Pot...kettle

This is rich. I have been accused by Richard Corbett, key federast, author of innumerable Parliamentary reports of immense importance of being rattled by his blog.

UKIP blogs rattled
I was alerted to a couple of blog sites run by UKIP officials, who seem to devote a surprising amount of time to rebutting the material I post here. In particular, England Expects, responding to this flippant piece I did joking that veteran Danish Eurosceptic Jens-Peter Bonde had come out in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, posted this detailed rebuttal. If they think it worth taking so much trouble to monitor my blog and to try to rebut it, then they must think it is having an effect, which I will take as a compliment.

Corbett is of course one of those types who uses his blog in what I should call 'transmit' mode. He has no comment section, not even moderated. So fearful is he of any response. A more courageous politician might allow 'receive' but not Richard.

This little piece in its own way is a classic of its kind. Just to fisk him to add to his personal pleasure I have a little bit of fun.

"I was alerted to a couple of blog sites run by UKIP officials, who seem to devote a surprising amount of time to rebutting the material I post here".

This suggests, does it not, that he has been surprised by people reading his blog? That somebody has just pointed out that others are castigating him. Yeah right. Given that he wrote to me last year quoting from my blog. And that he has commented on Trixy's oeuvre. Oh and Mr Corbett's fixation with UKIP is of a far greater degree than anything I or others can manage with himself. In the first three months of this year he has already posted 8 times referencing the doings of UKIP. He is also the author of a report into UKIP, and spends his time as part organiser of UKIP Watch blog, (though he has taken his name off as one of the authors). So dear Richard who is the obsessive?

"In particular, England Expects, responding to this flippant piece I did joking that veteran Danish Eurosceptic Jens-Peter Bonde had come out in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, posted this detailed rebuttal."

Well as I mentioned, there is no comment section, and I felt that his flippancy - not the first time a sense of humour has raised it's head there, but a rarity with Mr Corbett, deserved a response.

"If they think it worth taking so much trouble to monitor my blog and to try to rebut it, then they must think it is having an effect, which I will take as a compliment".

You must be beside yourself with joy Richard.

Update

Blimey, I discover from Tim Worstall and Anoneumouse that Mr Corbett is no longer hiding in a comment free zone.

All credit to you Richard.

Update 2
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Foolish me. It seems that I was wrong the new version is a spoof mirror version. Shame really but as you can see from Mr Corbett's polite letter above he doesn't take kindly to it.

I can just hear Liberty's heartbeat

Further to my post about the attempt to stifle the ability of MEPs to put Parliamentary Questions to the Council and Commission by Richard Corbett I can say that the patient is not quite dead. I spoke to Mr Corbett last night, he was hanging around outside a pub watching the Man U match through the window with a hatted Charles Tannock. The bar staff were considering demanding that they buy a drink or sod off. After all,

"This is a pub, not a TV shop, we pay for the TV, the cable subscription, not for our own benefit, but to increase custom. If people loiter outside like that the police will come by and tell us off for creating a public nuisance, don't those people have the decency to come in and buy a drink if they want to watch the game, or would they feel out of place in a crowd of people who like each other's company?"

Anyhow I had heard that he was minded to drop his amendment that would restrict MEPs to three non-priority questions a month due to some pretty voluble complaints in Committee from the UKIP and other non attached (British) MEPs. Indeed so restricted to the UK members was the complaint that the Committee Chairman, Joe Lienen made a throw away comment , "It's always nice to hear what Brits have to argue amongst themselves - particularly when you don't live in the country" - a not too subtle dig at Corbett's ex-pat existence. It was revealing though of the Continental mindset that the other countries should not involve themselves in what was obviously an internal British matter - MEPs from other countries apparently are happy to chew the cud and restrict their own ability to hold the executive to account

Anyhow I went outside to find out this change of heart was indeed the case. I can report that it is, sort of.

Corbett told me, and I paraphrase,

"Yes I am considering withdrawing the amendment, if the other amendment giving the President (or his designated Vice-President who I understand might have this role as their key task - a sort of Vice-President for access to the high authorities) the power to block what he or she feels are frivolous questions".

He also told me that there are only three or four MEPs who use up this allotment (that is one oral, one priority and three non Priority questions per month). Which is a tosh argument anyway. So if you average out in a year there are only three or four MEPs who ask 60 questions a year. OK, so the workload problem isn't a problem at all then. And anyhow, if a MEP has a slew of issues that come, as they always do, in convoy like London omnibuses, he has to spread the questions out over a number of months, praying that no more issues come along in the meantime.

