Libertas And The EU Elections June 4th 2009

Libertas appear to be running an extremely slick and effective EU election campaign. They seem to have the backing and professionalism so lacking in other smaller parties and who knows, their reformist message could possibly, maybe, just about, have some impact as it is EU wide. Anyway, I received the following messsage from Libertas yesterday, the kind of thing I have not received, either via the internet or the letterbox, from any other party yet:

Gregg,

In an incredible display of arrogance and disrespect for the will of the people, members of the European Parliament will have a lengthy debate tonight on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. That’s right, the Lisbon Treaty, the same Treaty that Libertas defeated in Ireland and - according to the EU's own rules - is now dead.

Apparently, the bureaucrats in Brussels don’t care what the people think. And the truth is, they don’t need to. Because, right now there is no one to hold them to account.

That’s why the movement you are building right now is so important. It’s up to you whether or not Europe will be accountable to its people. Libertas is our last chance - our only chance - to make sure we have democracy at the heart of the European Union.

The European Elections are only 29 days away. Please email everyone in your contact book. Ask your friends. And get ONE more person to join the movement today.

http://www.libertas.eu/spread-the-word

The MEPs will debate a total of five different reports for this anti-democratic debate, including the Parliament’s new role and responsibilities in implementing the Lisbon Treaty. This discussion is a perfect example of the inherent disrespect the EU has for the democratic views of European citizens, and the lack of accountability to which we are strongly opposed.

This morning Libertas Chairman, and leader of the winning “No” campaign in the 2008 Irish referendum, Declan Ganley said, “Members of the European Parliament are completely out of touch with reality. Instead of debating real issues like how to solve the economic crisis, they are spending resources on something which does not exist because it has been rejected by the people who were allowed a vote on it.

This displays their arrogance, their disrespect for democracy and their waste of taxpayers’ money".

No wonder multiple newspapers across Europe have now confirmed that Brussels is living in fear of our movement, the Libertas movement. What those bureaucrats fear most is a movement of the people. Because they know that if millions of us act together, as Europeans, we will create a new hope for the future – a Europe where Brussels is efficient, focused on creating jobs and restoring our economy, and is overseen by the people.

Please email everyone in your contact list. Ask your friends. And get one more person to join the movement today.

http://www.libertas.eu/spread-the-word

The Libertas movement is gaining tremendous momentum across Europe. We have united the leading figures of the “No” campaigns in France, Ireland and the Netherlands (Declan Ganley, Philippe de Villiers and Eline van den Broek) who worked tirelessly to make sure that the people in their countries were given a vote.

But, now, we need YOU. Our movement is in your hands. You are it. The new hope for Europe will live or die based on what you do now.

So, if you want a strong Europe, a democratic Europe where only elected leaders make the law; if you want a referendum on any Constitution; if you want a real solution to the economic crisis; if you want to hold Brussels to account; if you want to renew the hope that we all had for Europe, then help build the first true party of Europe. A party dedicated to openness, accountability, transparency and democracy.

There are millions of others like you who want a new Europe – they are your friends, your work colleagues, your family members, your neighbours, and members of your community and now we need you to get them to join our cause.

Kind regards,

Libertas

Like thousands of people who supported UKIP in 2004, indeed I was a candidate back then and subsequently worked for their North West MEP, I have realised that having MEPs will not bring British withdrawal from the EU any closer. What I saw, over the last couple of years I was involved, was a small group of people who had hijacked a party whose membership is 99% decent and honourable, in order to use them to get themselves elected to a nice little earner. So withdrawalist MEPs will achieve nothing by getting elected. They will merely be joining the ranks of those they accuse of being useless, having no influence or power but making a great living at the taxpayers' expense. So if you join them, you are surely one of them.

So the EU elections won't bring British withdrawal any closer. Can a reformist party make it more democratic until a party in Westminster can extricate us? Maybe, but I suggest that history says no. If Margaret Thatcher failed when in government I very much doubt that Declan Ganley has any chance with however many MEPs he gets elected.

So UKIP have gone native and Libertas have given themselves an impossible task. My view is that if Libertas do get MEPs elected, in five years time we will be asking them the same question we are today asking of UKIP. Well, what have you achieved? The answer will again be nothing.

There are other fringe parties involved such as No2EU which is a motley crew of lefties, trade unionists and 'equality' obsessives. There are the Greens, but please? There will also be the Jury Team, a real bunch of misfits, but idealistic and, I believe, in it for the right reasons if misguided. OK, perhaps thirty years in politics has made me cynical .

I suspect that thousands of people who deserted the Tories in 2004 to vote for UKIP as a protest, will return to the fold in June 2009 in order to administer one more kick in the gut to Gordon Brown, as will many others. Libertas will garner a hardcore Eurosceptic vote from the rest, especially hardline Tories and disillusioned ex-UKIP voters who realise that any number of MEPs will not bring about withdrawal.

One thing for sure is that for once, we may have an interesting election to the European parliament. I can't believe I just wrote that!

Stuart Wheeler And Wealthy Idiots

Part of me thinks Dave 'The Rave' Cameron has played a very astute political game these last few days. On the Jacqui Smith debacle I thought he was very cool not calling for her resignation. If Brown has an ounce of sense her departure will come, probably when the dust has settled a little and it doesn't look like the man in charge has reacted to the mob.

