Duff, Duffer, Duffest. Democracy a tad scary for the Lib Dems

Just listen to this. It is Andrew Duff, the senior and highly respected Lib Dem MEP from the eastern counties of England. Not only does he find it nigh on impossible to mention this country by name,

The country I know best

But worse he wants to ban referenda on European matters,

"The fact that Referenda are prohibited from being used to ratify European Union Treaty changes does also seem to be to be a constructive step"

Now I wonder why he would think that?

By derailing the Referendum lock, will Lib Dems derail the coalition?

We all know how happy both the Tory and Lib Dem activists and back benchers are with the coalition. But in order to get on with being in government they are apparently prepared to forget their beliefs and put their shoulders to the wheel.

The Coalition Agreement is what they have to fall back upon.

We agree that we will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future Treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that Treaty - a 'referendum lock'. We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that the use of any passerelle would require primary legislation.

Now of course I don't believe that the 'referendum lock' is any such thing. As has been said, it is a lock so feeble that it could be picked by a toddler. But to the party loyalists, it is a shibboleth they can cling to. They can whisper the mantra to themselves,

"Dave is a sceptic, Dave is a sceptic" as meaningless as a cargo cult and about as effective, but it makes them feel better.

Any direct attack on the Coalition Agreement is indeed a direct attack on the Coalition itself. So a direct attack on this by a senior Lib Dem, should be seen as a declaration of war against the Government, by one who is supposed to be inside the tent.
Andrew Duff a senior Lib Dem MEP has called for an amendment of the Treaty specifically to kybosh the Referendum Lock. Worse still is that Clegg seems to be well aware of what he is up to.

"Nick Clegg understands my thinking of the matter very well."

As Euractive reports,

his intention was to solve "the British problem," as he called it, and to counter the "referendum lock" that Britain put on any future EU treaty changes involving transfers of power to Brussels

It also has a copy of the letter,

Duff's proposed Treaty Amendment

So what is Mr Clegg doing to reign in his fanatics? Nothing. What is the coalition doing to stop one of their own undermining its foundation document. Nothing.

They just hope if they stay silent then nobody will notice.

Parliament slaps down Duff Report

Interestingly, even the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament seems to share my views on the Duff Report I talked about a week or so ago,
Even his colleagues in the ALDE have misgivings,

Anneli Jäätteenmäki (ALDE, FI), admitted to being among those for whom the change is too fast, observing that "it is not the time to change the treaties and there are divided opinions in all groups".

Which is the Parliamentary equivalent of Mr Duff's previous remarks,

"Especially if it was some crazy federast, the Committee would tell him to fuck off."

Best seller

I've just been invited to the launch of this page turner, by Lib/Dem leader in the European Parliament, Andrew Duff.

What is interesting is that the advert he sent round the Parliament is this,

Shoehorn invites you to the launch of Andrew Duff's new book

18h30 - 20h00 on Tuesday 14 April
Salon des Membres, Spinelli Building ground floor, European Parliament
ISBN 978 1 907149 00 9
€14.99 £12.99
Orders in local Brussels bookshops or www.shoehornbooks.com/SavingtheEU

All well and good, but hmmm, what's this. Could the great stuttering federast be breaking the Parliament's rules. By gum I think he just might be.

You see there are strict rules governing commercial activity,

“the event must be linked to the activities of the European Union and have a direct bearing on the European Parliament; it may not in any circumstances be of a commercial nature or detrimental to the dignity of the institution;”

Well this book is linked to the EU, but what, is it for sale? On the Parliament's premesis. Naughty naughty Mr Duff. Slapped wrist from the bureau I think.

Subs...subs

So I managed to get a letter published in the Scotsman today, but I cannot claim the promotion,

Alex Orr (Debate & Opinion, 26 November) claims the Czech Republic is ready to take over the presidency of the European Union. I would agree with him, but how does he square this with the attitude of Andrew Duff, Lib Dem MEP and board member of the International European Movement, who told Czech parliamentarians a couple of weeks ago "he did not think that the Czech Republic could take over the presidency, if they had not ratified the treaty".
It appears the Czechs are acceptable only if they do what they are told.

GAWAIN TOWLER, MEP
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz,
Brussels

I wrote it as, Gawain Towler, UKIP, Brussels.

So nice of the Scotsman to promote me I guess. The full story of Duff's behaviour can be found here.

The vice tightens

This is an arcane subject, agreed, but the passage of the Corbett report through Committee - or should I say non passage of the report through Committee will, when the history is written be recognised as one of the building blocks of the centralised United States of Europe so fanatically desired by the Euro-Nationalists.

Andrew Duff, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has a thoughtful piece in the FT on the subject, in which he states that MEP,

"voted to ensure that two of the current party groups cannot survive, at least in their present form, after next June’s elections. In a vote of 481 to 203, with 26 abstentions, parliament decided to raise the threshold needed to form a group. At the moment, a political group needs at least 20 MEPs from six of the EU’s 27 member states. From next July, a group will need 25 MEPs from seven countries...

