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UKIP MEP threatened with arrest for telling truth to European Parliament

UKIP MEP Nigel Farage, the co-president of the Independence & Democracy Group in the European Parliament, was this morning threatened with legal action by the Parliament’s President for telling the truth about the French Commissioner designate, Jacques Barrot.
18-11-2004

For Immediate Release – 12:00hrs 18th November 2004

UKIP MEP threatened with arrest for telling truth to European Parliament

UKIP MEP Nigel Farage, the co-president of the Independence & Democracy Group in the European Parliament, was this morning threatened with legal action by the Parliament’s President for telling the truth about the French Commissioner designate, Jacques Barrot.

Mr Farage had asked fellow MEPs whether they would ‘buy a used car from this man’, when he revealed that M. Barrot had received an 8 month suspended sentence and was barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling FFR 25m (US$ 3.8m) from government funds by diverting it into the coffers of his party.

French President Jacques Chirac subsequently granted M Barrot a presidential amnesty, making it illegal under French law to even mention the conviction. However, Mr Farage felt it was proper that MEPs were informed of the past of the Vice President designate, and used his speech in the Strasbourg chamber to do so.

Many French MEPs were not aware of the conviction, as in compliance with French law it was totally censored from the French media.

The President of the European Parliament, Spaniard Josep Borrell, warned Mr Farage that he should withdraw his remarks, as he may face ‘legal consequences’. Mr Farage, who in theory enjoys Parliamentary immunity while speaking in the chamber, refused to do so, and was, amazingly, condemned by other MEPs for telling the truth.

Mr Farage said, “Yesterday, the Court of Auditors refused to sign off the EU’s accounts for the 10th year in a row, because 93.5% of the EU’s expenditure was, in their words, ‘unsafe or riddled with errors’.

“Today, the European Parliament is prepared to overlook the conviction of a senior member of the Commission for embezzling government funds, and is prepared instead to threaten with arrest the person who reveals it.

“What clearer indication can there possibly be of the corruption and hypocrisy which pervades the entire European project from the lowest to the highest levels?” ENDS

Is sombody at the Telegraph waking up?
Telegraph | Opinion | Home Front
“Look out! More Bills on their way

Here we go again. Pausing only to take on fuel, the legislative locomotive that last Friday ran into the buffers of the last parliamentary session will tomorrow begin another journey, spewing laws and regulations into the chill autumn air.

Over the past year, some 40 Acts of Parliament and more than 3,500 statutory instruments were brought in. Of course, governments have to legislate where it is needed, though you would have thought that after a few centuries of parliamentary democracy it would have been possible by now to devise a criminal justice or education system that could last longer than a year or so; to expect ministers to spend a bit more time at home and leave things alone is probably too much to ask.”

Snip

But what happened to the promise of a Bill to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the Lords and the creation of an independent appointments commission to select non-party members of the Upper House? It was dropped in the spring, ostensibly because Tony Blair felt he had no realistic chance of getting it through Parliament. But he was also concerned that efforts would be made to introduce a democratically elected element in the Lords when what the Government wanted was a fully appointed chamber. It is ironic that ministers made so much during the final stages of the Hunting Bill about the Lords thwarting the wishes of the elected Commons, when they have no intention of giving the Upper House the democratic legitimacy that would render this argument - and the use of the Parliament Act - redundant.

What is always fascinating about a Queen’s Speech is what it does not say. Take this passage from last year’s: “The threat of international terrorism and a changing climate have led to a series of emergencies and heightened concerns for the future. My Government will introduce a Bill creating a long-term foundation for civil contingencies capable of meeting these challenges at a national and local level.” Nothing wrong with that, though there is already a system for dealing with civil defence matters, albeit many years old. But where did it say: “My Government will take the most sweeping and draconian powers ever bestowed upon a British government in peacetime, reserving the right to suspend the foundations of our liberties, such as habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights, when it judges that an emergency has occurred”?

Yet, this is what the Civil Contingencies Act allows, and, as is often the case, its exceptional nature only really dawned upon Parliament at a late stage, leading to a flurry of 11th-hour attempts to hose it down. Peers introduced what is known as a “sunset” clause, whereby the measure would lapse after three years unless renewed. This was resisted by the Government, though ministers in the end agreed that if the emergency powers were used, there would be an independent inquiry afterwards to see if they had been properly deployed.

Other than ruling out conscription, there is one exception in the legislation, and one only. The right to strike is specifically exempted from its scope. This seems bizarre. Since the powers are to be used only in the direst circumstances, surely the one thing that the country would not need is for key workers, such as train drivers or firemen, to be taking industrial action. The likelihood must be that they would do their jobs like everyone else when the security of the nation is at stake, but why exempt strikers?

