Dutch EU cuts pledge leads way for Tories

All the major parties competing in the forthcoming Dutch general election are supporting a multi-billion euro cut to the country's payments into the EU budget.

Ahead of the Dutch vote on 9 June, both the likely fourth-placed VVD and front-running CDA parties propose bringing the contribution paid by the Netherlands into line per capita with those of France and Germany.

According to EUobserver, the result would be Dutch payments to the EU being cut by around half from their current annual level of €5.3 billion (£4.6bn).

Other Dutch election front-runners, the centre-left PvdA and the Freedom Party, also support a cut.

UK contribution

According to the recent Budget documents, last year Britain handed over £6.4bn (net) to the EU and in the coming year, at a time when our next government is likely to be cutting public services towards reigning in our deficit, that net amount is due to rise to £7.6bn.

This is even more than the £6bn involved in the proposed rise in National Insurance contributions that caused such a huge fuss at the start of this general election campaign.

And so far other 'big ticket' items of government spending like the Trident nuclear deterrent and the ID cards scheme have all featured in debates about cuts.

But at no point on the campaign trail has a politician or journalist questioned the scale of money Britain will next year alone flush on the EU and what we're getting for those billions.

This is especially odd since auditors have not been able to fully approve the EU's accounts for an unjustifiable 14 years in a row and there are regular reports detailing extraordinary levels of waste and fraud.

So not even auditors can fully explain where the billions countries pay to the EU actually end up.

Vote winner

The move by leading Dutch political parties to cut the amount of public money the country wastes on the EU has proved immensely popular, with a survey showing 63% of voters support the idea.

So not just would Britain be far from alone or isolated in Europe in demanding a cut to the amount of public money the EU consumes, but the news also shows that - for the British party that made a similar pledge - the policy is likely to be a big vote-winner.

Not surprising, since such a move would show that party to be serious about the tricky task of tackling national debt levels by chopping waste and preserving key public services.

Ahead of tomorrow's 'foreign affairs' TV debate between the party leaders, during which David Cameron must produce some striking ideas to grab support and win back lost ground, now is the perfect time for the Conservatives to champion EU cuts.

Lib Dems guilty of major breach of trust

For Nick Clegg to attempt today to don the mantle of trust and honesty in British politics is the most laughable idea that has yet been put forward during this election campaign.

This man seems to think he can say one thing and be believed, despite having so recently and so conspicuously behaved in a completely different way.

The dangerous game he is playing with such a strategy is that anyone with a memory will see that he is trying to treat voters like fools and, in doing so, only discrediting himself.

Dishonesty

At the last general election, the Liberal Democrats promised to support a referendum on the EU Constitution. "Ratification", they said in their 2005 manifesto, "must be subject to a referendum of the British people."

But when, in March 2008, the opportunity came to vote in the House of Commons in support such a referendum - the EU Constitution having been revived and re-named as the Lisbon Treaty - Nick Clegg instructed his party to abstain.

Despite the influential House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee - whose job it is to scrutinise EU legislation on behalf of MPs - confirming that the Lisbon Treaty was "substantially equivalent" to the EU Constitution, Nick Clegg and other leading Lib Dems conducted a charade claiming that the two documents were completely different.

The chairman of that committee, Labour MP Michael Connarty, said during a debate in the House of Commons: "Every provision of the Constitutional Treaty, apart from the flags, mottos and anthems, is to be found in the Reform Treaty. We think that they are fundamentally the same, and the Government have not produced a table to contradict our position."

This view was backed up by a second cross-party group of MPs - the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee - which concluded that "there is no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs in the Constitutional Treaty which the Government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied."

And at the time there was a cacophony of other European leaders claiming that the EU Constitution had been preserved in all but name.

They said it

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, chief architect of the original EU Constitution, writing in Le Monde, said of the Lisbon Treaty: "Looking at the content, the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty … are found complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and inserted in former treaties ... Above all, it is to avoid having referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed."

Hans-Gert Poettering, then president of the European 'parliament', said in a letter to M. Giscard d'Estaing: "I had the feeling that the voice of the European Parliament had been heard and that the essentials had been saved, even if we had to give up calling it 'a European Constitution' ... "

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: "The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part… We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like the flag and the national anthem."

Jose Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, said: "A great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties"

Bertie Ahern, then Irish PM, said: "They haven't changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there."

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, confirmed: "The good thing is...that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters – the core – is left."

Flip-flopping

Either the Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems thought they knew better than all these European leaders and, somehow, believed that the Lisbon Treaty was in fact 'completely different'.

Or, blinkered by their evident long-term fanaticism for passing ever more powers from our elected parliament to the European Union, they knew the truth but set out to deceive the public and deny us the say we had been promised.

