Newsletter January/February 2009

Enfield Council by-elections
Fred stood as our UKIP candidate in the Bush Hill Park ward by-election on 8th January and gained 5.9% of the vote. The results were:
Adrian Croshaw (Conservative) 1320 votes
Ivor Wiggett (Labour) 413
Paul Smith (Lib. Dem) 129
Fred Rolph (UKIP) 123
Jack Johnson (Green) 97
My thanks to everyone who helped with distributing the 3,500 leaflets. We covered about 80% of the ward.

Madge will be standing as our candidate in the Jubilee ward by-election to be held on 12th February. We have had 4,000 leaflets printed and are in the process of putting these through letterboxes.

DVDs
We have about 900 of the latest DVD Remote Control and Out of Control. I did send one out with the last newsletter but if you want additional copies for friends and neighbours, please contact Evelyn.

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Day-to-day news from January

1st - The Czech Republic took over the presidency of the EU. Vaclav Klaus does not favour the Lisbon Treaty, or the euro, and has likened the EU to the Soviet Union.

2nd - The EU carried out a survey in the UK which showed that only 32% think EU membership is a good thing, only 39% think it has benefited us, only 27% trust the Commission and a mere 26% have a positive image of the whole thing overall. Around 71% said they do not want the euro.

2nd - Aldermaston, our nuclear research facility, has been handed over to the Americans. MPs were on their Christmas break so it could not be discussed in parliament.

3rd - Russia cut off all gas supplies through Ukraine which meant that EU countries had their supplies cut. Slovakia and Bulgaria announced they might have to reopen their Soviet-era nuclear plants.

5th - Organs from British NHS donors are being given to private foreign patients ahead of desperately-ill Britons. EU law says all patients have the right to seek treatment in other EU countries and foreigners pay around £75,000 for a liver transplant. “We do not have a European organ donation system - it is a UK system”, said Professor Peter Friend, president of the British Transplantation Society.

7th - 235 MEPs signed a written declaration calling for an end to the so-called “travelling circus” between Brussels and Strasbourg which costs 203 million euros per year. It needed 393 MEPs to secure a majority.

7th - Incandescent bulbs are already running out as retailers stop replenishing stocks. Although an EU-wide ban will not be in place until 2016, Britain will ban the old light bulbs by 2012.

7th - The EU want to ban 85% of the pesticides and herbicides used by farmers on food crops. This could make British potatoes, carrots and onions impossible to grow.

7th - The price of waste paper for recycling has dropped so much that Councils are storing it in the hope that its value will rise in the future. [Hands up those who thought recycling was in order to save the planet’s resources - Ed].

7th - The EU wants to set up a Common European Asylum System in 2009. This will:-
- establish a European Support Office to further control the policies of member states
- determine who is a refugee allowing the EU to decide who should enter the UK
- make asylum more accessible
- grant more rights to those who qualify for subsidiary protection
- make the system more responsive to gender and other ‘vulnerable groups’
- create a single procedure across all EU member states, which will undermine the independence of the UK’s legal system in that area.

8th - Homeless criminals were sent to Britain from Estonia to carry out multi-million-pound jewellery raids. Gangs have taken advantage of cheap flights to Britain and Estonia’s entry into the EU.

9th - MEPs are calling for the creation of an EU gas reserve, made up of British and Dutch supplies, which member states can tap into in the event of any future shortage. The Nice Treaty, signed by Tony Blair in 2000, gave the EU the right to take over our North Sea gas in the event of a crisis but Commission President José Barroso said that he would soon have the legal authority to take over control of energy reserves under the Lisbon Treaty.

9th - Spanish unemployment has reached 3.1 million - 13.4% - after a collapse in the building industry.

9th - New EU solvency rules, due by 2012, will force providers of annuities to hold on to billions of pounds of extra capital and cut annuity pay-outs to pensioners by 20%.

12th - UK MEPs are to see their pay rise almost £20,000 to £82,000 making them higher paid than MPs. From July they will be paid in euros, which will result in the pay rise under the current exchange rate.

