European Union

Britain should never have joined the EU, Nigel Farage is going to be gathering support with the latest developments.

Europe’s interference is enough to want to leave, the only problem is they might well want to come here.

The European Commission is taking Britain to court over accusations it is denying EU immigrants their right to claim unemployment and family welfare benefits.

Brussels has objected to Britain’s application of an extra and “discriminatory” residency test that has stopped eligible migrants from EU countries getting benefits to which they are entitled under European free movement legislation.

Commission officials told the Telegraph that repeated meetings with the Government, including “informal contacts, had failed to bridge the impasse leading to the court challenge to British law.

“The commission believes that the UK’s so-called ‘right to reside’ test fails the EU legal ‘habitual residence’ requirement. As a result of this discriminatory test EU citizens cannot receive social security benefits, such as child benefit, to which they are entitled under European law,” said an official.  Read more »

A reader emails:

With reference today’s post about Farage; I saw an absolutely brilliant debate on the BBC World Service TV this weekend, the Intelligence2 (as in squared) debate.

Farage and Hannan debated Leon Brittan and a German pulchritude on the motion “Britain and the EU would be happier divorced”.

They smashed it. Great to see if you can find it.  Read more »

Nigel Farage stays on message right from the get go:

In the entrance to Worcester’s Guildhall, the ranks of Ukip’s silver-haired supporters were growing restive.

Around 350 people had come to see the eurosceptic tub-thumper speak at the council’s elegant headquarters, but two matronly attendants insisted they could only admit 180. The Italianate doors holding back the masses hardly looked impregnable.

“It’s a bloody shambles,” roared one tweedy man in his early 70s.

As the tuts and grumbles grew louder, Mr Farage sprang into action. To the surprise of his staff, he suddenly appeared on a balcony overlooking the overspill crowd and began an impromptu 20-minute speech.

“Thank you all so much for coming tonight,” Mr Farage began, adding with trademark flare: “I am so sorry EU health and safety rules make it impossible to let more of you inside.”  Read more »

There is nothing like a bludging politician shuffling at the trough.

Baroness Ashton will be entitled to £400,000 at the taxpayer’s expense over three years for doing nothing after finishing her five year term as the European Union’s foreign minister at the end of 2014.

Research by The Daily Telegraph has established that the Labour peer, who finishes her job as High Representative of foreign affairs in October next year, will be paid £133,500 a year, 55 per cent of her basic salary, until the end of 2017.  Read more »

No surprises here…we have all suspected for a long time that green projects are a waste of taxpayers money:

An audit has found that EU-funded energy efficiency projects are not cost-effective in EU member states.

The projects examined by the Court of Auditors were in the Czech Republic, Italy and Lithuania. Those countries received the most EU funding for such projects in 2007-2013.  Read more »

Boris Johnson tells it like it is as he gets stuck into the Green Taliban over fracking:

In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news. Beware this new technology, they wail. Do not tamper with the corsets of Gaia! Don’t probe her loamy undergarments with so much as a finger — or else the goddess of the earth will erupt with seismic revenge. Dig out this shale gas, they warn, and our water will be poisoned and our children will be stunted and our cattle will be victims of terrible intestinal explosions. Yesterday the Observer found some political support for the gloomsters, in the form of a German MEP. His name is Jo Leinan, and it seems he is a prominent member of the Euro-parliament’s energy committee. There were only two countries interested in this procedure, he said – Poland and Britain.

And according to Herr Leinan, neither of us knows what we are getting ourselves into. We are about to release the pent-up shale gas of Britain from its sinister cavities beneath Lancashire and Sussex, and anything can happen. Before we touch the integuments of the planet, he says, the European parliament will produce some regulations to “discipline” the operation.

Regulations? From the Euro-parliament? And these people wonder why we in Britain are increasingly determined to have a referendum on our membership of the EU. I am sure that the SPD politician means well, but just what in the name of hell has it got to do with him? Before he draws up any regulations for the British fracking market, he might care to look at what has been going on in America in the past four years, where the discovery of large quantities of shale gas is turning into one of the most significant political events since the end of the Cold War.

The Green Taliban ignores the progress made in the US. Instead they focus on spurious science and attack anyone who says otherwise.

It looks like the pommy bastards have finally come good and are talking of leaving the EU.

Half of British voters would chose to leave the European Union if they were offered the choice in a referendum, a poll has found.

The survey will fuel the growing political debate about Britain’s future place in the EU, which has seen even Cabinet ministers suggesting that the UK would prosper outside the union.

It was published a day after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, publicly urged David Cameron to resist growing Conservative pressure for an exit and keep Britain in the EU.

The YouGov poll showed that 49 per cent of voters would vote to leave the EU in a referendum. Twenty-eight per percent said they would opt to remain a member, while 17 per cent said they did not know how they would vote.

The poll, of 1,637 British adults, was carried out late last month and also showed that most Britons do not believe their country has much sway over European affairs.

Only 29 per cent of voters said they consider Britain to be influential within the EU. Forty five per cent said Britain has little clout in Europe.

France reckons they will “stand” against instability in Lebanon. This is unlikely and if the Lebanese are smart they won’t rely of the word of the President of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, they tend to go backwards faster than an Argie Army.

France’s president pledged today that his country will stand against instability in Lebanon, two weeks after the assassination of a senior Lebanese intelligence official sparked clashes between pro- and anti-Syrian groups.

Later in Saudi Arabia, Francois Hollande held further talks on Syria with King Abdullah, whose country has been a leading supporter of the forces trying to overthrow Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

In Beirut, Hollande promised that Paris and the European Union will help Lebanon deal with an influx of more than 100,000 refugees who have fled the civil war in neighboring Syria.

“We are committed to give you guarantees regarding security, stability and unity of Lebanon,” Hollande told reporters after meeting President Michel Suleiman.

Two world wars and one world cup, England, England…tell the Krauts to get stuffed.

Public unhappiness with the European Union is “the deepest it has ever been”, William Hague will say on Tuesday.

The Foreign Secretary will warn European governments, including Germany, that British opinions over the EU are hardening, suggesting the current settlement is becoming “unsustainable”.

Mr Hague will make his comments in Berlin, amid tensions between Britain and Germany over Europe and in particular the EU budget. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is said to be irritated by the increasingly strident stance of David Cameron’s administration. The Prime Minister yesterday insisted Britain would “stick to our guns” on his promise to freeze the EU budget.

The European Commission has asked for a budget that would cost Britain an extra £10 billion over seven years.

Mr Cameron’s approach has pleased Conservative MPs but irritated some EU leaders. Reports from Berlin suggest Mrs Merkel is prepared to call off a planned EU summit to discuss the budget next month unless he changes his tone.

German officials played down that threat but made clear that Mr Cameron’s budget stance and his recent hints of an eventual British referendum on Europe are unwelcome in Berlin.

Mr Hague will use his speech today to warn that British hostility to the EU has grown and will deepen without fundamental reforms.

“This Coalition government is committed to Britain playing a leading role in the EU but I must also be frank: public disillusionment with the EU in Britain is the deepest it has ever been,” he will say.