Tag Archives: UKIP

Lazy Daniel Hannan MEP

I suppose drafting polemics takes time, or perhaps there is another reason for his deficiency. For Daniel Hannan MEP, European poster boy for the Tory right, seems increasingly to be neglecting the very work he is supposed to be doing – representing his constituents from South East England in the European Parliament, and playing his role as a legislator in the EU’s parliament.

First there are the records of meetings between lobbyists and Conservative members of the European Parliament, published for the period 1 January until 30 June 2010 [PDF here]. Hannan is one of only 2 MEPs (together with Robert Atkins) who states zero meetings with lobbyists. Continue reading →

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Comment is Free post on True Finns and populist parties

After appearing on BBC World Service World Have Your Say to discuss the True Finns, I’ve now written a piece for Comment is Free about the same issue – you can read it here. The comments thread is full of bile, although there is one issue I would like to draw attention to – the alleged connection I make between UKIP and the BNP.

Note I am not saying that UKIP and BNP are the same thing, or that they are connected. I am saying that they both have some points in common with populist movements in other European countries. In UKIP’s case this is their effort to tap into anti-politics sentiment and discontent with the political mainstream. The case of BNP is different – their anti-immigration sentiment is what they share with populist parties elsewhere.

I’ve also written an additional post here about True Finns and coalition building.

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Clearly UKIP’s poison is all-invasive

Since the 2009 European Election I’ve kept an eye and an ear open for what MEP Marta Andreasen will do in UKIP’s delegation. Today I seem to have my answer – she’s willing to be just as stupid and poisonous as the rest of them.

The issue at stake is a complex one. As The Parliament reports, the European Commission breached the copyright of machine translation software made by Systran SA, and was – rightly – sued for copyright breaches. Budgets Committee of the EP has just voted to approve the €12 million damages payment, with only one MEP – Andreasen – voting against paying the damages.

If the ball were in the other court – that Andreasen were an accountant for Systran, or the firm were based in the south east of the UK rather than France – you  would bet she would be kicking up all kinds of fuss about this, demanding the EU treats companies fairly.

The issue is of course an enormous cock up, and embarrassing to the Commission. But to get to the bottom of where the problem really lies would require time and effort, and cooperation with Commission staff. And we know where that ended up last time she tried.

So well done Marta. Make a populist and impractical statement, poisonous in nature. Suppose it was inevitable, you’re a UKIP MEP after all.

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Britain and Europe: In, out or somewhere in between? – well, that’s the wrong question for a start

The Fabians are running an event tomorrow entitled “Britain and Europe: In, out or somewhere in between?” I can’t attend the event as I’m in Austria at the moment, so I’ll raise a few points here instead.

Frankly, the very title of the event makes me annoyed.

Why can we simply never move on beyond discussions about in or out of the European Union in the UK? OK, if you’re UKIP or Bill Cash then maybe you have the incentive to talk about this, but where is the incentive for an organisation linked to the Labour Party to pose a question this way?

For Labour, Britain’s membership of the EU has been a reasonably undisputed fact for a long time, and it’s about time the discourse caught up.

The old pro-European vs. eurosceptic frame is broken (as I’ve previously argued) and while debate is stuck on that issue there’s no way to discuss what those on the left – in the UK and elsewhere – should really be talking about, namely what a more social EU would actually look like, and how the UK can play a role in that.

A related discussion would be about how parties on the left – in the PES at EU level, and nationally – find a compelling message to get themselves back into power.

The two people I know in the UK in Labour circles who could give some compelling answers to these questions – Henning Meyer (of Social Europe Journal) and David Schoibl (chair of Labour Movement for Europe) are not even on the programme…

It is also vital that the debate does not start at the event about whether Labour should advocate a referendum on in-or-out of the EU, a matter I raised earlier this week. Yet with Wayne David on one of the panels, and Sunder Katwala chairing a panel, I fear this issue will raise its ugly head.

