clashed with the ECJ when it tried to clamp down on foreign workers claiming social security benefits for many months after leaving the country. The ECJ ruled that foreign workers must be entitled to Irish benefits even when they had returned home, because of freedom of movement laws (page 92).

There has also been much disregard in the referendum debate over how Lisbon will bring Ireland ever-closer to the European culture of immense public sector growth and high rates of taxation. This specially affects Ireland now. Previously, when Ireland attempted to maintain a low rate of corporation tax in order to encourage inward investment, the other member states with higher rates – imposed so as to support a massive public sector – threatened action in the ECJ to force Ireland to raise its rates. The claim is that Ireland is in breach of EU competition laws (page 94).

Jim McConalogue: The European Federal Superstate – how much more will its Irish province agree to?

By Jim McConalogue of The European Journal

There is not time here to spell out the post-war history of European integration, when the key continental European powers, namely France and Germany, underwent a complex process of reconstructing and containing a defeated but still dangerous Europe.

The key response of Europe’s political elites to the major external global pressures – at that time, the USA and USSR – and to its own internal economic and political failures was to push for a collective and federal organisation of European states.

In fact, from the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community through to the ratification of each European Treaty – from Rome to Nice – Europe’s political classes often within France and Germany have been frank about their creation of institutions which would lead to a “federation of Europe”. That has been their intention from the start and so the creation of a federalist state, which would exert control over national Parliaments, has long been known.

Of course, one of the most recent endeavours of the European elites has been to create a European Constitution, to enhance, consolidate and solidify a federal European superstate. When France and the Netherlands rejected the EU Constitution in their 2005 referendums, a response by the now highly-organised European Union was to ensure it still was still enforced as a constitutional text – but through a merger of the European Treaties, rather than an establishment of one text. The effect, all EU leaders have now accepted, is the same.

So, Europe must now face up to the Lisbon treaty – or rather, Ireland must face Lisbon, since she is the only country with so great a Constitution that her people have been given a say. Of course, that Constitution is already under attack since Ireland has already voted on this same treaty, and there are no new legal guarantees. The future of Europe really does sit in Ireland’s hands. The Preamble to Lisbon indicates a massive change in Ireland’s constitutional character in its relationship with the EU. It is a direct threat to Irish sovereignty. The reference in the Lisbon Treaty in which “‘this Treaty’ shall be replaced by ‘of this Treaty and of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,’ indicates a merger of two significant Treaties – those of the European Community and the European Union. The fundamental change in the Treaty provisions, resulting from the merger of the Treaty of Rome, which was about trade and political co-operation, and the Maastricht Treaty which was about European Government will alter the structure of the legal and constitutional relationship between the European Union and the Community, between Ireland and the EU and between government and the Irish Parliament and its electors. They are the conditions which represent a great threat to the way in which Ireland is governed.

Jim McConalogue: Implications for David Cameron of Ireland’s (second) referendum on Lisbon

By Jim McConalogue of The European Journal

The Conservative Party, as you well know, would benefit greatly from a No vote in the Irish referendum. It would give the leadership an opportunity to work with European partners to ensure that Lisbon was rejected and that Westminster could look towards a new constitutional settlement on Europe and a new renegotiation in Brussels. In a letter recently published in The Irish Times, I look to our immediate position:

I am glad The Irish Times points to the fact that Germany has supposedly reinforced domestic parliamentary and court supervision over EU legislation (Editorial, September 9th), but this has direct political implications for Ireland and the rest of Europe which are not mentioned. The Czechs, the Poles and the Germans have still not yet ratified – with the first two awaiting the outcome of the Irish referendum and the third, awaiting this new national law before ratifying the treaty.

The next UK government is also waiting to pounce after Ireland’s vote. If there is a No vote in Ireland, there will be no overall ratification of the treaty by all the EU member-states. Therefore, the treaty would be abandoned. This would mean that the UK’s Conservative Party commitment to a referendum on the treaty, if the ratification process is not completed across the Union, would create intense pressure for a UK referendum. While the UK has already ratified, a Conservative government would undo this by easily winning a No vote in a UK referendum, and withdrawing the UK’s ratification. The treaty will be dead – as it should have been after Ireland first said No.

I think it is worth pointing this out not only because political ‘isolation’ is a concern for the Irish people voting in the upcoming referendum, but that it is an obvious task for a new Conservative administration.

James McConalogue: The EU Referendum cover-up - how Brussels is deceiving the Irish

By Jim McConalaogue of The European Journal

A few days ago, I had a letter printed in the Irish Democrat under the title, ‘EU referendum cover-up’, bringing to attention a set of facts that former MEP and grandfather of the eurosceptic movement, Jens-Peter Bonde, had earlier made clear in an article.