Worse, having abstained in the House of Commons to ensure the treaty passed, the Lib Dems then voted against a referendum in the House of Lords - flip-flopping to vote whichever way it took to ensure the anti-democratic treaty became law without people being given the say we were promised at the last election.

Deceit

The whole process of how the EU Constitution was revived after the French and Dutch 'no' votes and re-presented in order to avoid further public votes was a blatant deceit, endorsed by Gordon Brown and in which the Liberal Democrats - led by Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey - actively participated.

Clegg and many in his party behaved in a deeply hypocritical and dishonest way, saying one thing and doing another.

They betrayed promises given at the last election and such behaviour should not be rewarded with votes at this election if we are to have a chance of achieving in the future the quality of democracy that we deserve.

Euro nears IMF-backed bailout over Greek debt

The EU's decade-old single currency experiment faces failure as early as this week, as Greece's debt crisis becomes critical.

In a new bid to shore up investor confidence, eurozone countries together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the weekend agreed a £26bn (€30bn) package of loans to be made available to Greece at a below-market interest rate of 5%.

The need for greater clarity on a safety net for the financially embattled country rose on Thursday as the interest rate on Greek government debt hit a new high of 7.5%.

On Friday credit rating agency Fitch added to the pressure by further downgrading the country's creditworthiness status to a level that, should other major agencies follow, would prevent large institutional investors from buying Greek government bonds.

Greece is currently faced with debts of nearly £267bn (€300bn) - 12.7% of GDP. As its currency cannot fall in value to increase the country's competitiveness, its recovery plan involves further heavy borrowing on the bond markets and a punishing programme of public spending cuts plus higher taxes.

However last week's double blow made it increasingly unfeasible that the country would be able to borrow its way out of its economic problems.

IMF props euro

According to the Daily Telegraph, the amount each eurozone country will be expected to contribute to the bailout will be in proportion to the amount each puts into the European Central Bank.

The effect will be to drag other already highly indebted eurozone countries like Ireland, Spain and Portugal - all currently imposing their own harsh austerity measures - further into difficulties.

The only barrier to money being handed over to Greece is now the unanimous agreement of all eurozone member countries.

However, the contribution the IMF will make to the package is not yet clear. Some say the IMF will "co-financed" the deal - others that the IMF will provide an additional "top-up" loan, should it be required.

But in any arrangement, IMF intervention to prop up the financial integrity of the eurozone will signal the ultimate failure of the EU's monetary union project.

Public response

The extra burden of funding the Greek bailout on their own economic recovery is unlikely to be received warmly by the public in many eurozone countries.

To calm public opinion over the cost of a potential bailout, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was forced to insist that any loans made to Greece must be at a market rate - a caveat that has been thwarted.

Yet, as the biggest contributor to the ECB, Germany will also have to stump up the lion's share of the bailout funds.

Critical sale

As earlier talk about a financial safety net for Greece failed to calm the markets' fears, the EU will be hoping that this fleshed-out deal will boost confidence ahead of a new bond sale by the Greek government.

This week's sale will be a critical indicator as to whether investors are sufficiently reassured about the safety of Greek debt or whether they will continue to test levels of commitment to providing the country with financial support.

Should the sale not succeed, the question will fast become; just how many billions are the IMF and the eurozone's other member countries willing to splash to prop up the fundamentally misconceived euro project?

Electoral credibility depends on pledging EU cuts too

Recent reports have warned that Britain faces losing its triple-A credit rating unless 'strong' action is taken after the election to cut levels of public debt.

A fortnight ago, the ratings agency Fitch said it was "uncomfortable with the fiscal adjustment path set out by UK authorities" and called for "more credible and stronger fiscal consolidation plans during 2010".

Fellow agency Moody's, meanwhile, spoke out to say that Britain had moved "substantially" closer to losing its AAA status and, at the end of March, Standard & Poors declared that the level of government debt may become "incompatible with an 'AAA' rating".

Most recently, one of the world's most powerful investment houses gave notice that Britain's AAA credit rating could be lost within a year.

The Independent reported that Scott Mather, the head of global portfolio management at the world's largest bond investor - Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco) - said, "Miracles are needed in the next six months in order to keep economic growth in the developed world."

Looming debt trap

Alarm bells should be ringing loudly. Britain's AAA credit rating isn't merely a status symbol. Its loss would label Britain as a riskier lending prospect and, as a result, the cost of national borrowing would rise.

And when borrowing this year alone is forecast to hit £167bn, a higher interest bill could spark a spiral of higher taxes and faltering growth that could prove fatal for financial stability and prosperity.

For all the media circus of the election campaign, we are being asked to elect politicians who will have to walk a financial tightrope over that debt trap.

And so far none of them seem to be taking the problem seriously enough to be up to the job.

Major cuts to public spending - very likely public services too - will be needed. That much is being said.