Then it all became clear. This is all about Killroy-Silk. The former UKIP/Vanitas wandering ego has a novel approach to Parliamentary work. Any letter/email/pigeon post/brain spasm or whatever that lands in his in tray is immediately cut and pasted into a Parliamentary question and pinged off to the tabling office. It doesn't matter if it his driver asking for directions to get to his house in Spain, off goes the PQ. He then feels he can turn round and say, "Look at all the questions I have asked - that proves how hard I am working". The fact that 90% of his questions could be answered by a minute looking on google is neither here nor there. Indeed in Corbett's defence the fact that he wrote 66 questions in February alone rather makes his point, questions like this,

How can the EU ever have a common policy when Member States cannot even agree on recognising Kosovo?

and this,

What steps does the Commission propose to take to make the citizens of Member States identify with the EU, and how much will it cost?

and this,

What is the Commission’s attitude to the racist and violent videos on social websites like youtube?

and over the past 3 1/2 years 1,074 others.

But the point is is that you must not make the rules to deal with a single idiot, you deal with them individually. Tannock backed up Corbett's point, he too didn't think that frivolous questions should be allowed.

But Richard, but Charles, freedom has the downside that people are allowed to be idiots. Is he doing any harm? Not really. He is costing the taxpayer way more than he should, but it is unlikely that he will be back after 2009. Indeed if the general estimate of 2,500 quid per question in admin costs is anything to go by he is a bloody expensive luxury we could do without. Should he have resigned his seat when he left UKIP, yes he should he was elected on a list, and as such when he left the party he should resign the seat, but that is an argument that can be made against all MEPs who jump ship.

I repeat you must not make laws to deal with individuals. Is the system generally being abused? No. Then there is no need to fix it. And this method of fixing is despotic.

Amendment 32 of the Corbett Report on the Lisbon Treaty

Was a simple amendment calling for people to respect the result of the Irish referendum. Looking at the roll call votes for this amendment tells us all we need to know about what British politicians do when they are away in Brussels/Strasbourg thinking that nobody is watching. Worse still is the voting on Amendment 34 which called for a referendum. Guess which party had no votes in favour, yup, the Tories.

-2a. Undertakes to respect the outcome of the referendum in Ireland.

Pretty non controversial you would have thought. After all everybody here in the Parliament reckons themselves democrats. So how can it be that the result of the vote was this...

129 in favour

499 Against

33 Abstentions.

And shall we have a look at the British MEPs who voted on the amendment.

Yes:
Batten, Farage, Knapman, Nattrass, Titford, Deva

No:
Attwooll, Davies, Duff, Hall, Ludford, Lynne, Newton Dunn, Wallis,
Watson, Atkins, Beazley, Nicholson, Purvis, Cashman, Corbett, Corbey, Ford,
Honeyball, Howitt, Hughes, Hutchinson , Kinnock, McAvan, , Martin David, Moraes,
Morgan, Simpson, Sinner, Stihler, Titley, Willmott,

Abstain:
Ashworth, Bowis, Bradbourn, Bushill-Matthews, Callanan, Chichester,
Dover, Evans Jonathan, Harbour, Jackson, Kirkhope, McMillan-Scott, Parish,
Stevenson, Sturdy, Sumberg, Tannock, Van Orden, Hannan, Helmer, Wise.

So UKIP voted to respect the result of the Irish referendum. The Tories abstained (excepting the honourable exception of Nirj Deva). Labour and the Lib/Dems voted to ignore the Irish result.

This is truly a disgrace. Don't ever listen to people like Richard Corbett lecturing people about democracy without ramming the words down his scrawny gizzard. If a Tory pontificates about how much they want to hear the voices of the people show them this voting list.

The photo is of one of the Tory offices., They nicked the banner from UKIP. And despite this they abstained.

Update

Worse far worse than this is what happened when amendment 34 was voted upon, flagged up by Trixy,

Firmly believes that, since the choice involved will have a profound impact on the future, a European treaty should be ratified in all the Member States by means of a referendum, following a pluralist debate on the substance of the treaty and the issues at stake

Again I would suggest that this is pretty uncontroversial amongst those parties that profess to believe in a referendum in the UK, so how did the votes go?

Yes: 85
No: 526
Abstain: 53

And who amongst the Brits voted which way?

Yes:
Batten, Booth, Clark, Farage, Knapman, Nattrass, Titford, Whittaker, Wise, Allister, Mote, Lucas

So that is UKIP, one Green, the former DUP and Ashley Mote,

No:
Attwooll, Bowles, Davies, Duff, Hall, Ludford, Lynne, Newton Dunn,
Wallis, Watson, Atkins, Beazley, Chichester, Karim, Nicholson, Purvis, Cashman,
Corbett, Ford, Gill, Honeyball, Howitt, Hughes, Kinnock, McAvan, Martin David,
Moraes, Morgan, Simpson, Skinner, Stihler, Titley, Willmott, Smith

So that is the Lib/Dems, Labour, the Ulster Unionist, one of the two SNP and five Tories including the delegation leader Giles Chichester.