I thought it was definitely worth flagging up as an issue, in addition to the concerns already raised by Dan Hamilton on this site. Ireland’s ‘Decision’ may well be the equivalent of the UK’s infamous ‘red lines’ as Lisbon went through Westminster – it is meaningless and is legally invalid. 

"THE EU Summit strategy dealing with Ireland's referendum marked a distinct cover-up for the Irish people in dealing with the Irish No vote. Their way of dealing with it is similar to the Edinburgh Agreement of December 1992, when Denmark changed its No to Maastricht for full Danish opt-outs from some provisions of that Treaty.

The Irish 'decision' did not previously exist as a formal legal instrument of EU summits. It was invented as a political tool to get around the Danish No to Maastricht in 1992 by the Head of the Council Legal Service, Jean-Claude Piris.

It is a meaningless way of giving people the feeling of legal certainty – over abortion, neutrality and taxation – which does not exist. It is not any part of the properly ratified EU treaties and even the most minor of changes must only be validated through new ratifications by all 27 member states in their national parliaments.

The only difference between Ireland and the other member states is that Ireland's great constitution allows her people to have a say."

The Irish have no legal guarantees. They have no different Treaty. It is the same Treaty they rejected last year and, with few exceptions, it is the same as the EU Constitution rejected by France and Netherlands in 2005. Where do the Conservatives fit in with all this? More on that to follow...

Is the downfall of Brian Cowen and Gordon Brown the price of denial over Lisbon?

By Jim McConalogue of the European Journal.

It is reported in the Belfast Telegraph today that Taoiseach Brian Cowen is leading Fianna Fail to record levels of unpopularity, with four-in-seven people who voted for his party in the 2007 general election now deserting it. The overall support of Fianna Fail sank to 17%. As a leader, Brian Cowen remains the most unpopular as his rating fell to 15%. The poll puts his party in third place.

Like UK ’s Labour, Fianna Fail’s support plummeted in the European elections in a wipeout in June. Brown denied the referendum outright. Cowen is forced to accept a referendum, through the Irish Constitution, but denies dealing with the European issue at all – as I said on the Slugger O’Toole blog yesterday:

"Firstly, I believe that Ireland’s perceived isolation is a result of Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s inability to deal with the real issues in the Treaty in 2008, and the subsequent way in which he dealt with the whole operation since, rather than the problem with the people saying No.
 
In effect, the Government has allowed the European Commission to move in, take over and enforce a second referendum. The perceived isolation has no political reality, since it has been brought about by an obvious but silent failure of the Irish Government to act on behalf of the Irish people in its interests after the initial No vote, against a federalist European Union and its demands for a re-run. A second Lisbon No vote will end this assault on Ireland ’s national democracy."

Some might speculate that their downfall is a result of difficult “leadership” through recession, but an important factor has to be Brown and Cowen’s respective denial over facing up to the European issue, particularly over Lisbon, and dealing with national concerns over it.

A new Conservative policy on the Lisbon Treaty?

The European Scrutiny Committee has effectively backed 88% of the British people who wanted a say on the Lisbon Treaty and who have questioned, on grounds of democracy and law, how the Lisbon Treaty could ever have been enforced in this country without their consent. How can Britain now sign up to the Treaty, via Westminster’s hastily passed Bill, if that Treaty is to incorporate the ‘Irish Decision’ (guarantees made to the Irish), and the parliamentary Act that has passed the Treaty is now nonsense.

The British Government are wrong to claim that the Irish Decision on the Lisbon Treaty is legally binding, so it is a good to see that a parliamentary committee – the European Scrutiny Committee – is asking for a response on how this is all possible. View this page and this one. There is therefore good reason for the Conservatives to adopt this as part of their policy – we are in a new stage and a new policy is required.

Bill Cash receives overwhelming support

Bill Cash, MP for Stone, received overwhelming support in a vote of confidence at an Extraordinary General Meeting last night. The meeting gave him a truly overwhelming majority - and a standing ovation. Bill said that he was utterly delighted with the results. He received a personal letter of support from David Cameron (see below).

That morning, in the European Scrutiny Committee, Bill had cross-examined David Miliband on the Irish guarantees and the Lisbon Treaty. He pointed out that the Minister for Europe, Baroness Kinnock, had stated the previous day that the British Parliament had “agreed” the Irish guarantees, which was simply not true. Bill challenged the Foreign Secretary to either agree with her or to tell the truth. The Foreign Secretary completely failed to give a satisfactory explanation of the legal and political situation regarding the Irish question and Cash demanded a referendum in line with the wishes of 88% of the British people.