The Government said existing laws ensuring that industrial action did not endanger human life would hold good in these circumstances. It considered that the right to withdraw labour within the law was a fundamental liberty that should be protected, even during emergencies. Yet the same could be said about all the other laws that would be suspended, not least freedom of speech.

As the EU parliament ponders what to do about the news that two of the new EU Commissioners have faced legal problems in the recent past, Martin Coles reminds us that even the New president Barroso has a previous life that he does not wish to be open to public gaze, so much so that he left six years out of his own CV.
Ironies:

“EU President Barroso’s Missing Years

As the past of French EU Commissioner now Vice-President Jaques Barrot, will take centre stage in the EU tomorrow - Is it not time once again to consider the missing years from the CV of President Barroso, first raised on this blog many months ago?

HOW CAN THE EU NOW ACCEPT AS COMMISSION PRESIDENT (according to the report linked below) A MAN WHO HIDES SIX YEARS OF HIS POLITICAL PAST?

Any interested in the Marxist background of the man who will take almost sole charge of the old continent tomorrow morning would be advised to read the report from this link, of which this quote is most pertinent:-

The political history of the conservative Portuguese leader, now 48 years old, began during the leftist military ”Carnation Revolution” of 1974. He was the student leader of the Movement for the Renovation of the Proletariat Party/Portuguese-Marxist Leninist Communist Party (MRPP/PCP-ML).

This was a long name for a miniscule Mao-inspired organisation that had pegged the rest of the political left as ”revisionist”, ‘’social-fascist” and ”imperialist sell-outs”.

In the official biography of the man who is now Portugal’s prime minister, that period of his ”revolutionary outbreak” was left out.

After a brief mention — ”he began his political activity as a very young man, even before Apr. 25, 1974” — six years of his political life were omitted from the official text, which goes on to describe how in 1980 he joined the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which is conservative despite what its name might suggest. “

I supposes this will come under the heading of anti-European Press, or as I prefer to call it informing the public about what is happening, something that happens rarely in the British media. Is there not something treasonous in allowing our armed forces to come under the control of a foreign power? Oh but silly me but did not Tony Blair get rid of all the treason acts in 1998. (talk about protecting your own back)
The Telegraph
Save us from an EU army
(Filed: 22/11/2004)
What else has to happen to convince our politicians that an EU army is not a threat but a reality? It was five years ago that Romano Prodi told a newspaper: “If you don’t want to call it a European army, fine. You can call it Margaret, you can call it Mary-Ann.” Yet we are still in denial. The Tory defence spokesman, Nicholas Soames, speaks rather touchingly of the need for “any EU defence contribution” to be “under the Nato umbrella”.
Tony Blair, in the run-up to the signing of the EU constitution, declared that autonomy in the field of defence was one of Britain’s “red lines”. Already, though, forces with EU cap-badges are patrolling Macedonia and the Congo. In 10 days’ time, the EU will deploy 7,000 soldiers in Bosnia. These troops are answerable, not to Nato, nor to any national capital, but to the EU’s politico-military structures.
Lest any doubt remain, Article 15 of the proposed European Constitution reads, “The Common Foreign and Security Policy shall cover all aspects of foreign policy and all questions relating to Europe’s security” (our italics). As we report today, Britain will join a new 3,000-strong EU Elite Strike Force (each of these three words flirting with the Trades Descriptions Act).
Do not make the mistake of thinking that the CFSP affects only such troops as are explicitly seconded to EU command. On the contrary, European law dictates whom the MoD may hire: yesterday’s news dwelt on the ruling that 8,000 Commonwealth Servicemen would be obliged to take British nationality without mentioning the reason - that European law forbids us to discriminate in favour of “third country nationals”.
It lays down our disciplinary procedures, forcing us to use civil law rather than courts martial. It tells us whom we may fire: a judgment five years ago held that women who left the Services as a result of becoming pregnant must be compensated in defiance of the terms of their contracts. And, worst of all, it distorts our defence procurement, emphasising pan-European defence schemes, such as the ludicrous Eurofighter, over more cost-effective projects.
Snip

There are good reasons why we should co-operate with our European allies on defence matters. We are already doing so: British troops are currently active in, among other things, an Anglo-French air corps, an Anglo-Italian rapid reaction force and an Anglo-Dutch amphibious unit. None of these required EU intervention: all were agreed bilaterally. What is unfolding is qualitatively different from such collaboration.
We are in the process of creating an autonomous EU military capacity separate from Nato and above any single nation-state. For Tony Blair, it is a handy way to demonstrate his European credentials while remaining outside the single currency. But, for the rest of us, it means that our true strategic interests - and, in particular, our alliances with other free, English-speaking nations - are being tossed aside for the sake of Euro-dogma.