eurealist.co.uk

Alice Thomson in the Telegraph writes about the public funding of political parties and mentions perhaps one of the reasons that both Labour and the Conservative leaders are keen on the issue of public funding.  That of falling membership of the main parties “Instead of playing endless games of tennis with Lord Levy, Mr Blair should have spent more time working on his party’s declining membership. Not only do members pound the streets, but they give their £10 without mentioning a CBE.”

Technorati Tags: Tax, public funding of political parties, membership of political parties

Members of the European Parliament have stepped up pressure on the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to give them more say in rewriting implementing legislation.

The Parliament is withholding funding from the so-called comitology committees - the groups of national experts who are brought to Brussels to draft implementing rules, which are often highly technical.

“Unless these credits are released the committees will not be able to continue their work,” a senior member state official said.

The move comes as part of a significant trial of strength between the three institutions that could yet precipitate legislative deadlock.
Last September the UK presidency formed an ad hoc Council working group, known as a ‘Friends of the presidency’ committee, to negotiate an agreement on rebalancing the powers of the Commission, Council and Parliament to write implementing legislation. The group has been meeting every two weeks and will meet again next Wednesday (22 March).

The talks are aimed at putting the Parliament on “an equal footing” as co-legislator when deciding the shape of implementing legislation.

At present, once the Parliament agrees to delegate the power to write implementing legislation to the Commission, it has no further chance to shape the legislation or decide whether or not it can come into force, whereas the Council can reject it by a qualified majority vote.

The three institutions are now trying to find a way of bringing the comitology procedures into line with the greater powers of co-decision over legislation that the Parliament was given by the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. Specifically, they want to correct what one participant described as “a democratic disequilibrium”.

“How can it be right that the Parliament and the Council together decide on framework laws but it is effectively only the member states which can block [implementing] legislation?” one official asked.

The imbalance would have been corrected by the EU constitution, which would have given the Parliament an equal say with the Council in drawing up implementing legislation.

European Voice

EU driving licence “an identity card by the back door”

According to the Daily Telegraph, transport ministers are expected to approve a single EU driving licence at talks next week, with the document expected to be phased in between 2012 and 2032.

Scottish MEP Ian Hudghton fears it could be “an identity card by the back door” on an EU-wide level. The crucial issue is whether non-driving related information could be allowed to be included on licence chips. “There are very real civil liberties concerns about data protection and about precisely who would have access to exactly what information about individuals” said Hudghton who also called for safeguards to prevent the licence becoming, in effect, part of a Europe-wide identity card system.

At the same time a report in the European Voice

(Moves towards EU-wide DNA database) says that a Council of Ministers paper recommending “direct automated access” to DNA databases across Europe could lead to an EU-wide integrated data sharing agreement. A working group, comprising representatives of justice and interior ministries of member states, is to be set up to make a report on the practicalities of DNA sharing. The group will also look into similar arrangements concerning other personal details, such as fingerprints and car registration data.

The rules on DNA storage vary between member states. The UK has the largest DNA database in the world. Formed in 1995, it contains the DNA profiles of more than 2.5 million people.
While UK law allows police to take and keep DNA samples from all individuals arrested on suspicion of a recordable offence, police in France have no powers to take the DNA of suspects without their consent.

Gus Hosein from Privacy International said that since there were no provisions for deleting DNA records of people arrested in the UK who are proven not guilty in court, an exchange of DNA across the EU, could lead to “a database of people who have done nothing wrong”.

Technorati Tags: british-democracy, EU-law, EU-regulations, further-integration, id-cards

ID Card bill has passed critical stages in Parliament. We should be worried. Here is why:

The new ID Card will be unlike any other bit of ID you hold. It is the key to a National Identity Register (NIR) that will give you a unique number, and will hold images of your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye, and your photograph (you will have to turn up at the authorities’ convenience to be fingerprinted, scanned, and photographed).

Your name, address, and date of birth will be stored there, and you will have to inform the authorities if you move. There is plenty of space on the database to capture other information on you too, and ministers will be able to add new details without going back to Parliament.

The government says it will not be compulsory to carry the card, but in fact it will be essential for everyday living. Card readers will be everywhere. They will help stores check ID fraud when people pay by credit card, and banks when people withdraw cash. Pubs, discos, and traders selling alcohol or cigarettes will want to swipe your card to make sure you are not under age, so they do not get fined.

