Roger Helmer MEP: Twenty questions for Conservatives about David Cameron's Government

By Roger Helmer MEP. Follow Roger on Twitter.

Twenty Questions for Conservatives...

1. David Cameron gave a “cast iron guarantee”, in the Sun newspaper on Sept 26^th 2007, for a Lisbon referendum.  But after the Treaty was ratified, he dropped the commitment.  Should he have changed his mind?
2. The Tory Manifesto (like Labour & Lib-Dems) promised an EU referendum.  Should Cameron honour that promise?  Why did Cameron whip his MPs in Westminster to oppose an EU referendum?
3. Both Conservative and Lib-Dem manifestos promised to address the European parliament’s travelling circus between Brussels and Strasbourg (costing £200m a year).  Yet the Coalition failed to back moves by Tory MEPs to curtail it.  Why was that?
4. The Party had a commitment to repatriating powers from Brussels.  It has made no attempt to do so.  Was Cameron right to forget it?
5. Do you feel that Cameron tried hard enough to resist EU financial regulation; the EU diplomatic service (EEAS); the European Investigation Order etc etc?  Do you understand why he whipped his MEPs to support the EEAS in Brussels?
6. Do you feel that the government should do more to reform - or withdraw from - the European Arrest Warrant?
7. It is reported that George Osborne plans to make more UK funds available, via the IMF, for the €uro bail-outs.  Do you think that this is a good idea?
8. Do you agree that Abu Qatada, and other foreign terrorist suspects and criminals, should be repatriated, regardless of the European Court of Human Rights?
9. Do you believe that the Coalition’s green policies are about saving the planet - or about political correctness, gesture politics and raising taxes?
10. Do you approve of the plan to cover Britain with 30,000 wind turbines by 2020?  Or do you fear it will despoil our countryside, raise energy prices, undermine industrial competitiveness, and drive families into fuel poverty?  And that in any case the target will not be achieved, risking serious supply shortages?
11. Are you happy with Osborne’s “static”, zero-sum fiscal model?  Must tax cuts always be compensated by rises elsewhere?  Or do you think that some taxes could be reduced without affecting revenue, and that such tax cuts would promote growth?  Like the 50% rate, and National Insurance holidays for young employees?
12. More generally, do you feel that the Coalition urgently needs a growth strategy?
13. Do you approve of the government’s university admissions plans, led by Vince Cable’s placeman Professor Les Ebdon?  Or do you think that this is a piece of outrageous, Gordon-Brown-style social engineering which will dumb-down our universities and undermine our economy?  And grossly unfair to excellent candidates who will be excluded merely because they’re middle-class?
14. Are you content with the budget cuts to our Armed Forces, which have seen new Nimrod planes cut up for scrap, aircraft carriers planned with no aircraft, and forces morale decimated?  Are you concerned that the government may no longer be able to deliver its first duty -- the Defence of the Realm?
15. At a time of economic stringency, are you happy for foreign aid to increase while public services at home are cut back?
16. Do you think that the Government has done enough to deliver on its immigration targets?
17. It’s reported that David Cameron plans to make the legalisation of same-sex “marriage” the land-mark achievement of his Premiership. Do you applaud that objective, or do you perhaps feel that he should give higher priority to other policy areas?  Like energy security? Economic recovery?  National independence?
18. Are you concerned that London’s place as a global financial hub is threatened by lack of airport capacity, which is likely to drive business abroad?
19. In that context, are you happy to spend £30 billion on HS2, to cut twenty minutes off the London/Birmingham rail journey?  Or should we have different priorities?
20. While Michael Gove is doing good work on education, do you understand the logic of saying “You can have any kind of school you like - so long as it’s not a Grammar School”?

On all these questions, I find myself at odds with the government, and with the Party.   But the strange thing is that I find that Conservative voters, and Party members, and activists, overwhelmingly agree with me, and not with the Party Panjandrums.  Cameron had better look out.  Party members will be asking why they should continue to support the Party when on so many issues they disagree with it.  At the heart of the problem is the plain fact that David Cameron gives more weight to bien pensant opinion in the Guardian editorial office than he does to his own members.

