UK Independence Party
Enfield & Haringey Branch
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FROM THE SECRETARY:
Thank you to those members who have distributed the Petition cards or donated money to Branch funds. The response has been very encouraging but we do need more financial help. If every member gave £10, we would have enough to pay the deposit of one candidate. Please make cheques payable to “UKIP Enfield & Haringey Branch”.
Evelyn Rolph - Branch Secretary
EU Commission
The 27 new members of the Commission have been through the vetting process and all have been accepted except the Bulgarian one who is to be replaced.
Extra expenses
The newly chosen President of the EU, Herman Van Rompuy, will receive a salary of £273,814 a year, more than the US President Obama receives. In addition he will receive travel expenses and other entitlements, bringing his total income to £1.3 million. The total cost for him and his entourage will be a massive £22.5 million. Another £252 million will be spent building a new palace for him. In spite of having a President, the system of each country having a turn as the rotating presidency has not been dropped so we have another layer of bureaucracy to support.
Cathy Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, will receive a salary of £239,000 plus allowances and perks.
Thousands of EU bureaucrats are threatening to strike over attempts to slash their 3.7% pay rise. They have turned down a rise of 1.85%.
MEPs have voted to increase their allowances by £1,300 a month, taking their total pay and expenses package to £450,000 a year. Marta Andreasen (UKIP) was the only member of the budget committee to vote against the rise. MEPs say they need the increase to cover the extra workload imposed by the Lisbon Treaty.
Open Europe has published a “Top 100 list” of the most costly EU regulations introduced in the UK since 1998. It estimates that these laws will cost the UK economy a staggering £184 billion between 2010 and 2020, even if no new regulations are passed in the meantime.
European Arrest Warrant
Andrew Symeou, the Enfield lad extradited to Greece on 23rd July under an European Arrest Warrant on questionable manslaughter charges, has been moved from a young offenders institution to the infamous maximum security Korydallos prison in Athens. He was given just five minutes notice of the move. It is expected to be several more months before his case comes to trial.
Two British businessmen flew voluntarily to Budapest under an EAW believing that their case was ready for trial but they have been put in prison and told it could be up to two years before their case comes to court.
Cadbury’s chocolate
Cadbury’s board of directors has agreed to sell the company to Kraft Foods of the USA for £11.7 billion but the shareholders have not voted yet. Kraft will have to borrow £7 billion from the Royal Bank of Scotland, putting the company in debt. The only way that this can be paid off, over time, is by pruning costs severely and putting British jobs at risk.
Falkland Islands
Argentina has amended its national laws to claim sovereignty over the Falklands. With our armed forces stretched to the limit, we could not repulse a fresh invasion. It is unlikely the EU would allow us to anyway.
How to get out of the European Union
Here is an interesting extract from the Legal Working Paper “Withdrawal and Expulsion from the EU and EMU: Some Reflections” written by the Legal Counsel of the European Central Bank, Phoebus Athanassiu, and published by the ECB in December 2009:
“Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty explicitly makes provision for the voluntary secession of a Member State from the EU. Specifically, the exit clause provides that a Member State wishing to withdraw from the EU must inform the European Council of its intention; the Council is to produce guidelines on the basis of which a withdrawal agreement is to be negotiated with that Member State; and the Council, acting by a qualified majority and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, will conclude the agreement on behalf of the EU. The withdrawing Member State would cease to be bound by the treaties either from the date provided for in the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after notification of its intention to withdraw. A former Member State seeking to rejoin the EU would have to follow the same admission procedure as any new candidate country.”
Day-to-day news from January
1st - For years, Britain has been pressing the EU to ban battery farming of hens and this is due to come into force in 2012. Now the Labour Government has backtracked on this saying farmers do not have the time or money to change their buildings, even though this promised reform has been in place since 1999. The excuse is that it will cause an egg shortage.
2nd - From the beginning of February shops which sell more than one four-pack of AA batteries a day will have to provide recycling bins to comply with the EU Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009. As they will have to pay to have full bins taken away for disposal, it will inevitably put the price of batteries up.
8th - A British company has won part of the contract to build 14 satellites for the Galileo programme, the EU’s version of GPS.
9th - Energy bills will rise to pay for a £75 bn plan to build 6,400 giant wind turbines around the coast in order to comply with targets set by the EU. All the job benefits will go overseas as the UK’s only wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight closed last year.
Taxpayers could also end up paying to subsidise new nuclear power stations because when British Energy was sold to EDF last year, the Government failed to secure a guarantee that four new nuclear plants could be built without public funds.
The EU gave £1.5 million of taxpayers money last year to climate change groups to promote the theory that human activitiy is causing global warming.
11th - Boxing promoter, Frank Maloney, who stood for UKIP in the London Mayoral election in 2004, is planning to stand against BNP leader Nick Griffin in Barking.
Cllr. Andy Monk, a Conservative councillor representing Ramsey on the Huntingdonshire District Council, has joined UKIP. Ramsey now has two UKIP councillors.
11th - The new European Commission has indicated that it will treat harmonisation of taxes as a matter of high priority. Germany and France are “very angry” because Ireland is attracting business and tax income from other countries due to their low taxes.
12th - The Nursing Times reports that 50% of nurses say the EU’s Working Time Directive puts patients in danger.
12th - Thousands of EU workers are coming to Britain as “national insurance tourists” to gain access to pensions and other benefits. Self-employed people who live and work in their home country can switch their NI payments to Britain. To do so, they have to visit London for one day, obtain a NI number at a job centre and open a UK bank account. A basic state pension in the UK is £412.75 a month compared with £130 in Poland. The Polish Parliament is so concerned by the drop in contributions that it has asked for Britain’s help.
13th - The first crown court trial to be held without a jury in England for 350 years has begun. The EU Corpus Juris is being introduced slowly..
13th - The Greek economy is in dire straits and it faces legal action by the EU Commission for failing to provide accurate economic data. The other eurozone countries, particularly Germany, have no desire to bail Greece out but may be forced to do so if the euro is at risk.
15th - The French government has pressurised the Renault carmaker to site its Clio production facilities in France. It said that cars for the domestic market should be made in France.
16th - 5,000 villas in Spain, owned by British people, are being threatened with demolition by 9th April. The owners obtained the necessary planning permission from the local authorities to build on the land but the regional government is unhappy with the spread of development into the Spanish countryside. The regional government nullified the building licences and ordered the newly built homes to be destroyed. [This, surely, is something the EU could legislate on fairly. If planning permission was obtained in good faith, the owners should not lose their homes without compensation - Ed]. Approximately the same number in Britons in North Cyprus face eviction after the British Court of Appeal upheld the ruling of the European Court of Justice.
18th - Tens of millions of pounds of public money is being used to run council branch offices in Brussels. Almost all councils and development agencies in England and Wales, as well as the Local Government Association, hire permanent staff in Brussels. This costs taxpayers at least £5 million a year in staff and office costs alone, excluding trips to Brussels for meetings each year. The biggest spender is the Welsh Assembly which employs 10 staff in Brussels at a cost of £880,000 a year.
19th - The Equality Bill currently going through Parliament is to bring the UK into line with existing EU legislation. It will attract a one-off cost to businesses of £190m. The Agency Workers Directive, scheduled for 2011, and the Pensions Reform Bill 2012, will have annual recurring costs to business of £1.5 bn and £4.8 bn respectively.
21st - Under the new powers brought in by the Lisbon Treaty, the EU has set up 54 embassies. None of the new placements are in former Spanish colonies in Latin America so as not to undermine the prestige of the Spanish EU Presidency.