Abstain:
de Brún, Hannan, Helmer, Ashworth, Bowis, Bradbourn, Bushill-Matthews, Callanan, Deva, Dover, Evans Jonathan, Harbour, Jackson, Kirkhope, McMillan-Scott, Parish, Stevenson, Sturdy, Sumberg, Tannock, Van Orden, Evans Jill, Hudghton

Here we have Sinn Fein, the Tories - barring those who voted against one Green and the other SNP.

It isn't rocket science, this was a simple demand that there should be a referendum.

Five Tories! Including the delegation leader! Go on, count them. The thought that the rest of that shower, including sadly Hannan and Helmer abstained on what I thought was their party policy is an absolute disgrace. I am not sure how they will be able to face their hustings and party membership.

Update 2

Dan has responded to the criticism quite correctly,

I voted AGAINST the report Hagar refers to, the Mendez de Vigo / Corbett report, which supported the constitution. So did all but three Tory MEPs. I also voted IN FAVOUR of the various Ind/Dem amendments calling for ratification to be frozen until intelligible drafts of the treaty were available. And I voted IN FAVOUR of the motion calling for the wishes of the Irish people to be respected.

I am personally in favour of referendums in every country. But I don't believe it is up to the EU to mandate the form of ratification. That is for each nation to decide, according to its own traditions. Obviously, I'd like the Greeks and Finns and Slovaks to get the vote. But I'm not a Greek or a Finn or a Slovak, so it isn't up to me.

The growth of bureacratic despotism

You might recall the fuss made about Danial Hannan and the aggregating of power in the hands of the President of the European Parliament. Hannan suggested that giving the President arbitrary power over the rules of procedure and so on was akin to the National Socialist Enabling Act, which resulted in him being chucked out of the EPP and wild allegations against him.

Well it seems that we now have the written equivalent of those powers. I give you the latest Richard Corbett report to hit the Constitutional Affairs Committee,

Draft Report on amendment of Parliament's Rules of Procedure in the light of the proposals by the Working Party on Parliamentary Reform concerning the work of the Plenary and initiative reports

Are you asleep yet? No, well read on. This report has been quite a long time in gestation, but has been given some urgency by the way in which the institutions of the European Union are gearing up to a post Constitutional ratification world. A world in which they get their way and dissent shall not be brooked.

I protest too much you might assume. OK then please tell me what this amendment could possibly be for? (Rule of Procedure 110 is the rule governing Parliamentary Questions to the Commission or Council - the Corbett Amendment is in italics),

Amendment 6
Rule 110, paragraph 2

2. Questions shall be submitted in writing to the President who shall forward them to the institution concerned. Doubts concerning the admissibility of a question shall be settled by the President. His decision shall be notified to the questioner.

Currently the questions are sent to the administration and if they are incorrectly or flabbily worded the civil servant at the tabling office will often send through a steer on how they might be amended to make everybody's life easier. However the tabling office has no right to refuse any question. There is not right of appeal set out in this amendment or Amendment 11 that sets out the guidelines for Parliamentary Questions,

Amendment 11
Annex II a (new)
ANNEX II a
Guidelines for questions for written answer under Rule 110
1. Questions for written answer shall:
- refer to matters which come within the European Union's fields of activity;
- be concise and contain an understandable interrogation;
- not contain offensive language;
- not relate to strictly personal matters.

Why can't the questions be "offensive"? According to the explanatory memorandum,

This point in particular should prevent any possible outrages to the fundamental values of the European Union.

Fundamental values cannot be outraged. Only people can be outraged. Values are abstract. For pities sake, is he saying that some poor admin official in the Commission might come over with a fit of the vapours at an impertinent suggestion? Anyhow, I wonder if there ever have been "offensive" questions, and if so what did they say? And if not why introduce a rule barring them?

About the striking out of "strictly personal matters" from admissibility, there is not a word of justification. However would questions such as, "Who did you go on holiday with Mr Commissioner?" or "Were you sleeping with your Chef de Cabinet before you gave her the job Mr Commissioner?" be barred under this rule? Of course they would.

Fundamentally the tabling office can still make suggestions, but the difference is that the President can rule a question out of order.

The problems with this are legion, but the most obvious is this. Hans-Gert Pöttering may, or may not be the committed democrat as stated by Mr Hannan. But we have no way of telling what the political character of a future President might be. Thus to create rules like this that concentrate increasing arbitrary powers in the hands of the President is constitutionally foolhardy, indeed dangerous. Of course what concerns does Mr Corbett have? That the poor fellow might find himself overworked,

However, in order to respond to fears that an excessive workload could be a hindrance to her/his activity, it has to be observed that pursuant to Rule 20(3) the President will always benefit from the possibility of delegating the exercise of the powers under Rule 110(2) to a Vice-president.

