“For some, taking part in the European elections is the point of no return. Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman is one politician who won’t be standing again on principle. He joins Chopper for a no-holds-barred chat about about why he’s packed up his Brussels office – and who he’ll be voting for this time instead.”
Click on the link to go to the podcast page:
https://choppersbrexitpodcast.telegraph.co.uk/e/event-horizon-1554995932/
Steve Baker MP on BBC Today Programme (13.03.19) explains the Malthouse B option.
Carry On Brussels: Inside the EU
“Stepping inside the curious world of the Brussels bubble, this three-part series follows an eclectic group of MEPs from across the UK’s political spectrum, as they buckle up for the ride of their lives on the Brexit roller coaster. Focusing on the personal challenges over the politics, the series offers unrivalled access to the inner workings of the European Parliament at one of the most historically significant times of its existence. Filmed over a year, the series charts the battles and the brawls, the tears, tantrums and tactics of some of Britain’s most maligned and misunderstood public servants in these turbulent times.”
In response to the missile attack on Camp Liberty on October 29th, David Campbell Bannerman MEP, Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Iraq has issued the following statement:
“As Chairman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Iraq, I strongly condemn the attack on Camp Liberty, Iraq, that took place yesterday (October 29th 2015) taking the lives of over twenty people and injuring dozens more.
“My thoughts are with the people of Camp Liberty who were victims of this unspeakable and unprovoked attack.
“I urge the Iraqi government to do everything in their power to find the perpetrators of this horrifying terrorist act and bring them to justice. We will be closely watching their approach and need to see serious intent.”
David Campbell Bannerman MEP appeared on new digital radio station – Share Radio – to talk about the failures and cost of the EU. The MEP was also given the opportunity to discuss his plan for Britain to have an EEA Lite relationship with the EU once the country had left the European superstate.
Share Radio is a new independent radio station which is based in Westminster and broadcasts to Greater London on digital radio and to the rest of the country via its website. The station focuses on money and investment matters in the UK. The website can be found here – http://www.shareradio.co.uk/
On Radio Five Live’s Stephen Nolan show (Friday 24/10/14), David Campbell Bannerman MEP backed Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision not to pay the EU’s demand for an additional £1.7 billion from the UK. Germany is going to get back 779 million (£614m) in rebates and France one billion euros (£800m). The MEP said that the Prime Minister was right to refuse to pay for the EU’s budget is already bloated with billions wasted on such initiatives as the EU’s Foreign Action Service.
You can listen to the interview here:
.
In a speech to the European Parliament this week, Conservative MEP for the East of England and recently elected President of the European Union’s Iraq Delegation, David Campbell Bannerman called for tough action in “destroying” ISIL. The MEP also said that “I had the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister of Turkey and Foreign Minister in Ankara two weeks ago in which I directly raised my concerns on Kobanê.” He went on to say that “Turkey’s very positive announcement to allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to cross its border into Kobanê is most welcome, particularly with their sensitivities over PKK. We should support the Kurdistan Regional Government, but not get too close to the Iranian regime. In this regard, we should say that ‘The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.’ ” The MEP also promised “I intend to play a constructive role to ensure all tools: military, political, economic, humanitarian are used to destroy ISIL and protect minorities from these purveyors of evil.”
David is a principled advocate of EU withdrawal while being a traditional Conservative of 23 years standing. He’s the only person who really understands UKIP, as their former Deputy Leader/Party Chairman, and he needs to be a leading part of the Conservative team to combat them in the European Elections. Positive, hard working, a team player, and easy to get on with, David makes an ideal Conservative MEP candidate.
“It is a pleasure to have David come back to the Conservative fold, he has given us a great deal of help in fighting UKIP.”
David Finch, Leader of Essex County Council
Newly-elected Police Commissioners were telling me that one of the factors preventing police officers spending more time on the streets is the amount of red tape they are faced with. New technology could put more police back on the streets and less time formfilling. I am really encouraged at the progress and innovation they are bringing to the roles.
David Campbell Bannerman MEP with anti-discard protestors.
One of the region’s Euro-MPs has made a strong speech against the current disgraceful fish discards imposed on local fishermen by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), in a bid to save what remains of the centuries-old industry.
Eastern region MEP David Campbell Bannerman, made the speech as part of a long anticipated debate in the European Parliament on the Common Fisheries Policy, that follows protests from the public and celebrities, such as TV Chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his Fish Fight, which David signed up to early on.
The protests have been against the current rules that force fishermen to throw back any fish caught above their strict quota, even though the fish are already dead by the time they have to be discarded, with discards reaching up to 90% in some UK waters.