"One wonders if all the consequences of raising the party threshold are thoroughly thought through. The two groups prospectively disbanded are the Union for Europe of the Nations (UEN) and Independency/Democracy (ID). The rightist UEN has 43 members drawn from only six countries, including Ireland’s ruling Fianna Fail party, Poland’s Law and Justice party (of the Kaczynski twins), and Italy’s Alleanza Nazionale (of Gianfranco Fini). Although of nine nationalities, the 22 members of the nationalistic ID are heavily dependent on the stability, political and otherwise, of the UK Independence Party. If refugees from the dissolved UEN and ID are to be forced reluctantly into the surviving larger groups they will only add to the incoherence of their inevitably nervous hosts.

If, however, they are discarded to swell the ranks of M Le Pen’s ‘non-attached’, they will only add to the inefficiency of the House. The sub-plot of this story is the commitment of British Tory leader David Cameron to divorce his MEPs in the next parliament from their association with the federalist EPP. In order to form a new group, the Conservatives will now need allies from six other states. They will not find them in the Irish members of the UEN who are looking to join one of the mainstream pro-European (and explicitly pro-Lisbon treaty) parties – probably the Liberals. Nor will the Tories find allies in the Alleanza Nazionale who, at the behest of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, are set to join the EPP"...

"The likelihood of a Tory government in Britain is beginning to alarm Bussels. As the Labour party declines, it becomes ever more urgent to have the Lisbon treaty in force before Mr Cameron gets to Number Ten. Amid the after-shock of the Irish referendum, not enough significance has been given to Britain’s U-turn on Europe. Whereas in 2005 Tony Blair limped apologetically behind France and the Netherlands in rejecting the constitutional treaty, Gordon Brown deserves much credit for ratifying Lisbon even after the Irish ‘No’.

Yet nobody is betting that Britain’s new engagement with Europe will last log. In Strasbourg, President Sarkozy was as encouraging as he could be: ‘Europe needs the United Kingdom’, he said. ‘If Britain has one foot in and one foot out, Europe is weakened’".

They might be worrioed about Cameron, but will be far more worried when UKIP increase both their vote share and their representation in the European Parliament. Britain is not happy, and is beggining to realise that,all things being considered,it would be Better Off Out.
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When federalists fall out

Splendid piece in the Telegraph by Bruno Waterfield about the shenanigans at the Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday which may well result in smaller - particularly eurosceptic -groups being closed down after next year's European Elections. I witnessed it and though to be fair it was a debate about the Parliament's rules of procedure, I have rarely enjoyed a Committee Meeting like it. It was bums on seats stuff.

Richard Corbett's report was up for voting at 10.00, but from a quick count it became apparent that the little groups had got their act together and had the numbers to win. At which point the Chairman, Jo Leinen started a filibuster. He was abetted by other Socialist and Christian Democrats one of whom a Greek socialist named Costas Botopolous made the procedure transparent by saying,

"We must continue this debate, that will give us time to get more members into Committee for the vote".

Anyhow, after half an hour they though they had the numbers. Wrong call, the opposition including two UKIP MEPs (Graham Booth and Mike Nattrass) won by a single vote. This meant that legally the whole report fell and would have to go back to the drawing board. This in turn would mean that the report, scheduled to go to the full parliamentary plenary in July would not get its new first reading in Committee until after the summer recess, which would inevitably mean that it would not get its second reading in Committee until after Christmas, which would mean that it probably would not get to plenary in time to have an impact before the next European elections.

Therefore the rules governing the formation of groups would stay as they are and there would still be an effective Eurosceptic presence in the parliament. Not something that the elite want to see.

The net result of this was that Corbett himself was raging. I know Richard and can tell by the tone of his voice how angry and disappointed he was. I am not sure if he has ever lost any vote on one of his myriad reports on procedural tampering. This was lesse majestie of the first order.

So after some harumphing the only Tory in the room, Timothy Kirkhope, who is Vice-Chairman of the Committee came up with an oral amendment that would take out the figure of 30 MEPs need to form a group. Not a bad amendment as it happens, but irrelevant.

According to the rules if the report falls, then the report falls. What Kirkhope had done was to throw the federastic autocrats a lifeline. The debate continued slowly more and more socialists and Christian Democrats turned up.

Brian Crowley, the pro-European leader of the small UEN group was almost on his feet with outrage (given he uses a wheelchair no small feat in itself). Andrew Duff was slapping his hands together demanding to be heard. Hanne Dahl, Jens-Peter Bonde's replacement was being forthright in her opposition to the move. But Leinen and Corbett ploughed on, ignoring the rules of procedure and finally went to a vote. Crowley demanded that the Chairman justify this breach of the rule of law, Leinen just waved him away. Kirkhope meanwhile just kept on defending his amendment without, it seems realising that by doing so he was allowing the big two to escape their defeat. Of course seeing as (as has been pointed out by Richard North) this rule change is not about destroying UKIP or the small eurosceptic groupings but damaging the prospects of the Tories setting up a breakaway group, maybe this was deliberate on Timothy's part, he never having been a fan of Cameron's breached promise to leave the EPP.