Now let us turn our attention to Amendment 7. Here I must explain there are two forms of Parliamentary Questions. Priority and general. MEPs are allowed very limited urgent questions that must be answered within three weeks, that is one per month. However the use of non-priority questions are unlimited. Or they have been until now,

Amendment 7
Rule 110, paragraph 4, subparagraph 2

Other questions (non-priority questions) shall be answered within six weeks of being forwarded to the institution concerned. Each Member may table up to three non-priority questions each month.

What Corbett is proposing is nothing less than the limiting of an MEPs right to hold the Executive of the European Union, that is the Commission and Council, to account. His reasoning is this,

The criteria are formulated in a form, which fully respects the right of Members to address written questions to the Commission and to expect an answer in due time. On the other hand clear provisions are introduced to avert any abuses of this right, notably the new limit of three for non-priority questions

Parliamentarians asking questions is NOT and abuse of their rights Mr Corbett. Restructuring their right to do so is an abuse of the Rules of Procedure and a direct threat to the lifeblood of any functioning representative democracy. It doesn't seem that you care about that, and for that you should be roundly castigated.

Comment Forum

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)

Mr Corbett writes

It appears that I was wrongly informed and Richard Corbett is not taking comments after all.

Dear Gawain,

Thanks once again for taking an interest in my blog but the link up on England Expects (from the the update on your Pot Kettle post), takes people to a fake of my blog, which I have absolutely nothing to do with.

My blog is put up through an FTP server and the address is ww.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog and the blog itself, as is made quite clear from reading it, dates back to February 2005.

I would be grateful if you could take your link to the hoax blog down and point out to your readers that http://corbettmep.blogspot.com/ is a fake, which I am in no way responsible for.

Thanks,

Richard Corbett

So at his express request I would like to confirm, that there are two Corbett blogs, one with and without comments. The one with comments does not have archives going back anywhere near as far as his for example. It would appear that it is a mirror blog, I am not sure what the legal position of it is not being savvy in these things, maybe somebody could let me know? For example, if there are really libellous comments posted upon it, who is responsible? Is it a breach of copyright? I don't know.

That being said I would have thought that there is no harm in it as it allows the comment section, but otherwise faithfully reproduces what he has written. (Apart from anything else it doubles his web presence).

So I hope that I have done what he asked in the Spirit of good and fraternal relations, but I shall still be looking at the mirror site every now and again to find out what the great unwashed think of his musings.

Comment Forum

Itr appears that somebody doesn't like Mr Corbett much

Liberty's Requiem puts Mr Corbett in his top ten on a bonfire stakes,

"Richard Corbett MEP. The smug grin that the deputy leader of the Labour MEPs has worn since his wish to have the desires of the British People extinguished seems to have been granted is truly revolting. The stupefying dishonesty of his attempts to justify the most politically dishonest act of my lifetime are offensive in the extreme. His fervent hope that the gradual stripping away of real democratic control from the general public will continue is reason enough
to give him a portent of what generally happens when self selecting elites scorn the people, in seeing his effigy meet the same kind of sticky end that ultimately befell many of his political forebears."

Of course Mr Corbett will no doubt be delighted that somebody outside Brussels knows his name.

Perfidy if you want

Richard Corbett is chuckling like the cat that stole the cream over on his blog,

Bonde embraces treaty
The leader of UKIP's political group in the European Parliament, Independence & Democracy, has moved an interesting amendment endorsing the Lisbon Treaty.Jens-Peter Bonde, perhaps the most influential Eurosceptic in the Parliament, has tabled an amendment to my report on the Lisbon Treaty in the Constitutional Affairs Committee saying "endorses the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will be in a position to achieve its ratification by 1 January 2009, by involving their peoples, through referendums, in this fundamental stage in the European intergration process."

Whether it's an amusing error or Bonde finally embracing the treaty, it is one I doubt UKIP will be supporting!

Well I cannot say I wasn't surprised by this claim so I went and looked at the Committee amendments from Mr Bonde to check, And there is is Amendment 220,

Amendment by Jens-Peter Bonde
Amendment 220
Paragraph 8
8. Endorses the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will be in a position to achieve its ratification by 1 January 2009, by involving their peoples, through referendums, in this fundamental stage in the European integration process;

And this is where the perfidy comes in. You see Amendment 219 states,

Amendment by Jens-Peter Bonde
Amendment 219
Paragraph 8
8. Rejects the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will do the same, given that it circumvents the democratically expressed rejection of the constitution in France and the Netherlands and that it should anyway have been put to referendum in all the Member States;

And this is where Mr Corbett is disingenuous at best. You see the amendment is the section highlighted in bold and italicised. So Mr Bonde's Amendment of the original text does not in fact endorse the Treaty. Indeed across Mr Bonde's amendments to the report as a whole there are seven separate demands for a referendum.
Here is Paragraph 8 as written by Corbett and Mendez de Vigo

8. Endorses the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will be in a position to achieve its ratification by 1 January 2009;

Thus it becomes clear that suggestion that Bonde endorses the treaty is false, and Corbett well knows it. That he should be dishonest about it is no surprise. Sadly he doesn't allow comments on his blog - no doubt fearful of the reaction - he could always have moderated comments, but that I guess wouldn't do as it would allow the great unwashed to impinge upon his precious time, so i have had to fillet him here.

