Cllr. Gavin Ayling

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For the first time every member of the party is being given an opportunity to vote on the rankings of Tory MEPs and candidates. This is fantastic news as it counters my comments in this post.

While it is a secret ballot I am keen that everyone knows which MEPs are Eurosceptics and which are Europhiles. Then people reading this can vote along those lines without having to go to the same effort as me!

So here’s how I’m voting:
1. Daniel Hannan MEP
2. Nirj Deva MEP
3. Richard Ashworth MEP
4. (Because you are required to rank all candidates) James Elles MEP

You may remember that Mr Elles is a pro-EU Tory who supported the Lisbon Treaty and who wishes to remain in the EPP-ED.

And in Ballot 2:
1. Richard Robinson
2. Nina Kaariniemi
3. Sarah Richardson
4. Tony Devenish
5. Therese Coffey
6. Marc Brunel-Walker

Please bear in mind that my decisions regarding Ballot 2 were largely as a result of answers on Conservative Home’s Goldlist site

Two petitions I signed on the Number 10 website were responded to today. The responses can be found here:

• Better Off Out (of the EU)
• English Parliament

The respective websites for the campaigns are these:

• Better Off Out (of the EU)
• English Parliament

I was distressed multiple times today when watching my recording of the Daily Politics.

I was first distressed with how much I agreed (again) with Frank Field. Could it be that Frank is more Conservative and reasonable that Mr Cameron?!

Then I was distressed by the other guest (Charlie Whelan) who turned suddenly nasty when asked to comment on Mr Field’s position. Political correctness and a naive determination that Labour voters will not mind their lower-paid jobs being made lower paid by, admittedly hard-working, immigrants from the new EU member states.

Freedom of movement is an important aspect of the European Union and I firmly believe that some of the repurcussions on the newer member states’ economies should have been considered before membership was granted. How can the urban, never mind rural, economies in Romania, Poland and Bulgaria survive with such numbers leaving?

But we cannot go over what might have been and hope to come out of it other than frustrated.

What have we learnt?

Probably, most importantly, that poor countries need to be helped by western nations before we offer them the mixed blessing that is EU membership. In fact, as EU membership is so attractive for the likes of Romania because of the assistance they are given for infrastructure improvements, why not make those donations of assistance so that the quality of life differential is not so massive by the time the barriers to movement are taken away?

The humane thing to do with the likes of Turkey and Croatia and Macedonia is to give them the assistance and representation etc. that any other EU country has without providing them with the crippling effect that is freedom of movement (it could be termed “freedom to lose your most productive citizens”).

Every year we laugh wrly at the effects of regional/political voting on the results of Eurovision.

The answer, of course, is for England, Scotland and Wales to split so that they can give each other 12 points… Hey, it works for Norway, Sweden and Finland!

Update 22.48 As if proof were needed, lovely Ireland and Malta gave the UK seven and twelve points respectively!

The following is a press release from the Conservative budgets spokesman, Richard Ashworth MEP:

MEPs ignore the will of one million people and purchase the Strasbourg parliament

We should be parting the Parliament, not procuring it

Brussels, 27th September — MEPs have today signed off a £100 million appropriation of the European Parliament buildings in Strasbourg, less than a week after oneseat.eu - the online petition calling for the European Parliament to be based in just on place - received its millionth signature. Richard Ashworth MEP, Conservative budgets spokesman in the European Parliament, said the vote in the Parliament’s ‘bureau’ sends out the wrong signal about its eagerness to vacate the premises and sit exclusively in one location.

Every month, the European Parliament decamps from Brussels to Strasbourg for the four-day session. Transporting MEPs, staff and paperwork costs the European taxpayer at least £130 million per year and causes untold damage to the environment through extra emissions.

Many MEPs lament the wasteful “travelling circus” but they are powerless to stop it as the EU’s treaties stipulate the Parliament must sit in Strasbourg twelve times per year. Only national governments can decide to change the treaties.

Mr Ashworth said:

“It will take around nine years before the Parliament gets any return on its investment. In that time, the EU would have spent over a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money shuffling people and papers around. Some MEPs are acting as if they have saved the taxpayer money - but they could save a great deal more if we finally end the monthly jaunt.

“The agreement requires us to return the land to the City of Strasbourg if we sell the buildings so we effectively only have the leasehold anyway.

“Although we are powerless to stop ourselves coming to Strasbourg, we can send out a clear and consistent message to national governments that we want this item discussed. Hopefully the signatures of one million EU citizens will be enough for national governments to debate Strasbourg at the next EU summit but I fear they will interpret our £100 million spending spree as a statement of intent to keep travelling between two Parliaments.

“Strasbourg has lost its relevancy. It was a fitting symbol of Franco-German reconciliation after the war but - sixty years on - it has become an expensive wedge that causes division, rather than unity.”

According to the figures available, those who immigrated to the UK since 2004 make up nearly 1 in 60 of the population.

The imminent EU accession of Romania and Bulgaria represents a new source of immigrants to the UK. There are voices, not least Frank Field, who are calling foul, but there’s really no justification for restricting immigration from these new members.

The EU is about free movement of people and free trade. Now anyone with even a small idea of the EU’s working will know that we are not getting anything similar to free trade in many, many areas. So the only tenet of the EU that Britons signed up for under Heath and that is actually functioning is free movement of people.

If we turn around now and say “Sorry Romanians, sorry Bulgarians, you cannot come to the UK because, though we want access to your markets, we don’t want your people.” then we are removing that final part of the EU that we all agreed to.

I agree that the UK is suffering a change in culture… A sort of negative zionism by multiple cultures. And I agree that the time has come for a serious look at our immigration policy… But I don’t think that should mean double-standards on the EU. Let’s leave the EU and say what we really think! Let’s join schengen, let’s sign a free trade agreement with the EU and remain a country in our own right.

At the same time, let’s let English culture redefine itself to include our newest members. Let’s prepare our schools to cope with the children of our mostly young immigrants when they are born. And let’s not confuse immigrants (those who come here) with the legislators that we think are getting the policies wrong.

According to the BBC’s The World programme on BBC Four this evening, Italy, Spain and Malta are struggling with the number of illegal immigrants coming from Africa to work here (where “here” is the EU). As Leanne said earlier on this blog, the people who manage to leave Africa are probably the very people who could reverse the problems Africa so evidently has.

Let’s work harder and more seriously at improving the economies of Africa so that there’s no reason to jump on that ship in the first place. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy’s abolition would be a good starting place.

This must not be allowed to happen. Read this and then write to the Councillor who attends the Regional Assembly from your local Council.

I will be writing to Adur District Council’s Cllr. Liza McKinney today.