The vote started, now an hour after it had started the big blocks had lumbered there members into position and were able to vote this through.

Today a letter was sent to the president of Parliament, authored by Andrew Duff and signed by representatives of the Greens, the Lib Dems, the UEN, the Ind/Dem and the Communists, I reproduce the text below. Interesting in the covering email Duff makes the point,

"I propose that we send the attached letter to President Poettering tomorrow
(Wednesday).

I can see no point in referring it directly to Mr Leinen for the AFCO coordinators".

Here is the letter in full,

"Mr Hans-Gert Poettering MEP
President
European Parliament
28 May
2008

Dear President,
We write, with regret, as the coordinators of the ALDE, UEN, Green, GUE and Ind/Dem groups about the conduct of the vote at the Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday on the report by Richard Corbett concerning Rule 29 (formation of political groups).

The key substantive reform (change of thresholds for the formation of groups), contained in Amendment 1 of the rapporteur to Rule 29(2), was rejected. It is our view that all the three remaining amendments (Rule 29(2)(a)), which referred to transitional arrangements when a group falls beneath a threshold, should not have been put to the vote.

Rule 151(1)(a) says that 'No amendment shall be admissible if it does not directly relate to the text which it seeks to amend'.

In this case, the text the remaining amendments sought to amend had been defeated in the initial vote. Moreover, Rule 151(2) says that 'An amendment shall lapse if it is inconsistent with decisions previously taken on the text during the same vote'.

At first, the rapporteur sought to change the figures in Amendment 3 to accord with the status quo. This oral amendment was objected to by us under Rule 150(6). Even though the Rules of Procedure were eventually applied correctly concerning the oral amendment, the chairman then moved to vote Amendment 3 by three split votes.
Rule 157(1) clearly states that it is only where 'the text to be put to the vote contains two or more provisions or references to two or more points or lends itself to division into two or more parts each with a distinct logical meaning and normative value' that a split vote can be taken.

Unfortunately, in this instance the split vote mechanism was simply used to circumvent the objection to the oral amendment by taking out the precise figures for the threshold. This made no sense because the text without the figures was meaningless. It was merely a second attempt to achieve the goal which had previously been defeated. This also, therefore, was an abuse of procedure.

In view of these unhappy events, we are asking you, using your powers under Rule 19(2), to refer back to AFCO the Corbett Report on Rule 29.

It is, of course, especially important that AFCO, which is the rule committee of the Parliament, is seen to be scrupulous in its respect of the Rules.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Duff (Lib Dem Leader)
Brian Crowley (UEN Leader)
Johannes Voggenhuber (Senior Green)
Sylvia Kaufmann (Communist)
Hanne Dahl (Eurosceptic: Ind/Dem)

So what do we do now

As predicted the Constitutional Affairs Committee have in their wisdom granted the President of Parliament the arbitrary powers that he requested.

Amongst those paragons of democracy that voted this disgraceful measure through were a clean sweep of the mainstream British political parties. For Labour we had the egregious Richard Corbett, rule maker and flouter in chief. The man who in clear breach of Parliamentary rules sold his own book for profit on the premises of the Parliament. A complaint went to the Queastors who have never got back with a response. They do not punish their own of course. For the Liberal Democrats may I present Andrew Duff. The author of The True Guide to the Lisbon Treaty. Duff and Corbett are co-authors of the hagiographic Parliament report on the Constitution that will be passed without dissent in Strasbourg on the 19th February. And for the Conservatives support for this was given to Timothy Kirkhope. Formerly leader of the Tory delegation, his last reshuffle removed Daniel Hannan from the Committee and gave himself the nth Vice-Chairmanship.

They are a shower and should be pelted with eggs and rotten vegetables whenever they have the ill-advised chutzpah ever to appear on England's shores again.

Irrelevant aside.
Go and take a look at Kirkhope's Website and see if you can spot the deliberate mistake? Something to do with this,
"Brown Must Resist Threat of More Qirport Eed Tape for UK's Hard Pressed Passengers" Eh?

Back to Duff

On aspect of the Andrw Duff's speech on Monday that I missed and has now been brought to my attention is this little nugget.

The Charter is to be solemnly proclaimed on 12th December, a day before the Treaty is signed. If the latter can be justified and passed, it will be durable for years to come. Parliament has been granted powers to propose further reform of the treaty, and there is a hope to include those things that were left out.

Which is a little worrying given the normal stuff that the parliament keeps on demanding.