Roger Helmer MEP: Is this the last gasp of €uro-think?

By Roger Helmer MEP. Follow Roger on Twitter.

Never, I think, have I seen two such dramatically contrasting articles on facing pages of a national newspaper.  We have a hugely striking example between the clash of old-think and new-think -- of inward-looking little-Europeanism versus outward-looking global trade.  You’ll find the two pieces on pages 4 and 5 of today's Sunday Telegraph Business News.

In the old-think corner, we have Sir Roger Carr, the man who lost the fight for Cadbury against Kraft.  He’s the Chairman of Centrica, and Chairman of the CBI.  If that were not enough, he’s also in the Advisory Board of Business for the New Europe, an advocacy group set up by that all-purpose €uro-fanatic Roland Rudd.

I was struck immediately by the sub-head of Sir Roger’s piece: “Banker-bashing and euroscepticism might be vote-winners, but only business can rescue Britain as the economic clouds gather once again”.  Take out the egregious “and euroscepticism” (my italics), and I can agree with Sir Roger word for word.  But his unsubtle dig at eurosceptics is a giveaway.  He expands on the point (but not much) in the body of the text: “Euroscepticism may be a vote-winner, but European trade is critical to everyone”.

Of course European trade is important.  No one would argue with that.  So are American trade, and trade with other partners.  But euroscepticism is not (or should not be) anti-trade.  Most sceptics I know (including me) would be perfectly comfortable with a European Free Trade Area.  It’s a great idea.  We could call it EFTA.

Roger Helmer MEP: The Tories can shoot UKIP's fox with an In/Out referendum

By Roger Helmer MEP. Follow Roger on Twitter.

There is a rift in the Conservative Party.  A fissure.  A gully.  A chasm.  A canyon.  A gap so wide it potentially represents an existential threat to the Party, and perhaps justifies radical action.

I speak of course about the gap between the leader and the led, between CCHQ and the grassroots.  I believe I’m in touch with grassroots opinion.  Three times over the years I’ve been selected as an MEP by Party members in the East Midlands, who largely agree with me about Europe, and more recently about energy and climate change.  An overwhelming majority want a more arms-length relationship with Brussels, while many, like me, believe we’d be Better Off Out entirely.

I have argued for years that despite appearances, the Party is fundamentally eurosceptic.  That we sceptics are better off staying in it and fighting our corner from within.  That eventually we’d get a leader who would get a grip on the issue.  I had high hopes of Hague (who now seems to have gone native), and then of IDS (who is doing great things on welfare but is no longer a standard-bearer on Europe).  Then along came Cameron, whom I supported in the Leadership election, in part because he guaranteed to take Tory MEPs out of the federalist EPP.  He delivered on that promise, albeit belatedly.

But he broke his “Cast-Iron Guarantee” on an EU referendum.  His administration has been handing powers willy-nilly to Brussels.  We’ve had the Veto-That-Never-Was - and seemingly he’s failed to learn the lesson from that surge in the polls that greeted the news.  And he’s sat across a table from me and told me face-to-face that he doesn’t want an EU referendum “because he believes that the UK is better off in the EU”.  That proposition is wrong twice over.  First, he shouldn’t deny the British people a referendum on a major constitutional issue because he fears he’ll get a result he doesn’t like.  And second, of course, the costs of membership hugely exceed any potential benefits, and we’d be Better Off Out.

Roger Helmer MEP: Climate alarmism is falling out of favour in the rest of the world - but Europe hasn't noticed

By Roger Helmer MEP. Follow Roger on Twitter.

We might as well hang up a sign in the airports: "Closed for Business".  While EU leaders pontificate about prioritising growth and jobs, we have climate mitigation policies in place that massively raise energy costs and force industries, companies, jobs and investment out of the EU altogether.  In the name of environmentalism, we force them to go off-shore, to jurisdictions with lower environmental standards. 