Where Dave was so cool was the way he rubbed her nose in it in a very gentlemanly manner. He could almost have said: "Leave the poor girl alone, hubby was caught looking at naughties and we all know, the whole world. She must be mortified the poor little thing. The whole world is embarrassed for her". Bang, credibility of Home Secretary zero. In fact minus zero as her reputation was crap anyway.

Then up pops another super-rich entrepeneur to prove that making a mint doesn't make you intelligent. Step forward Mr Stuart Wheeler, quaintly described as 'spread betting millionaire'. What is it with UKIP and bookies? Now, Wheeler, I think he must be especially stupid. Donating £100,000 to a party's EU election budget is a bit like cobbing a bag of Sainsbury's ice cubes into the Arctic, or is it the Antarctic I can never remember, thinking it will save the Polar ice-caps.

No, by donating to UKIP Wheeler was trying to force Dave's hand, nothing more nothing less. But Dave called his bluff by chucking him out of the Tory Party for publicly supporting a rival party. Like Declan Ganley, who I will get to shortly, Wheeler has proved that making a wedge doesn't automatically make you a good politician. Quite the opposite in fact, people with pots of money lose their brains when they buy a football club, or try buying a political party, and end up looking and acting like complete clowns. Best to quietly make your donation then take a back seat. It also makes me think that if the Tories can sack a man who a few years ago gave them £5m, then they must have some very serious donors in the wings.

Now then, time for a pop at Declan Ganley. As I have blogged previously, here, I also think Declan is a chap with more money than sense. He was shocked that the UK accepted Lisbon immediately after the Irish voted no. I said then, and I repeat, that shows a naivety about the EU on a quite frightening scale. They don't listen to the people when they vote 'the wrong way' in a referendum, they just hold a second referendum and get the result they wanted. Ask the Danes, the Dutch, the French and the Irish, soon to have their re-run referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Ganley, in the meantime, will waste a lot more time and money standing Libertas candidates in the June European elections trying to reform the EU.

There Wheeler and Ganley diverge. The one thing they do have in common is a naive view that EU withdrawal (Wheeler possibly) or reform (Ganley) can be achieved by electing MEPs. Wrong, they do not have the power.

Electing MEPs does nothing whatsoever to further the cause of UK independence. I say that with confidence having worked for nearly five years for a UKIP MEP. Only our Parliament in Westminster can withdraw us from the EU. If all 70 or so MEPs in the UK after June represented UKIP so what? They would still be a mere 70 out of 500 or more. Since 1999 UKIP have gone backwards in terms of UK local and national elections and that, to those of us who had such high hopes in 2004 and before, is a very sad situation but true.

Mr Wheeler would have spent his £100,000 more wisely urging UK voters to boycott the June elections, increased turnout only gives the EU a veneer of democracy and returns people who are only interested in lining their pockets. Let's face it, the MEPs are the only politicians in the world who still, just about, make British MPs look like paragons of virtue and decency. And to UKIP I say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Libertas EU Election Campaign

Libertas launched the UK branch of their EU wide party yesterday in London. It's an interesting academic exercise and nothing more in my view. Declan Ganley launched it by asking how the UK government could adopt the Lisbon Treaty (constitution) immediately after the Irish voted no, the only people given that 'privelege'. To ask that question indicates to me that you don't necessarily have to be bright to make a wedge of cash.

Well Declan, dear chap, that is the nature of the beast that you think can be reformed. You did what you did in Ireland, but the Lisbon Treaty will still be forced upon you one way or another. Even if you get MEPs elected, it will not make one jot of difference. The European Union is undemocratic and parties that think they can change it from within, only end up equally corrupted. Just look around you.

The problem is that MEPs have no power. If 51% of MEPs wanted reform or withdrawal tough, they don't have the power. The EU is the world's worst example, even worse than the United Nations, of a self-perpetuating, power hungry bureaucracy hiding behind a wafer thin facade of democracy. It is beyond help. It needs putting down.

The only thing for those who oppose continued EU membership to do is to boycott the June elections. They are a sham PR exercise and a 0% turnout would have a far bigger impact than electing a few withrawalists or reformers. Only our own Parliament might, one day, be able to get us out of the EU. Wasting time and resources, not to mention credibility, on EU elections is a nonsense. Once they are out of the way the publicity dies, along with another piece of our democracy.

For the first time ever I voted in the EU elections in 2004, seduced by the arguments about publicity for the cause, resources and profiles of MEPs being used to get MPs elected subsequently and so on. Life and politics don't function like that, I was naive and will return to boycotting in June. I hope you do too.

Libertas

Here is a worrying development from the Telegraph.

Declan Ganley is to fund 400 candidates in countries that have had no referendum on the Constitutional/Lisbon Treaty. The difficulty as I see it is that Ganley, who is pro-EU but anti-Lisbon Treaty, will be asking people to use the EU elections next June as the referendum they never had, and that a vote for his Libertas movement would be a 'no' to Lisbon.

Yet again the pitch could easily be queered for real Eurosceptic groups, especially withdrawalists such as UKIP. With the money and influence Ganley has his campaign could easily eclipse others, including the Lib-Lab-Con, and draw in votes from real opponents of the European Union seduced by the message.