All these swipes could provide a detailed record of where you are at any time. Buy a mobile phone or a London Transport Oyster Card and that will enable the authorities to track who you talk to and where you travel to. Likewise if you set up an internet account or an ordinary phone line. Buy groceries and your data are instantly allied to your Nectar card or credit card, so all of your purchases can be traced as well. Pick up your prescription at the chemist and you will show up again.

There will be no escape. Refuse to be fingerprinted, scanned and photographed, and you will not get a new passport, your pension, or your social benefits. If the Home Secretary decides to revoke your card, you become a non-person, unable to draw money or even buy cigarettes, until your status is restored. Bureaucrats who are in charge of this information will be obvious targets for blackmail or bribery from anyone who wants to dig up dirt on you. All they need is your ID number.

Of course, ID Cards in Spain did not stop the Madrid bombing. But then who ever said this was all about controlling terrorism? Oh yes, the government did. But you did not really believe that, did you? It’s about controlling us.

Do us all a favour. Pass this on to your friends.

From Dr Eamonn Butler The Adams Smith Blog

Sir - When Daniel Hannan says "we are fantasising about the kind of EU we might ideally like to have", he is highlighting the dilemma faced by Britain as a result of its membership (Opinion, March 20).

We are swimming against the tide of European integration, which is the raison d’être of the whole project. It has never suited Britain to be a part of this adventure, as our whole history and constitution have been devoted to independence - independence from foreign control and independence of the people from executive control.

Parliament has, since its inception, been the manifestation of the power of the people. The institutions of the EU, which is a foreign power, have superseded it and the people, as typified by Mr Hannan, are gradually waking up to that fact.

Are we to be a nation or a province of Europe?

Alan Smith, Sanderstead, Surrey

Sir - Daniel Hannan is quite right to point out that the EU constitution, rejected by the French and Dutch electorates, is being imposed on us anyway.

He also correctly implies that the federalists have complete contempt for formal democracy as we know it.

However, he is wrong to claim that Open Europe is "waging a lonely campaign" to alert people to such eurofederalist intrigue. Trade Unionists against the EU Constitution (TUAEUC) and the Campaign against Euro Federalism (CAEF) have continually alerted trade unionists to the undemocratic nature of these developments. Indeed, delegates to the British TUC last September overwhelmingly backed opposition to the EU constitution.

The centre-Left Centre for a Social Europe also puts out daily e-bulletins alerting the labour and trade union movement to the dangers ably outlined by Mr Hannan. The cross-party Democracy Movement also has an excellent website outlining, among other issues, the threat to civil liberties enshrined within the discredited EU constitution.

Democrats are in danger of talking ourselves into a self-fulfilling prophecy of dominance from Brussels unless we highlight the vast breadth of growing opposition that exists against such a state of affairs.

Brian Denny, Trade Unionists against the EU Constitution, London E1

Telegraph Letters 

To be honest I have never really understood what all the fuss was about, almost forever those in power have donated honours to people who have supported their party, them or their political aims, you scratch my backism has been part of our political culture for as long as anyone can remember.

Think back to Marcia Falkender’s Pink list/ Lavender List, scandal in the 1970s this was only one example of something which had been and is still going on.

The real question was aired this evening on Newsnight when Jeremy Paxman asked Sir Jeremy Beauchamp why did Lord Levy - the chief New Labour fundraiser - apparently ask donors to make loans when they offered gifts and were obviously quite happy to be named as donors. Paxman pushed this point and pressed, can you think of any possible reason for translating a donation into a loan, if it were not to keep the donors name and the amount out of the accounts what other reason could there possible be?

Although Sir Jeremy tried to change the subject to one of legality, the main point had been illustrated earlier in the program when Neil Lawson, said there were now two Labour Parties, the party in the country and the other separate one based around Downing Street which had a different ideology a different organisation and now a separate financial base.

So it would appear that Tony’s cronies were not concerned about donations being open to public scrutiny but were intent on keeping the loans secret from the Labour party in order to insulate themselves with their own line of funding separate from normal labour party funding.

Even though some may be up in arms about the peerage question, the real point is that Blair and his cronies have systematically undermined their own party and set up a Labour party within the Labour party which is independent from control. In the much the way they have been acting generally in parliament with constant moves to make themselves unaccountable.