It's a whole spectrum of energy-intensive businesses.  Metals like steel and aluminium -- a highly energy-intensive industry.  Cement.  Chemicals.  Glass. Paper and wood-processing.  We talk about "rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing" and in the next breath propose "a floor price for carbon". Then we wonder why industry sails off into the sunset. 

I have been writing about this for years, but it was brought home to me with added force at a dinner-briefing last night hosted in Brussels by EUROFER, the European Steel Association.  Normally at these events there are speeches/briefings/presentations followed by a debate with interventions from the floor.  In this case, after a couple of speeches, attention turned to dinner and the debate never happened.  My carefully-crafted question was condemned to languish un-asked, so I'll ask it now. 

"Mr. Chairman, the Commission spokesman rightly pointed out that the EU today faces a crisis of low growth, low productivity and competitiveness, and high unemployment.  Yet this is at the end of a decade devoted to the Lisbon Process, which aimed hubristically to create in Europe 'the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world'.  Doesn't this massive failure suggest that there may be something fundamentally wrong with the EU's model of economic integration, rather as the current €uro crisis suggests something fundamentally wrong in the architecture of the Single Currency? Isn't it the case that our climate mitigation policies are increasing costs, undermining competitiveness, and forcing energy-intensive industries like steel to relocate off-shore?" 

Roger Helmer MEP: The Man in Whitehall says no to local opposition to windfarms

By Roger Helmer MEP. Follow Roger on Twitter.

On January 9th I wrote a piece about the proposed wind-farm overlooking the historic battlefield of Naseby and I undertook to write to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP. I also promised to share his reply with you. I attach it below.  Clearly Mr. Pickles is a very busy man, so he referred my letter to Sir Michael Pitt, Chief Executive of The Planning Inspectorate.

Sir Michael writes with commendable courtesy.  His mastery of mandarin-speak is exemplary.  It is worthy of the BBC’s “Yes Minister”, so much so that I wonder if the BBC consulted him on the script.  That being so, and in the interests of clarity and the avoidance of doubt, let me offer you my paraphrase in more earthy and vernacular terms.

He is saying, in effect, that we local oiks, Luddites and Nimbies can do whatever we want, but it won’t make any difference and he won’t care a scrap.  He isn’t interested in normal planning criteria, but only in national policy on energy and wind farms (which is, of course, not really a national policy at all, but a Brussels/EU policy).  We can organise our little protest groups, set up our websites, raise funds with our wine-and-cheese parties and our Quiz Nights, hire our lawyers and consultants, engage our local papers and local authorities, make our presentations at local planning enquiries, win our cases and break open the champagne in celebration.

Roger Helmer MEP: I am not prepared to stand aside for some A-List Cameron protégée from St. John’s Wood

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter.

In October, I announced my intention to resign from the European Parliament on December 31. I was asked by our delegation leader Martin Callanan to postpone that date to January 20 to cover some key votes in Strasbourg in January, which I agreed to do. However, I have not yet signed the Parliament’s formal deed of resignation. I made it clear at the time that a key reason for my decision was my disillusionment with a wide range of Conservative policies - a view which has been strongly reinforced by David Cameron’s vocal backing for further fiscal integration in the EU.

I announced my resignation in the confident expectation (shared by just about everyone) that I would be replaced by the next-in-line on the 2009 Conservative East Midlands list, Rupert Matthews. Since the introduction of the regional list system of voting, there have been nine mid-term vacancies for UK MEPs, and on every occasion the seat has gone to the next available name on the list.

It has now emerged, however, that the Party has reservations over the succession. After the 2010 General Election, a large number of very good people, including Rupert, were taken off the Westminster candidates list. Because he is not currently on that list, the Party has referred his case to the Candidates’ Committee, which will require him to undergo a candidate panel. This is entirely wrong-headed. The Candidates’ Committee exists to pre-qualify names for future elections. It cannot retrospectively disqualify names from previous elections. Rupert was on the list at the relevant time, 2008.