All that being said, I would agree that the amendment in question, that is 220, is badly drafted but the clarity of 219 should stand for Mr Bonde's position without any doubts to cross his mind.

Four legs good, Two legs bad

Richard Corbett is, well how do I put this, a dull greying figure who has spent his life chasing through the intricacies of the Co-Decision procedures, the Comitology procedures, indeed the Parliament's rules of procedure.

He is also fanatically opposed to UKIP, running countless stories on his UKIP Watch blog and his own blog. Any failing, real or perceived by any UKIP member big or small is grist to his mill.

So it brings me great pleasure to out the wretched, dry-boned, Antwerp-dwelling, faux Yorkshireman for what he is a stinking, money-grubbing hypocrite.

You see the picture up there, it is our Richard and two of his chums, two very senior Parliamentary officials. The poster is an ad for their new book,

It came with this email,

"Dear All,

Tomorrow will be the launch of the 7th Edition of "The European Parliament". There will be a book signing by the authors next to the Forum Bar between 11am and 3pm and copies of the book will be on
sale.

Best Wishes,

Office of Richard Corbett MEP
Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber

The point is, and this is a point that Mr Corbett is well aware that any exhibition organised in the parliament is governed by ComArt rules. These rules forbid the sale of articles in the Parliament.
He is flogging the book hard - the entire Parliament has been spammed three times about his precious book (I must point out that the book is an invaluable guide to the Parliament) and he is personally making money out of breaking the rules. I do not know if there is a special clause saying - 'No sales in Parliament (expect for notorious federasts)', maybe there is. But at the very least this breathtaking hypocricy.

Two legs good

The Parliament's shop stewards, the Queastors have, I find, acted on Mr Corbett's breach of the rules over the selling of books for profit in the European Parliament.



But what is this? This is not a breach of the rules, because he was not making a profit. How do they know he was not making a profit, because he told thenm he was selling it at cost. Now hold on, John Harper publishing are not a charity. The book is never going to be on any best seller list. They gave the three authors a great stack of books to sell at cost price in the Parliament (which has to be the biggest single market for the book)and charged Corbett and chums cost price for it.

Nothing here makes sense. Authors are customarily given free copies of the book to heand out to friends and bore relations. So were these copies part of the free allocation?

Or did they ruin their only chance to make a profit for the publication by allowing the books to be sold without profit?

Or did Corbett pull a fast one?
I really don't know, but something just doesn't feel right about this.

Van Rompuy's chief visier pours scorn on Hungary

Richard Corbett, the former dire, bean-counting Labour MEP has slated the Hungarian Presidency in the current edition of European Voice (£),

I was curious to read your special report on the “Hungarian Presidency of the EU” (16 December 2010-5 January 2011). There is, of course, no such thing!
Hungary merely chairs one of the EU institutions, not the EU as a whole. You (and others) may wish to elevate the Council (and its president) above all the others, but I dare say that the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament may have other views.
The rotating presidency of the Council was always an over-rated function. It is short-term, without executive powers, and inherits a pre-set agenda. Since the Lisbon treaty, its prime minister no longer chairs the European Council, its foreign minister no longer speaks for the EU on the world stage, nor even chairs the foreign-affairs configuration of the Council.
Special supplements about new member states are welcome, but do not imply that they are suddenly in charge!

Van Rompuy's website lists Corbett's responsibilities as,

Institutional Issues
Relations with the European Parliament and the National Parliaments
Relations with the Committee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee

Which carries the suggestion that he should now a little bit about diplomacy. Obviously not. I initially wondered if he was a tad tired and emotional when he wrote the above.

I mean is this an official statement from Van Rompuy's office to the Hungarian Presidency? And if so I was the speaker of the Hungarian Országház I would be demanding his head on a plate.

However that being said, and despite the mean spirited way in which he says it I cannot believe he was really drunk, and I do believe that he is representing his master's voice. He can hardly suggest that he isn't acting in an official capacity after all. And what he says isn't in itself inaccurate, just nasty. And if anybody knows the dark corners of institutional wrangling it is Corbett.

