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

Commenters on the BBC’s Have Your Say appear to be unanimous (I couldn’t find a negative comment) — the British want a referendum on EU membership even if only to put the question to bed (in the case of europhiles).

But an interesting number of people also commented on immigration. I have before expressed massively variant views on immigration which reflects the paradox in my thinking. I genuinely believe that a homogenous human race, where people lived and worked around the world together, freely and at peace would be great; but I also know that this is the sort of ideological thinking that got communists into such trouble. I can see that in the world as it really is, there is a need for immigration controls.

But at the same time, we mustn’t stop people coming here who would benefit our country financially and culturally. There are many hard-working, gentle and genuine people who would love the opportunity to live in a country like England where the chances of being a murder-victim are extremely low; where, no matter how poor you are, you will never be completely failed by society (the State and charities) and where, at least at the moment, there are plenty of jobs and a good standard of living (in comparison to developing countries).

The government acts at the top of a massive system which works, ostensibly, on its behalf underneath. But the government is not in a position to make any policy on immigration that will be fair and just. If restrictions are placed on immigrants or immigration in order to resolve an issue highlighted by the Daily Mail, then they will inevitably be unfair or cruel in many cases. And if the government relaxes controls, then it opens itself up to attack from the Mail and, also, leaves the door open for dangerous or undersirables.

Immigration then, unlike the EU, is not an easy choice.

“Never have so few decided so much for so many.” The Sun

This is how The Sun launched its campaign today against Gordon Brown’s momentous decision to abandon democracy and his party’s manifesto on which he was elected by said democracy.

Sign the Sun’s petition too.

I am delighted to announce that my motion on the EU treaty and the referendum Mr Blair et al promised us was passed, not unanimously, but with no opposition votes. The text reads as follows:

Notice of Motion - Council Procedure Rule 17
The following Notice of Motion is proposed by Councillor Gavin Ayling:
The “Reform Treaty”, signed by Tony Blair on 23 June, is acknowledged publicly by the leaders of nearly all our EU partners to be virtually the same as the Constitution Treaty. France and The Netherlands decisively rejected that Treaty.
The “Reform Treaty” transfers yet more substantive powers from Britain to the EU and further erodes British laws and the British Constitution.
It will reduce the rights and freedoms of the residents of Adur and the whole nation.
Therefore this Council calls on Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, to abide by the Government’s promise to the electorate in the 2005 Labour Party Manifesto page 84, “We will put [the Constitution Treaty] to the British people in a referendum…”

Read the original on the Adur District Council website.

And I’m also delighted to see that Ming the pitiful has now suggested a referendum would be a good idea, naively believing that the people would vote for massive bureaucratic waste, cultural erasure, pathetic and unnecessary directives and higher taxes (for no gain).

Oh, and Sign the Petition

Gah! Anyone watching BBC Breakfast this morning cannot help to have been annoyed by the bend-over-backwards-until-your-country-is-overrun-with-murderers lefty do-gooders on the sofa… I only saw five minutes to be fair, before I left for work, but why on Earth are we subjected to so much “the status quo is perfectly acceptable” or “we should be more left-wing” nonsense, and no “we should be more right-wing”? When I say right-wing, of course, I mean the right-wing I espouse on this site: more freedom from taxes, more freedom from oppressive laws, more freedom from the State and more freedom.

And now a new Socialism is rearing its head. So far there have been three: Socialism, Communism and Environmentalist-Socialism. Now there is a fourth: International-Anti-trade-Environmentalist-Socialism! I’ve never really believed that post-Victorian socialists had the interests of the poor or the ‘worker’ at heart but this must be the final, unequivocal evidence?

Just sign the petition

The End of the World is Nye, say nutters in urban legend.

But I don’t think that what I want to say about this is scare-mongering or nutty.

It is proof, as it were needed, that if the governments of the UK (including our socialist rulers, the EU) and the US had their way as much in normal life as they do at ports and airports, we would be monitored all the time.

Passports used to be a reasonable measure to know who was entering the country — but now they’re becoming an effective way of spying on us and it is time for us to say, as an electorate, enough is enough!