But to decide which party has the credibility to govern and deserves our vote, we must be told where their axes will fall.

State the obvious

One particular point is already clear to many. We can no longer afford to splash multi-billion pound sums every year on propping up the European Union's wasteful activities.

So far, much heat and argument has been generated about the £6bn at stake over the proposed rise in National Insurance contributions.

But where is the debate about the equally substantial £6.4 billion (net) the EU cost us last year - 'taken out of the economy', if you subscribe to Gordon Brown's own rhetoric. Handed over to an organisation that hasn't had its accounts fully signed off by auditors for an unjustifiable 14 years in a row.

Surely a large and much clearer example of waste than almost any other element of government spending? But which journalist has asked Gordon Brown or David Cameron to either justify or cut this?

More relevantly, what will either party do to cut the £7.6bn that recent Budget documents show the EU will cost our new government over the year ahead?

Time must be called on where that money ends up; MEP junkets to the Canary Islands, sponsorship of dubious cultural projects, subsidised skiing holidays for the families of EU officials and much more waste.

Reality check

These are serious times and even enthusiasts in principle for the European Union must recognise that continued provision of many valued public services and even the stability of the economy are today at such grave risk that funding the grand ideals but wasteful reality of today's EU is a luxury that Britain can no longer afford.

Maybe now would in fact be a good time to discuss whether whole EU institutions which serve no coherent purpose, like the European Parliament - merely existing to provide a thin veneer of democratic respectability to the EU structure - should face the axe.

Imagine the savings! No more MEPs to pamper, grand buildings and facilities to maintain or that monthly circus back and forward to Strasbourg. No more six-figure salaries, expenses, travel allowances or multitude of other perks that - according to think tank Open Europe - cost us £1.8 million a year for each MEP.

A recent Daily Express report puts the figure as heading up to £2.1 million for each of the EU's 736 MEPs, nevermind the legions of support staff.

Really, would we miss MEPs? With our economy in dire straits, is it really such a hard decision to cut that all away, rather than slash much more valued public services?

In any case, for national ministers to get together periodically to discuss how to co-operate on the issues that affect us all, it isn't fundamentally necessary for the EU to be as politically centralised or have such a massive central budget as it wields today.

Wealth redistribution

Superstate ideology has long overtaken necessity. The EU has expanded way beyond its original purpose to the extent that its institutions and policies are now swallowing up far too much of Europe's financial resources.

Now these resources have become so critically scarce, they absolutely must be redirected - spent on the ground around Europe supporting economic recovery, rather than on glass palaces full of extra layers of lawmakers in Brussels.

Superstate enthusiasts, of course, like to downplay the EU's massive £116 billion budget by comparing it to the even bigger figure of the continent's total GDP. They conjure up an ocean to try to make a sea of money look like a drop. It's the oldest political trick in the book and, by now, surely the lamest.

So who in this election will show in the weeks ahead that they are serious about protecting public services, limiting the burden of taxes, and combatting obvious financial waste - by making clear that the £7.6bn ear-marked for the EU in the coming year will be the first piece of public spending under their axe?

Now double standards on democracy

Suddenly, Gordon Brown is a convert to holding referendums.

In 1997, we were promised a referendum on the euro, should the government ever decide to recommend membership.

There was much talk of '5 economic tests', but most could see that the real reason the vote was never held was that, contrary to the government view, people would have voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the pound.

In 2005, we were promised a referendum on the EU Constitution.

But when, having been rejected by the French and Dutch peoples in their own public votes, it was renamed as the Lisbon Treaty - "substantially equivalent" to the EU Constitution, according to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee - the government nevertheless played out a charade that it was a completely different document and shamefully wriggled out of their election promise.

Here in 2010, another referendum 'promise' is now being dangled before us by the same people who have repeatedly failed to deliver such promises in the past.

In a speech to Centre Point yesterday, Brown proposed a public vote on reform of the electoral system for the House of Commons and on changing the House of Lords to make it elected.

Necessary changes, you may think. But why does such a domestic rearrangement warrant a referendum if transferring the actual decision-making powers of those institutions to external bodies beyond meaningful democratic control apparently doesn't?

Brown's double standards are exposed once again.

As a result of his plans, "Britain’s democratic future", he said, "will not belong to any politician or party. It will be up to the people."

Mere months after handing over a range of new decision-making to EU institutions and denying any of us the say on that fundamental shift of power that he promised us at the last election.

Actions, not words. Brown has already shown very clearly his real attitude to democracy.

There has indeed "been a fundamental rupture in the bond of trust between those who serve, and those who they are sworn to serve."

Gordon Brown's problem is that he himself has acted so shamefully, and so conspicuously, to diminish our democracy that it is now far too late for him to hope to regain that trust.