On balance I’m happy that the event tomorrow is taking place, and that the Fabians are starting to talk about EU matters. But it’s going to be a long and slow process before that debate in any way becomes meaningful.

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You can’t compare me to the Führer but I can call you a fascist

Godfrey Bloom is a prat. That much was clear, even before this week’s incident (BBC, Wikipedia) where he referred to Martin Schulz, leader of the socialists in the European Parliament with the words “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”. This after all is the MEP best known until this week for his comments about women cleaning behind the fridge. This is the video of the Schulz-Bloom incident (plays from the correct point):

Conversely, Martin Schulz is a nasty, tub-thumping, selfish, hectoring politician, motivated more by his desire to be President of the European Parliament than anything else as far as I can tell. I’ve expressed my dislike of the man in the past. Yet Schulz, the wronged party in the incident with Bloom, also once heckled a Dutch far right MEP Daniël van der Stoep, calling him a fascist, and was not asked to apologise and subsequently reprimanded in the same way by the President of the European Parliament. Video of that incident (plays from the correct point):

So what’s going on here?

Firstly, both of them are idiots, and behaved inappropriately. Calling others fascists, der Führer etc. in the chamber is offensive and unnecessary. However offensive Bloom, Schulz or van der Stoep are, nothing should prompt any politician to use those words.

Secondly, Schulz gets away with it because he represents the political mainstream and Bloom and van der Stoep do not. Essentially Schulz has more friends and gets treated differently. Just listen to Guy Verhofstadt’s comments backing Schulz. This plays right into the hands of the loopy folks on the political fringes – they seek to present the political mainstream as conspiring against them, and this incident looks like precisely that is happening. Jerzy Buzek, the essentially decent President of the EP, needs to make sure everyone is dealt with fairly and reasonably. Buzek, let’s not forget, was the EU politician who gave the most positive support for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo for example.

Thirdly, it’s much better to take apart Schulz with some humour and cunning, rather that resorting to Bloom’s xenophobia. He should take a leaf out of Danny Cohn Bendit’s book.

[UPDATE]
Laura Shields has written a post about the protagonists’ use of language – interesting thoughts, but I think she overestimates Bloom’s ability to think before he speaks!

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The rocky road from Whistleblower to MEP

Marta Andreasen - CC / Flickr

Marta Andreasen - CC / Flickr

I knew Marta Andreasen was UKIP Treasurer, yet until yesterday I had been unaware she is number 2 on UKIP’s election list in the South East. I’m not normally in the business of scutinising election lists for a party that mainly consists of batty 60 year old men, but Andreasen is adequately different to merit a blog post.

Lest we forget Andreasen was an accountant hired by the European Commission who, when she discovered errors with the book-keeping systems, aired her complaints rather publicly, and ended up getting sacked by the Commission.

Putting Andreasen second on the UKIP list in the South East is a very interesting choice. First of all she is not British (she was born in Argentina and has Spanish citizenship) and as far as I am aware she does not even live in the UK. As you can tell from this interview in Newbury Today the standard UKIP nationalist rhetoric does not come especially easily to her.

Secondly, I wonder whether the choice of Andreasen marks an interesting departure for UKIP. She ranks alongside Paul van Buitenen, Hans Peter Martin and Hans-Martin Tillack as high profile whistleblowers who have discovered fraud within the EU and the institutions have effectively tried to silence them. These people are not – by definition – anti the EU as such, they are however anti the way that business is conducted.

More specifically, I wonder how Andreasen would vote on a matter such as airline black lists. UKIP MEPs voted against this legislation as far as I am aware – how would Andreasen vote? Essentially will Andreasen be constructive in her euroscepticism, or, standard UKIP style, just vote against everything – even things like airline black lists? It’s going to be interesting to see how this develops.

Of the other 3 whistleblowers I cite, only Tillack has not become a MEP. Martin was elected first in 1999 as a Social Democrat, but fell out with the party and the group, and indeed most of his whistleblowing has been subsequent to his election – he has made films such as this with RTL capturing MEPs profiting from their expenses system. Van Buitenen (unlike Martin) sits with a political group in the EP – the Greens-EFA. Problem is he only votes with them 6.23% of the time according to Votewatch, making him the most rebellious of all MEPs.