The Labour party in the country seems to be mounting a rearguard action to reclaim some control of the parliamentary party, we can only hope that this will spread to the Conservative parliamentary party who have also been making moves to insulate themselves from their supporters.

The other thing to emerge from this are the constant calls from all sides for state funding of political parties; something to which I am opposed. Why should we be forced to support any political party with our taxes, the argument that state funding will increase political accountability is weird to say the least. If they are going get money in any case the parties will be insulated from their supporters. When only 40% of the voting population voted for any of the parties at the last election it would be a democratic profanity to force people to pay for any party which does not offer enough incentive to enthuse people to walk down the road and vote for.

Other reasons:

Obviously only state recognised political parties would be eligible for public monies.

The recognition process could be used to remove certain political organisations or place certain conditions on political organisations.

It would only be a small step to then only allow officially/ legally recognised parties to stand for election.

This could also have a very damaging affect on the abilities to stand, for one policy local groups.

So any system of public funding would require state control; there would have to be legal registration of political parties, there would have to be a legal framework for funding regulations. This would have the effect of institutionalising parties. In assigning certain functions to the parties, the state then takes responsibility for seeing that they fulfil their responsibilities, thus more areas for state control of political activity.

Technorati Tags: Labour Party, state funding, fredom-to-choose, power-report

A  report on the BBC’s the World Tonight attacked the Conservatives for planning to sit with Poland’s Law and Justice party in the European Parliament. The report explained: “Since David Cameron’s election as leader he’s moved fast to change the Conservative party’s image to make it more modern, more inclusive, more appealing to voters in the centre of the political spectrum. So with that in mind it seems a little odd that he’s chosen a very traditionally conservative party in Poland as a new European ally. The Law and Justice party has governed in Warsaw for the last eight months in an uneasy alliance with two other right wing parties. It was elected on a platform of family values, founded on strong catholic beliefs. Now it looks like Law and Justice is going to team up with the Conservative party here to form a new political grouping in the European Parliament. Paul Moss is in Warsaw and has been finding out more about Mr Cameron’s new friends.” The report went on to note the Polish Prime Minister’s comments that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to “infect others with their views” and quoted various Polish people describing the party as “homophobic” and “dangerous”. Paul Moss described President Lech Kaczynski as “less Iron Lady and more Iain Duncan Smith”.

Apart from a combative interview with a Law and Justice spokesman, the only supposedly “balancing” voice in the whole report was Nicholas Richardson, identified only as “a conservative supporter” in Warsaw, who was interviewed in a noisy pub saying that he was a “fairly conservative sort of chap” and thought the Conservatives should sit with Law and Justice because they shouln’t be “so worried about being touchy-feely”. He said “Law and Justice, when it comes to sexual freedom, women’s rights and all these other sort of modern things we’re all told we have to like - I don’t think they acknowledge them at all!”

Comment: We are a year on from the BBC’s internal Wilson review - which found the BBC guilty of bias on Europe - and far too little has changed. BBC producers are still putting together packages without a single balancing view, breaching the basic principles of serious journalism. It’s good for the BBC to take a critical look at the Tories possible allies - and the Conservatives need to think carefully about who they are going to work with. But it’s ludicrous to just present a one sided assault without any context about Polish politics or society. For example, there was no mention of Law and Justice’s self-stated ambition to create a “fourth Polish republic” with a stable, western style party system, by gradually undermining the genuinely extremist “Samobroona” and “LPR” parties (which appears to be working). The Conservatives should complain about the report. But they should also see it as a warning shot: there will be a torrent of similar BBC reports if they pick the wrong allies.

One of the most serious problems is that the BBC still doesn’t seem to understand its own “soft bias” - as witnessed by the “angle of attack” phenomenon on the Today programme. Guy Verhofstadt is not asked, “how dare you ignore two overwhelming no votes?” or, “do you seriously believe that most people in Britain want an EU army?” He is instead asked: “Why haven’t people like yourself been able to persuade the sceptics about Europe that a federalist vision is the way forward?”

Can people on the Today programme not see why this isn’t neutral?

The World Tonight (36 minutes in) Today

From Open Europe

Technorati Tags: BBC, Bias, media,