Although the debate today did not fix a precise date for the removal of the discard rules, a timetable for such decisions to be made was agreed.
In his speech to the Parliament Mr Campbell Bannerman, a member of the International Trade Committee, said: “I welcome the limited reforms passed today, despite strong resistance. All credit to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for his sterling efforts and to ECR Group.
“I fear however that this is still rather like spraying perfume on a long, dead fish – the bad odour lingers on.
“The Common Fisheries Policy has been a disaster. It has failed both to secure fish stocks and to support fishing jobs. The East of England fishing community has been devastated by it, and fishing right across the UK.
“The issue of discards in particular is an absolute disgrace: the practice of throwing edible, dead fish back in the sea. Discards are up to 90% in some areas. Norway and Iceland have never had discards, and regard them as criminal. So why has it taken so long for the EU to follow, and why do we still have measures such as Article 119(/4) which wanted still to allow some discards ?
“The problem continues.”
Speaking in Strasbourg after the vote, the MEP added: “I have been contacted by a huge amount of constituents angry at the current situation, and urging support for the ending of discards.
“Today’s vote puts in place a mandate for that change to take place, and for the sake of my concerned constituents and the future of the fishing industry in the Eastern Counties, I will not let this matter drop until these outrageously wasteful discards are ended.”
ENDS
Picture shows: DCB with anti-discard protestors
Oliver W Adam
Media Advisor to David Campbell Bannerman MEP
Conservative Member of the European Parliament (Eastern Counties)
Mobile: 07788 55 8041
Why We Can Leave: The Top Ten EU Myths About Withdrawal Exposed
An extract from David Campbell Bannerman’s document “The Ultimate Plan B: A Positive Vision of an independent Britain outside The European Union.” Read more and download a copy here, or request a printed copy via the contact page.
Myth 1: “Britain will lose three million jobs as a consequence of leaving the EU”.
The Reality:
If Britain leaves the EU it will put in place of its EU membership a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement to preserve the benefits of trade with the EU. The EU sells much more to us than we sell to them: in 2009, the UK’s trade deficit in manufactured goods with the EU was £34.9 billion. So, in theory, if there was the very worst case of a trade war and no trade at all with the EU, the UK would lose the three million jobs which depend on trade with the EU (10% of all UK jobs), whilst the EU would lose some four million jobs7. This simply won’t happen, as the EU would not want to lose their biggest customer. Even the Lisbon Treaty requires the EU to make a trade agreement with a nation that leaves the EU (under Article 50), and the EU already has these trade agreements with many of the world’s nations including Switzerland and Norway.
Myth 2: “Britain will be excluded from trade with the EU by tariff barriers.”
The Reality:
The world has changed considerably since the UK joined in 1973. The EU has free trade agreements in place with 53 countries to overcome such tariffs and the UK/EU trade agreement would have no such tariffs, particularly if it merely replicated current EU membership arrangements. Indeed, the EU is very keen on free trade agreements for it is negotiating a further 74 such agreements and is seeking to open negotiations with an additional 12 countries. The EU now exempts services and many goods from duties anyway. This meant that in 2009 the UK charged an average customs duty rate of only 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that it makes the EU Common Market, a customs union with tariff walls, pretty much redundant.
Myth 3: “Britain cannot survive economically outside the EU in a world of trading blocs.”
The Reality:
Major economies such as Japan (the world’s third largest) are not in trading blocs, but are very successful with international trade and global investment. Nor is the EU the place where most economic growth is taking place: the EU’s share of world’s GDP is forecast to decline to 15% in 2020, down from 36% in 1980. The EU is now more of a straightjacket than a life support machine to Britain. The EU already has Free Trade Agreements with individual countries across the world, regardless of such trading blocs. Countries such as Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does. This suggests membership of the EU is not required for healthy trading relationships to exist between independent nation states and the EU. In addition, Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not with the EU but outside it – such as with the USA and Switzerland. The think tank Global Britain found that some 47% percent of UK exports go to the EU compared with 63% for Germany and 64% for France. However, 18% of British exports go to the US whereas for Germany, it is only 7%. Indeed, the largest investor in the UK is not even an EU country – it is the USA. Furthermore, the latest UKTI Report ‘Inward Investment Report 2010/11’ has found that the three top countries investing in the UK in terms of the numbers of projects are the non-EU countries of the USA, Japan and India. Moreover, the USA is the top destination for UK foreign investment. In addition, Britain’s exports to non-EU countries are surging ahead as these economies show high growth levels whilst the EU has been relatively sluggish.