Letter from David Cameron to Bill Cash

2nd July

Dear Bill,

Further to my letter to you on 4th June, I understand that you will be meeting your Association at an Extraordinary General Meeting later today.

My earlier letter made clear that you did not have further questions to answer, and that I hoped very much that you would be able to put this matter behind you. However, in the light of the subsequent press coverage you and your family have had, I would like to reaffirm what I said and to thank you personally for the tireless contribution you make to the work of Parliament. You have a long record of serving your constituents with commitment and integrity.

I wish you well in the outcome of your Extraordinary General Meeting, and look forward to working with you to make sure a Conservative Government is elected at the next General Election.

Yours ever,

David Cameron

EU legislation at Westminster: time for an electoral mandate

I would like to further Theresa May’s calls for more efficient Westminster scrutiny of EU legislation with a few more suggestions.

It has been a persistent problem in Britain that the Government, in signing up to European legislation, has almost inevitably overridden the scrutinized assessments, conclusions and objections of the United Kingdom Parliament. In short, Westminster continues to be shunned as EU legislation is passed. This has been partly explained by the failure of the European Scrutiny Committee’s scrutiny reserve – by which Parliament, through its designated Committee, should 'okay' a particular Treaty or piece of legislation before elected ministers agree a decision in the Council of Ministers. The Government has overridden the reserve countless times and it has become, to some extent, a redundant tool. In fact, it is this kind of “democratic deficit” attributed to the EU which actually derives from badly designed parliamentary arrangements in Westminster. The Conservative Party has already led the call for the scrutiny reserve to be asserted on a “statutory basis,” so that ministers are fundamentally and legally obliged to gain Parliamentary approval before they pursue fuller negotiations in the Council of Ministers.

Labour Party sides with Russian 'nasties' in Council of Europe

On Monday, Europhile Labour MP, Denis MacShane asked Gordon Brown in the House of Commons: “Does he share my dismay that when the issue [tough stance on Russia] was fought out at the Council of Europe the other week, the Russians’ closest collaborators and fellow travellers in the debate were UK delegates from the Conservative party?”

First, the interesting observation is that Gordon Brown did not answer the question, indicating he did not share MacShane’s opinions or his dismay. On the other hand, the worst that the Conservatives have done is to sit with Putin’s centre right United Russia in the Council (hardly a crime, the bloke does still run Russia).

“Destination Earth, space at the service of Earth and the European citizen”

That is France's vision for an EU Space Policy which was suggested at an informal meeting of the European ministers for space affairs, held at the European Space Agency's Spaceport in Kourou in late July. Despite opposition, Sarkozy has a politically ambitious plan for the use of space for security and defence purposes and wider exploration of Mars and the moon. There is no legal base for it under the existing EU Treaties (but the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution does). Recent events and reports have attempted to further Sarkozy's European space plans. This is not what Britain wants from the European Union.

Playing John Redwood up front will bring rewards

I really hoped the Conservative Party would have stepped up to the mark on issues of economic principle during the financial crisis – but they have been disappointing. So I will go further than what others have said and argue that it is John Redwood who has the ability to ‘connect’ – he connects himself to the philosophy he espouses (he doesn’t offer a sewn up set of impersonal disjointed policies), he connects to average ‘pay my way’ voters on the ground and he connects his own framework coherently into a better (Conservative) vision for how the Government, BoE and even FSA should have acted during the financial crisis. He also has the benefit of experience as a former Cabinet minister. In the absence of a practical Conservative Party view, he was not only right on his anti-bailout sentiment but he was right to have given private markets absolute priority over any state recapitalisation measures. Not because his view is merely popular, but because he is most probably right, John Redwood should be up there working with Osborne deciding how the Conservatives are realistically going to act in the future of this crisis (both the financial one and the political one of their own making).

The Plea of a Shadow Chancellor

‘Aarrgh, the dying economy’
Cameron said to Osborne
‘What’s a leader to do?

‘Darling’s saved the banks, they say
Brown’s patched up the whole of Europe –
Damn George, I think we’re screwed’

‘Oh, its balls and piffle Dave’
Osborne said to Cameron
‘Britain will be bankrupt soon

‘Once Bailout Brown’s
Spent all our pounds
Slaughtering the many for the few

‘They’ll have robbed the country
To pay off the bankers
From Rock down to Lloyds Group

‘So I’ll slash taxes and make it so
That each man pays his dues:
You watch them switch from red to blue.’

Jim McConalogue