Roger Helmer MEP: Camborne are wrong about the single currency. Our recovery begins when the €uro breaks up.

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter.

Cameron and Osborne have a clear line on the eurozone.  While they think the €uro was a misguided venture, and they don’t want to join -- ever -- the argument goes that a disorderly breakdown of the €uro would be a disaster for the UK economy, and that the eurozone is such a key trading partner for the UK that any recession there would cause us huge damage.

Based on this analysis, Cameron makes encouraging noises about “Big bazookas”, and (despite the Veto) about the UK’s moral support for efforts to save the €uro.  And he is prepared to cough up billions of British tax-payers’ money for the IMF, knowing that much of it will be diverted to “Saving the €uro”.

I think this analysis is fundamentally flawed.  For a start, I don’t believe that the €uro can be saved, and I believe that attempts to do so are just throwing good money after bad.

I wrote yesterday about the importance of seeking trade and growth outside Europe, and I quoted Matthew Lynn in Money Week, who argues cogently that a eurozone melt-down may do the UK a great deal less damage than the pundits predict -- and may even offer net benefits.  Of course every silver lining comes with a cloud.  For example, if the UK becomes a “safe haven” from the eurozone, we may see capital inflows that drive up Sterling and damage our competitiveness.  The Bank of England is reported to be looking at emergency capital controls to deal with this contingency.

Roger Helmer MEP: When they tell you that half our international trade is with the EU, that’s not a good reason to focus more on the EU. It’s a good reason to redress the balance with the rest of the world.

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter.

I picked up an incoming Tweet this morning from my good friend and colleague Dan Hannan MEP.  It reads: “Denis MacShane told me, didactically, that we sell more to Belgium than Brazil. That, Denis, is precisely our problem.”

Dan makes an important point.  The fact is that between 40 and 50% of Britain’s international trade is with the EU’s 26 (EU less UK).  The exact figure is debatable, because of the Rotterdam effect and other technical problems with analysing the trade statistics.

There is the standard, familiar Europhile interpretation of this simple fact.  “50% of our trade” (they say) “is with the EU.  This, by itself, justifies our membership, and means that the costs are worth it”.  You will have spotted the errors in this statement.  There is the implicit assumption that trade depends on membership (Not true: ask Norway or Switzerland).  There is the nice round 50%, which is almost certainly exaggerated.  And there is the failure to address the European Commission’s own estimates that the trade benefits of membership amount to around 1.8% of GDP, while regulatory costs amount to about 5.5% - three times higher.

But let it stand for the moment, and contrast it with the alternative interpretation.  The EU is (in very round terms) about 20% of global trade and GDP.  But because we have been too focussed on the EU, because we have failed to look outwards and engage sufficiently with the global economy, our trade with the EU is 40%+, while our trade with the rest of the world is shamefully stunted -- and indirectly, that is part of the price we pay for EU membership.  Dan is right.  It’s not so much that we’re doing well in Belgium.  More that we’re failing to do well in Brazil.

Roger Helmer MEP: UN Climate deal agreed! ... this year, next year, sometime, never?

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here.

Chris Huhne is hailing the eleventh-hour Climate deal (more like thirteenth-hour, in fact) in Durban as "a triumph for EU diplomacy" -- even as we watch the €uro crash and burn, and the EU's stock in world affairs slump.  He tells us that EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has played a blinder, and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.  Geoffrey Lean takes up the theme in the Telegraph.  The deal, he says, "gives the world a chance".

But there's a small problem.  Ask any lawyer, and he'll tell you that an agreement to agree (at some point in the future) is no agreement at all.  It's merely an agreement not to agree now.  After all the whole UN climate process from Poznan to Copenhagen to Cancun (where I went to witness the event) to Durban this year, has been a case of Great Expectations frustrated, plus pious hopes of agreement next time round -- never yet fulfilled.

Roger Helmer: We need to save the patient (Europe), not the disease (the Euro)

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here.