In truth, those who act to degrade democracy deserve only to lose their position within in.

Brown's double standards on jobs and public spending

It's day two of the general election campaign and the usual suspects are already trying to take voters for fools.

Business secretary Peter Mandelson was first on the stump this morning, making a speech to the Foreign Press Association.

Mandelson, a powerful yet unelected government minister, seems to enjoy inexplicable credibility from the media - even when talking about trust and honesty in politics. Can the media already have forgotten how Mandelson's own actions twice previously caused him to be sacked from the cabinet?

His latest argument about an opposition party being too 'inexperienced' for government is nothing more than an argument that government must never change - that only the experienced should govern. An argument against democracy itself.

Admittedly, not an entirely unexpected point of view, coming from someone known for his enthusiasm for the European Union. His favouritism for technocracy over democracy has long been clear.

But sadly the media seem to be letting the public down by reporting such anti-democratic sentiments from a senior government minister completely uncritically.

Brazen Clegg

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg also joined the fray early in the day, to claim that this election 'isn't a two horse race'. Despite presumably knowing what the rest of us do - that in reality, unlike Gordon Brown and David Cameron, he is not likely to become Prime Minister.

A much more remarkable claim, however, was his assertion that only the Lib Dems are untainted by corruption and can therefore restore trust in politics.

Firstly it's plainly clear that, like the other parties, Lib Dem MPs were also caught up in the expenses scandal and had to apologise and pay back misclaimed expenses.

But Clegg's claims about trust are especially brazen, given it assumes people have such short memories that we will already have forgotten how he led his party to break a clear 2005 election promise to support a referendum on the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty.

Worse, during that process, Clegg engaged in precisely the dodgy backroom deals he accuses the other parties of employing to ensure that his party quietly voted whichever way it took at each stage of the Lisbon Treaty's progress through Parliament - abstaining in the Commons and voting against a referendum in the Lords - to prevent people being given a say on something as important as who decides new laws.

Hardly very trustworthy, or democratic. So who does Clegg really think he's fooling with his 'holier than thou' rhetoric? In reality, such claims just serve to make himself look something of a joker and badly out of touch.

Commenting on the euro today, Clegg also reinforced his party's enthusiasm for handing power over to the EU.

The Lib Dem leader admitted that "we think there is a case for, a long-term case for, considering entry into the euro, which needs to be done with a referendum" but admitted that "eurozone interest rates over the last few years would have been wrong for Britain".

In revealing that he believes we should ultimately join the euro while admitting eurozone interest rates can be wrong for our economy, Clegg displays how his EU-statist ideology trumps the economic stability and prosperity on which many jobs depend. Hardly the best bid for a leadership position in our democracy!

Certainly, given his low grade behaviour over the Lisbon Treaty, it would be a brave person indeed who took seriously his purported commitment to holding a referendum before signing Britain up to the euro.

Brown's £6bn gaffe

At Prime Minister's Questions, a major theme was the government's proposed increase in National Insurance, versus the Conservatives' plans to ditch that increase.

Gordon Brown banged on repeatedly about the dangers of "taking £6bn out of the economy" that the NI increase will raise.

As the BBC reports, Brown said "Take six billion out of the economy now and there is more unemployment, more businesses go under and there is less growth."

"Thousands of jobs would then go", Brown lectured.

Yet this is the man who, last year, despite our growing deficit and massive borrowing, was quite happy to take £6.4bn out of the economy and hand it over to the European Union.

This is an institution about which there are regular reports of financial waste and fraud on a grand scale, and whose accounts have not been fully approved by auditors for an unjustifiable 14 years in a row.

According to the recent Budget documents, next year, if Brown remains Prime Minister, at the same time as he is slashing public services, his plan is to increase our cash payments to the EU to a scandalous £7.6bn net.

So, once again please for the record, Mr Brown. How many thousand jobs has taking such sums "out of the economy" and wasting them on the EU already cost?

Confessions on the Lisbon Treaty - No.1

Unelected 'quango queen' Baroness Ashton, speaking to the European Parliament on
2 December 2009 about her new role as EU 'High Representative for Foreign Affairs':

"This is brand new. I do not have an office, I do not have a Cabinet, I do not have a team. I inherited a blank piece of paper and at the moment I have written one or two small things on it."

Baroness Ashton speaking in the House of Lords on 22 April 2008, when responsible for guiding through the Lisbon Treaty:

"The proposal is that we have a high representative who becomes the vice-president of the Commission with very specific functions. That is a defined role within the treaty which is vested in one person." (hat tip Open Europe)

Now that the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified, the people who pushed it through Parliament are starting to contradict themselves as the truth inevitably emerges from behind the misleading claims they made at the time.

This treaty, and the actions now taken under it, have no democratic legitimacy.