Van Rompuy, as a Belgian, has a hatred of functional nation states. The Council of Ministers of which Hungary now holds the Presidency is a thorn in the side of the federalists who he represents and his contempt for national interest and the approach that encapsulates the actions of democratic nation states brings him out in hives.

You mean I have to pay for that!

Pity poor Richard Corbett. The Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the euro wonk's wonk in chief found himself a little embarrassed on his way back from Strasbourg last week.
A conductor approached him, asked for his ticket and informed him that he had a penalty fare to pay as he was travelling without a valid ticket.

You see this was the section between Luxembourg City and the town of Arlon in Belgium.

MEPs receive free first class transport on the Belgian national carrier SNCB. - convenient for Richard as he commutes from his pad in Antwerp.

However this does not cover the cross border aspect of the trip, that is Arlon to Strasbourg. So it appears that Richard had paid the Luxembourg/Strasbourg aspect of the trip, but not the Belgium Luxembourg section.

In First class, this amounts to just over 15 Euro. Not a lot, and an easy mistake you might say. True, true, but hold on.

Mr Corbett, being the wonk's wonk knows, and he would not demur from this about as much about the rights and wrongs of MEP'dom than any other.

He has also taken this trip ever since being elected in 1996. So that 15 euro one way does start to look quite a wheeze, 30 euros each round trip. Corbett being a conscientious chap would rarely have missed a visit, so that is twelve a year over the last 12 years. Sum total? Approximately 4,300 euros. Not a great deal I know, but for one of the great finger pointers of the Parliament quite an oversight.

Now, it could well have been a one off, I really don't know. But maybe we should be told?

Bizarre...utterly bizarre

I really do not know what is going on here but I am trying to wrap my head around it.

This week there has been a great deal of fun and work. For different perspectives take a look here from Dan Hannan and here from Richard Corbett.

Oddly enough I had a bit of a row with Mr Corbett yesterday. This is the man who wrote the rule book of the European Parliament. He accused me and UKIP of only caring about the rules! Well when there are rules the Parliament should abide by them. As I pointed out rather forcefully and thing else would be arbitrary government. He denied that there was any wrong doing. But moments later (after being moved away from the TV area as we were disturbing recording) we met up with Diane Wallis the Lib Dem MEP and Vice President"

"Richard," she said, "I am in the chair this morning, have you any advice".
Corbett replied, "Well if there is a repeat of yesterday I suggest you should take a speech both in favour and against the motion before you put it to a vote".

Given that this is what had not happened the day before he was admitting that the President had broken the rules and therefore the vote for lunch had indeed been illegal.

Anyhow, the ongoing palaver was mostly about the fact that for the first time in the history of the parliament every vote was counted by the roll call vote system. To do this we must put in a request 24 hours earlier in the name of the group and or with 40 MEP signatures. This the Ind/Dem Group did.

Our Secretary General was summoned to see the Secretary General of the Parliament Harold Romer and the Head of the President's office Klaus Welle. He was told that they would accept the RCVs on Tuesday and on Wednesday (they were already in the system) but they would not accept any further Roll Call Votes because they believed that we were misusing the rule.

It is not their job to interpret the rules, just to apply them.

Today the RCVs happened exactly as planned and I happened across Mr Welle in the lift. I asked what had happened to their threat,
"I do not know what you are talking about", he told me "I have nothing to do with the workings of the plenary".

A barefaced lie, either that or maybe the threat was issued buy a secret Klaus, the naughty one.

Hannan thrown out of EPP

Amongst comedy scenes in the European parliament just now, Dan Hannan was summarily ejected from the centre right European People's Party Group(EPP).

This makes him the second Tory MEP to be thrown out of the Group, the first being Roger Helmer.

What makes this more interesting is that he was thrown out for much the same reason. He had risen to speak in favour of a proposal of Nigel Farage leader of UKIP. Helmer was thrown out for doing the same thing a couple of years ago.

The precise details are a bit hazy, but as Hannan was speaking the monstrous Christopher Beazley (so called Tory MEP) slid over to Dan and berated him.

Then Joseph Daul the toad like Alsatian famer who leads the EPP stood yup, announced that he finally run out of patience with Mr Hannan, and despite not discussing it with his own colleagues told the chamber that Dan was no longer a member of the EPP. He even admitted that his action broke his group's rules, but he was personally so fed up with Dan that the rules no longer mattered.

Given that Dan was speaking against the granting of arbitrary rules to the President of Parliament (as he and I have blogged about before) there was a certain irony about the action.

I will go into detail about what happened a bit later.

Update
There will be a discussion in the EPP before Hannan is formally thrown out. So not quite so arbitrary as the Helmer case.

The Socialists have put this out in an attempt to embarras Cameron.