I was delighted to see that Peter Oborne, in his Daily Telegraph article today about the €uro, quotes my line (tweeted earlier in the week).  I said that asking “Can the €uro be saved?” is a bit like asking a cancer patient how we save the tumour. I received an e-mail recently from a constituent pointing out that the EU’s single-minded objective is solely to save the currency, when it ought to be about saving the eurozone economies.

This is a key point.  We talk about monetary issues and economic problems, and it’s all too easy to forget that we’re talking here about a real human tragedy.  People, families, communities, companies, nations, are in despair as they lose jobs, incomes, pensions.  Poverty is stalking large parts of Europe, and the light at the end of the tunnel seems to have gone out entirely.  The issue is not how we save the €uro (described rightly by Lord Lawson as one of the most irresponsible political experiments of the post-war era).  It is how we rescue millions of people from penury and depression, and how we avoid years - decades - of grinding deflation for countries like Greece and Portugal.

Of course George Osborne is probably right to insist that the best thing that could happen for British economic prospects (at least in the short term) is the resolution of the €uro débâcle.  But restoring confidence to the financial markets will not, by itself, solve the underlying problem of massive economic divergence between Germany and southern Europe .  The disorderly demise of the eurozone would indeed create major problems for the UK .  As my former staffer Sally McNamara (now a senior European analyst with the Heritage Foundation in Washington ) has pointed out, the damage to the UK has been estimated by Ing Bank at £5 billion off GDP.  But as Sally also recalls, that’s just about the estimated cost, annually, of European regulation to the British economy.  We need to get this in proportion. 

Roger Helmer MEP: Cameron is asking Germany to bankrupt itself in a futile attempt to sustain an unsustainable currency

By Roger Helmer MEP. He blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter here.

Economics is the butt of many jokes. The dismal science. Ten economists with eleven opinions between them.  But I’m afraid we need a smattering of economics to get a grip on the euro problem, so please bear with me.

Cameron and Merkel have a fundamental disagreement.  Cameron is calling for the ECB to stand behind the euro with (in effect) an unlimited commitment to back the government debt of all eurozone members, including Club Med.  Merkel refuses, saying that it’s against the treaties, against German Constitutional law, and will cause inflation.

On these points Merkel is right, and Cameron knows it.  But he thinks that the emergency is so serious that we should ignore the legal niceties -- in an emergency, de facto beats de jure -- and accept the inflation risk.  After all that’s medium-term, whereas the threat of euro collapse is next week.  And if we don’t have a short-term, we certainly won’t have a long-term.  But Merkel is also calling for grinding austerity programmes in the Club Med countries, which virtually preclude growth and recovery.

If the ECB follows Cameron’s “Big Bazooka” formula, it will end up with a vast pile of junk bonds on its hands, and will be, in effect, bankrupt.  Yes, it can print money.  But we know where that leads.  The eurozone Countries will have pooled debt.  The strong states will have to support the weak.  And as Angela Merkel well knows, the last man standing in the eurozone will be Germany, which will ultimately be responsible for the debts of everyone else.

Roger Helmer MEP: What do local Tories think of Louise Mensch MP's love of The Guardian?

Roger Helmer MEP blogs here.

Louise Mensch (née Bagshawe) has achieved a huge amount of airtime recently.  She is of course the very model of a modern Conservative MP.  Young(ish), a woman, a successful author, sitting on a small fortune made from her chick-lit ventures, married to the manager of a successful heavy metal band.  She divides her life between New York and Westminster, but still finds time for the occasional courtesy call to her Corby Constituency.  She is the ideal Cameroon -- achingly trendy, utterly with-it, resolutely on-message.  Not for her the revolt over the EU referendum, despite previous Party promises.

The trouble is, "achingly trendy" can so easily tip over into self-parody, and I fear that for Louise, that's a real threat.  We have all seen her press pictures, posing imperiously in her partially transparent party-frock.