12th - The EU wants to make amateur sea anglers register their catches as part of the country’s quota. Failure to do so would attract a fine of £50,000.

12th - The EU is expected to ban plasma screen TVs in the spring because of their high use of electricity and carbon dioxide emissions.

12th - Energy firms are keeping prices artificially high by exporting gas from Britain to mainland Europe and selling to the highest bidder.

13th - Hackney Council has dropped the charges against Janet Devers, the latest Metric Martyr, after Government ministers responded to public outrage by declaring that such cases should no longer go to Court. Mrs. Devers is planning to appeal against her original convictions next month but the Council says it will contest her appeal.

16th - The EU is to restart export subsidies for butter, cheese and milk powder to help dairy producers hurt by falling prices. These “butter mountains” will cost the taxpayer £237 million.

16th - State agencies, boards, commissions and quangos spent more than £1 billion on spin last year.

19th - The eurozone has gone into recession for the first time since the single currency was introduced 10 years ago.

19th - The return of europhile Kenneth Clarke to the Tory front bench has boosted UKIP membership. An early defector is Cllr. Denis Allen, a former mayor of Wellington, Shropshire, who served on Telford & Wrekin Unitary Authority and is also a former chairman of the Wrekin Conservative Association.

19th - From August, hospitals face heavy fines if they allow any staff, including surgeons, to work more than 48 hours a week. In some parts of Scotland fire fighters are part-time and have other jobs. This could leave huge areas without any fire fighting cover.

20th - Coastguards have been ordered to fill in a health and safety questionnaire before they can respond to calls for help.

21st - The EU Court of Justice has ruled that employees on long-term sick leave are still entitled to paid holiday under the terms of the Working Time Directive, no matter how long they are off work.

21st - The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme has allocated free permits to heavy industry. Because of the falling demand due to the economic downturn, heavy industry companies are selling their surplus free permits. Power companies have been given less generous allowances so will have to buy permits to make up the shortfall which will be passed on by increased bills to consumers.

26th - The Mail on Sunday reported that the UK could be forced to contribute money to rescue countries in economic crisis, because of a clause in the EU treaties which gives the EU Commission the power to propose bailing out a state in “severe difficulties”. Such help could be agreed by a majority vote, meaning Britain would not have a veto.

26th - Town Hall bureaucrats have been given access to a controversial database containing the personal details of every child in England. It holds the name, address, date of birth, GP and school of all under-18s.

27th - Serbia is to submit a request to accede to the EU by the end of June 2009.

28th - US President Barack Obama has promised he will close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and wants EU countries to take some of the inmates. As Britain has already taken 13, out of the 27 who have come to Europe, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, says the UK has “done its bit”. France has taken in 7 detainees, Belgium and Spain 2 each and Germany, Denmark and Sweden 1 each. In contrast 20 EU governments have failed to open their doors to a single prisoner. Six of those remaining in the camp are Italian.

29th - The EU Parliament’s website has a section setting out “10 good reasons to vote” in the EU elections in June. Reason number 6 “spells out the reality of lawmaking in today’s EU.” It says: “In most cases, MEPs have as much weight as the Member States in EU decision-making. Most laws that concern our daily lives are legislated side by side by MEPs and ministers at EU level. Many, probably most, laws enacted in your country are a transposition of European acts voted by MEPs - your representatives. And it’s not just laws: money for new roads, cleaner beaches, research, education, development aid. MEPs also decide where our EU money goes.”

30th - “British jobs for British workers”. So said Gordon Brown at his first Labour Party conference after he had taken over as Prime Minister in 2007. In accordance with EU rules, the £300 million project at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire had to be put out to tender and an Italian company won the contract. But instead of taking on British staff, the company drafted in 300 Italians and Portuguese who are being housed in barges off the docks. UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom said: “When we allow ourselves to be ruled by foreigners we can hardly be surprised that the rules benefit foreigners, can we?”