CAMERON CHALLENGED OVER TORY EURO MP's HITLER REMARK
A British Tory Euro MP today sparked outrage in the European Parliament by comparing its German President, Hans-Gert Pöttering, to Adolf Hitler.

Daniel Hannan now faces expulsion from the right-wing EPP-ED group after its leader, Joseph Daul of France, immediately disowned the remarks made during a voting session.

The German leader of the Socialist Group, Martin Schulz, praised Mr Daul and challenged British Conservative leader David Cameron over Mr Hannan's continued membership of the Tory party.

British Labour leader in the European Parliament Gary Titley said Hannan's remarks during Holocaust week dishonoured memories of the Nazi's victims.

The incident blew up during a vote to crack down on disruption of parliamentary business. Hannan linked a proposal on confirming the president's powers to end excessive use of procedural devices with the 1933 Enabling Act (Emächtigungsgesetz) that gave Hitler unlimited power.

Amid scenes of anger, Mr Daul took the floor to announce that he would seek the expulsion of Mr Hannan from his group.

Socialist spokesman on Constitutional Affairs, Richard Corbett, who drafted the proposal, said: "Dan Hannan's comparison of President Pöttering to Hitler was absolutely disgraceful and he is likely to be rightly expelled from the EPP as a result."
Mr Corbett rejected Hannan's protests as unfounded. "This is not about freedom of expression," he said, "simply about whether he and others have an absolute right to delay proceedings of the House if they choose to do so."

Said Mr Schulz: "Mr Hannan's remarks were a deep insult to Hans-Gert Pöttering and the whole European Parliament. Mr Daul's response shows that he is a very honest man.

"People like Hannan not only do not speak on behalf of the Conservatives in Europe, they have no base in the European Parliament. They are entirely isolated.

"The Conservatives in Great Britain and their leader David Cameron should reflect on whether such people, so close to the right-wing extremists, should be in their party."

Said Mr Titley: "By comparing the ruling of the President of the European Parliament with the law that gave unlimited power to Hilter in Holocaust week, Hannan is dishonouring memories of the victims of terror of the Nazi regime."

At no point did Hannan compare Bofferding to Hitler, he said that the arbitrary powers conferred on the president were similar to those in the enabling act. Indeed he specifically pointed out that those in the Chamber were from a tradition of democractic politics, not dictatorship and therefore he was suprised they did not see the dangers of their actions.

Dan has written about it here, and EUReferendum and Con Home have also covered it.

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?

Corbett 'right' shocker

But he could have done it better.

One of the most depressing, but sadly all too regular things that Eurosceptics have to deal with is when their own side overeggs the pudding, or worse makes stuff up which allows the federasts to claim, with some justification that we are myth-makers peddling untruths or whatever.

Richard Corbett, no stranger to dishonesty himself, however has got the Telegraph bang to rights over its story about how Europe will be making the purchase of Christmas trees more expensive. For a British newspaper, particularly the likes of the Telegraph, and the Express to come out attacking cuts in agricultural subsidies as they do here, is dispiriting.

EU hikes cost of Christmas trees
A change in European rules could lead to an unfestive cost hike for Britain's top variety of Christmas tree.
Many of the Danish farmers who grow the Nordman fir, which has become popular in recent years because it retains its needles, have stopped growing the trees after their EU development subsidy was cut. Importers say this could mean a shortage and a price rise of up to £1 for a £30 tree.

To do it at the behest of a European Trade organisation is even worse.

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.
>

Does this get the European Parliament's 2009 Sycophancy Prize?

Yes it is that time again when journalists from around the Continent are convinced of the need to right magnificent copy about how wonderful the Parliament is on the promise of 5,000 euro and a bauble to put on their mantleshelf.

But this year an early favourite must be the Parliament's own internal online newskletter, Newshound by this quite magnificent piece of drivel,

Meeting the Euro in Strasbourg
A Euro perfume was in the air last week at the first session of 2009. Have you ever smelled the Euro? It carries the sweet smell of success; it is the buoy that now protects a Europe deep into a financial and economic crisis. The Euro is a European baby born naturally with a struggle ten years ago - a strong symbol of Europe which, among others, helps keep the European inflation rate at around 2%. The young Euro is behaving well!

But that was not a foregone conclusion. Born amid huge scepticism but regarded as a necessity, its success today is quite solid. A European currency that can remain stable and come second in the world’s currency league is no mean feat! And the Euro has sold well over the past decade. Ten countries adopted it at the outset, now there are 16 of them!

Could it be that even the British are wavering? At any rate Richard Corbett from the PSE noted at his press conference on Tuesday, 13 January:
"Perhaps against all odds, Britain is talking about joining the Euro. Some of our politicians have started to draw attention to the economic cost of being outside the eurozone."