In some strange way for all four of these individuals exposing the fraud was actually the easy bit. Finding a way to put things right is much, much harder. Is it better to be on the outside being critical, or be inside the European Parliament trying to reform (or – for UKIP – destroy?) the institutions from within? If Andreasen gets elected she’s going to have a hard time on a number of fronts, not least being number 2 behind Nigel Farage on a UKIP list.

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Libertas: we want some of the politics of anti-politics too

Today’s Libertas e-mail states “we rolled out a video that’s flying around the blogosphere” – well 324 views is not exactly flying, and that’s how many people have seen the video as I write. You can view it below. My own anti-UKIP effort is doing better at the moment, with more than 2000 views.

Basically, in its amateur way, Libertas is trying to jump on the coat tails of the anti-politics sentiment that is brewing in the UK, duck islands and all. With the 3 major parties taking a hit in the polls, outsiders like UKIP and the BNP are hoovering up support, and Libertas wants some of it too. Hence their video to have a go at UKIP for troughing it in Brussels as much as everyone else has done in Westminster.

There are 2 problems for Libertas here. First of all no-one actually judges UKIP on their record. If you believe the EU is a conspiracy then you will vote for them anyway. That’s why they will do well. Secondly, the yes-but line about the EU that Libertas is trying to sell doesn’t easily work in UK politics – why not go for the out-and-out radicals, rather than an Irish chap that people don’t necessarily trust either?

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How well will UKIP do at the EP elections?

EU Flag - CC / Flickr

EU Flag - CC / Flickr

Every other British political party has their eye off UKIP.

First of all the 4th June European Parliament elections are happening a year or so before a general election and UKIP are not a threat at national level. So as Labour, Tories and Lib Dems shadow box for the national poll, so UKIP can pour all their energies into the European elections.

This is all set against the backdrop of the 3 main parties having comprehensively failed to develop a narrative about the EU that is credible and comprehensible.

Even when it comes to the rise of smaller parties UKIP attracts less attention than the BNP (more on them and Labour here) and the Greens, both of whom can be a nuisance in local politics.

How could UKIP be effectively countered? A good start would be to look at their record in the European Parliament where, despite being a delegation of a reasonable size, they cannot point to any legislative impact. They just vote against things, anything at all. Even things like airline black lists that protect citizens from unsafe airlines, or against efforts to cut down unnecessary legislation. I cannot manage to find any substance on the UKIP website about what they have actually done in the last five years, other than chunter away about why the EU is always wrong. Putting pictures of Churchill on their site, and running campaigns to protect British pubs are pure populism – no clue how that’s actually linked to the European Parliament. But I suppose their voters won’t care.

Then there are the candidates UKIP assembled to stand in 2004 – Godfrey ‘clean behind the fridge‘ Bloom, and 3 odd balls that fell out of favour: Robert ‘Veritas‘ Kilroy Silk, Tom ‘embezzlement‘ Wise, and Ashley ‘benefit fraud‘ Mote. And that from 12 MEPs!

So how well will UKIP actually do this time around? Sadly I fear they are going to do rather well.

I find Nigel Farage slimy and untrustworthy, but he can at least communicate. The turnout at these elections is going to be horribly low, and the lower the turnout the better UKIP will do – if you’re paranoid that the EU is a conspiracy then you’ll turn up at the polling station. More on the polls from politicalbetting.com here. I’m absolutely sure they will get more than the 4 MEPs that Hix calculates with Predict09. Plus with all their parties with their energies focused elsewhere then Farage and co could be a force to be reckoned with once more.

(Oh, if you’re a UKIP voter reading this, or have seen my UKIP remix film: the line ‘the EU is more corrupt than us’ doesn’t wash, sorry. UKIP can gain by playing the politics of anti-politics, and hence snouts should be 100% out of the troughs.)

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