She advises wives to make themselves attractive for their husbands, and she has been criticised by unreconstructed feminists for shaming the sisterhood.  I should have reservations, however, on different grounds.  She seems to be saying "Look at me. I'm so liberated, so confident, so independent that I can get away with saying things that would have scarified the Sisters in the Seventies".  Not much political content there, but a great deal of self-promotion.

She once flirted briefly with the Labour Party.  Some might see this as showing a lack of political commitment, but that's a very last-century point of view.  Today, it merely signifies a pleasing political eclecticism that fits perfectly into the narrative of the Conservative modernisers.  After all, did not Dave himself speak of being the "Heir to Blair"?  (Although we've heard less of that recently).

Roger Helmer MEP: My profound disappointment with the policies of the Coalition

Roger Helmer is Conservative MEP for the East Midlands.

I have recently announced my intention of leaving the European parliament at the year-end, and while several factors were involved in my decision, I have made it clear that my dissatisfaction with a number of areas of Conservative Party and/or Coalition policy played a major part. These areas of course include my "hobby-horses" of Europe and climate/energy, but there is much more besides.

I have written extensively, over many years, on Europe and on climate/energy issues, so I will mention them only briefly here. 

The EU: The Party leadership, and Cameron in particular, have failed to understand either the damage that EU membership is doing to Britain, or the opportunities that would be available to an independent UK with a more global stance. Nor is the Party responding adequately to growing calls from Tory MPs, Party members and activists, and from the public generally, for a radically new relationship with the EU. I've been waiting fifteen years for a Conservative administration to get a grip on these issues, and I am profoundly disappointed with the Coalition's performance.

Roger Helmer MEP: Green Jobs? What Green Jobs?

By Roger Helmer MEP

(A wind turbine self-immolates, but that's nothing compared to the damage they do to the economy)

Chris Huhne, described as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has no time for any carping or questioning about his energy policy.

Sceptics point out that increasing numbers of scientists are doubting the fundamental CO2/climate change link, as evidence accumulates against it -- most recently the CLOUD experiment at Cern, which provides compelling evidence for the alternative theory that climate change is driven largely by the Sun (a proposition which has seemed obvious to many commentators from the start).

Economists who accept the IPCC orthodoxy on CO2 nevertheless point out the economic reality that more or less no one except the EU is actually pursuing the sort of sacrificial climate policies that Huhne has espoused, and therefore that the policy is doomed to fail in its own terms, as China and India keep building coal-fired power stations.  If we were to close down the entire British economy overnight (and Huhne seems to be doing his best on that), it's estimated that increased emissions from China would replace our shortfall in about twelve months.

Roger Helmer MEP: We mustn't conflate a successful Anglo-French mission in Libya with a success for the EU

Roger Helmer is Conservative MEP for the East Midlands.

Matthew d’Ancona is that splendid chap who writes for the Sunday Telegraph, and whose weekly column is compulsory reading.  I (almost) always agree with him.  But I was struck by a recent Tweet from him (thoughtfully re-Tweeted by Tim Montgomerie, whom I follow).  In a reference to our intervention in Libya, he writes “Shows that US has to be there, but not necessarily in the lead -- Anglo-French leadership the key. Isolationists of Left and Right need new arguments!”. (More or less verbatim, but I have extended the abbreviations, for clarity).

Now one should be very cautious about applying an extended exegesis to the few words of a Tweet, which necessarily lacks background, context and explanation (as I have occasionally found to my cost). Yet Matthew seems to argue that because a primarily Anglo-French initiative has succeeded, we can cope without the Yanks, and he suggests that this undermines the position of those he dubs “isolationists”.  I should have thought that undervaluing the Transatlantic Alliance, and assuming that a few European powers could face global security threats without the support of the USA, was the worst kind of isolationism, but we’ll let that pass.

Who are these isolationists of whom Matthew speaks? Indeed are there any isolationists at all in our web-enabled, interconnected world? I have a horrible feeling that he is referring to Eurosceptics. I should like to be disabused of this notion, but let’s pursue the idea.