He went on to explain the disadvantage of the current situation for Britain. "Firstly, we lose on the currency conversions and on the hedging costs (insurance taken against radical exchange rate variations) in our commercial exchanges. Secondly, we don't attract foreign non-EU companies to establish in the UK as we are not located in the main EU currency zone."
His conclusion: "Provided the economics are right, I believe we should join the
euro."

That explains why everyone was talking about the Euro in the corridors of the EP last week. They celebrated its birthday with great pomp and circumstance at a plenary sitting in the presence of its many parents; then there was a seminar on its role in the current economic and financial crisis, duly attended by your humble Newshound reporter who did not entirely understand the learned words of the specialist press about market trends.

Finally, on Tuesday evening, President Pöttering invited the Euro’s family to a dinner held at the renowned Strasbourg restaurant the Palais des Rohan. Alas, despite my
best efforts to convince the organisers of my love for the Euro and my relationship with it, I was not invited to sample the Alsatian specialities under silver cloches.

As a consolation, I met the Euro in the canteen, on my place mat, on posters, at the European Central Bank exhibition and at the exhibition by a French university lecturer on the cultural game she has created, in which the Euro is the hero.

So I have to say, despite the rather gloomy mood engendered by the financial crisis and the gas and Gaza crises, happy birthday and, as a schoolboy might conclude his essay, long live the Euro!

Give the guy a banana.

If you want a crook to run Justice then hold up your hands

The vote on convicted embezzeler Jacques Barrot came yesterday, and now the roll call is available. Lets see which British MEPs voted for him shall we?

Yes
Lib Dem: Attwooll, Bowles, Davies, Duff, Ferrari, Hall, Harkin, Lynne, Newton Dunn, Nicholson of Winterbourne, Wallis, Watson,

Sinn Fein: de Brun

Conservative: Ashworth, Atkins, Beazley, Bowis, Bradbourn, Bushill-Matthews, Chichester, Evans Jonathan, Harbour, Jackson, Karim, Kirkhope, Purvis , Sturdy, Sumberg, Tannock,

Labour: Cashman, Corbett, Gill, Hughes, McCarthy, Simpson, Skinner, Stihler, Titley, Willmott,
Green/Scots Nats: Evans Jill, Lucas, Smith,

No
UKIP: Batten, Bloom, Clark, Farage, Nattrass, Titford, Whittaker,
Independent: Allister, Knapman, Mote, Wise

Abstain
Conservative/Independent: Hannan, Helmer,
Conservative: Heaton-Harris,

Well I suppose a half hearted cheer for the original H-Block for not voting in favour of the fellow, particularly Heaton-Harris who must have broken the whip. But for pities sake, what is wrong with the Tories? (I hold out no hope for the others) Come on guys you are under a great deal of scrutiny about misuse of funds yourselves and you vote for this shower. Or is it that you think you might get a better deal under him?

Fight, fight

Weird email came to me today relating to a scrap in Eurosceptic circles. It was a leaked letter from Roger Helmer to the Mail on Sunday where Peter Hitchens had written this,

The Tories and a shameless Euro lie
At last the fake row about a referendum on the EU Constitution is over, and we will stop having to listen to the Tory Party's phoney cries of rage about a treaty it would have signed without fuss had it been in office.
The Conservative pretence of hostility to the EU is one of the most shameless lies in politics. They have always been the most EU-friendly party, and adopted meaningless "Euro-scepticism" only when people realised what the EU really meant.

Which pretty well sums up my own opinion. Roger responds thus,

From ROGER HELMER MEP

Dear Peter,

As a lifelong Conservative who has spent the last year (and a great deal of money) campaigning for a referendum on the Renamed EU Constitution (aka the Lisbon Treaty), I was a bit discouraged by your reference on Sunday to "phoney cries of rage about a treaty it (the Conservative Party) would have signed anyway".

I am certainly not about to defend the record of Heath or Major with regard to the EU, but that's no basis to question our commitment today. Both the Party leadership and the grass roots are passionately opposed to further EU integration, and committed to rolling back at least some of the worst of it when we form a government.

In a sense you actually answer your own point. We have adopted scepticism, you say, "only when people realised what the EU really meant". OK. But the people have realised, and the Party has realised, and we are taking a clear and principled
line. If I thought your criticism contained a shred of truth, I should not be sitting (nor standing again next year) as a Conservative.

It would be good if those of us who oppose the EU project could start attacking the
real enemy, and stop attacking each other.

Best regards.

ROGER HELMER MEP

Well Roger may well be right when he talks about this sort of stuff, especially about himself, but he must know that he does not speak for the leadership of his party. Particularly when seen in the light of the whip's response to the Cash Amendment in Westminster.

Even odder is that this leak came from the desk of Richard Corbett.