Myth 4: “The EU is moving towards the UK’s position on cutting regulations and bureaucracy.”
The Reality:
EU directives and regulations are subject to a ‘rachet’ effect – once they are in place they are highly unlikely to be reformed or repealed. Less than 10% of Britain’s GDP represents trade with the EU yet Brussels regulations afflict 100% of the UK economy; an economy which is the world’s sixth largest. More importantly, 80% of Britain’s GDP is generated within the UK, such as Londoners buying Scottish whisky, so at least 80% (90% if trade to the Rest of the World is included) need not be subject to EU laws once the UK is free again. In 2006, former Competition Commissioner Verheugen estimated that EU over-regulation alone costs some €600 billion per annum across the whole EU. In 2010, Mats Persson of the Open Europe think tank stated EU regulation has cost Britain £124 billion since 1998. This figure was based on the UK Government’s official Impact Assessments of the cost to the UK of various EU Directives and Regulations. Independent studies have put the net cost of the EU membership and its attendant 100,000 plus Directives and Regulations at between 4% and 10% of the UK’s GDP. A Treasury report in 2005 had four categories of EU costs which altogether came to 28% of Britain’s GDP. Eliminating any possibility of any overlap between the Treasury’s categories, the think tank Global Britain conservatively estimated that the likely EU cost was around 7% of UK GDP or £98 billion at 2009 prices. In 2009, Matthew Elliot of the TaxPayers’ Alliance estimated that EU membership is actually costing Britain £118 billion a year. Whilst red tape savings are not direct cash savings, deregulation would result in a true “bonfire of regulations” that could fund either sizeable tax cuts or additional public spending, or a combination of the two.
Myth 5: “If we do leave, Britain will still have to pay billions to the EU and implement all its regulations but without any say in them.”
The Reality:
The UK has very little ‘say’ within the EU, and would have far more leverage outside the EU as an independent sovereign nation and the world’s 6th largest economy. The UK currently has only 8.4% of voting power ‘say’ in the EU, and the Lisbon Treaty ensured the loss of Britain’s veto in many more policy areas. Britain’s 72 MEPs are a minority within the 736 in the European Parliament (worsening to 73 out of 751 owing to Lisbon changes). The UK is increasingly losing influence within the EU and further EU enlargement, as with Turkey’s 79 million citizens, would water it down further. As for continuing EU contributions by an independent Britain, the Swiss and Norwegian examples show the UK would achieve substantial net savings. Official Swiss Government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU just under 600 million Swiss Francs a year but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year. Norway only had to make a few changes to its laws in order to make its products eligible for the European Union marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 million Euros per year of which some 110 million Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.5 billion, or £50 million a day.
Myth 6: “The EU has a positive impact on the British economy.”
The Reality:
British industries such as fishing, farming, postal services and manufacturing have already been devastated by Britain’s membership of the EU. EU membership costs the UK billions of pounds and large numbers of lost jobs thanks to unnecessary and excessive red tape, substantial membership and aid contributions, inflated consumer prices and other associated costs. Britain will lose more jobs when such Directives as the EU’s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive come into effect. This is already causing hedge fund and private equity markets to migrate elsewhere, doing substantial harm to financial services, responsible for 12% of the British economy and 15% of income tax receipts.
Myth 7: “The EU has brought Peace to the European Continent”
The Reality:
Even now, the EU is only 27 nations out of the 47 European nations listed as national members of the Council of Europe. The forerunner of the EU, the Common Market, didn’t even come into existence until 1958, and then only with 6 nations, and yet there was no war between European countries from 1945 to 1956 (Hungarian Revolution). Whilst peaceful international cooperation is welcomed at all levels, to say the EU is the sole guarantor of peace is an extreme exaggeration that is dishonest in its application. It is NATO, founded in 1949 and dominated by the USA, and not the EU, that has actually kept the peace in Europe, together with parliamentary democracy. Both of these are being undermined by the EU. The former German President Herzog wrote a few years ago that “the question has to be raised of whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy.” This was owing to the number of German laws emanating from the EU – which he assessed at some 84%. One of the major tests of the EU’s ability to keep the peace in Europe was the break up of Yugoslavia. It was the EU’s interference that helped trigger a major civil war and its dithering that contributed to the deaths of some 100,000 people. It was only decisive action by US/NATO forces that stopped the violence, and peace was established by the US-brokered Dayton Agreement.
Myth 8: “Britain will lose vital Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as a Consequence of Leaving the EU.”
The Reality:
In their 2010 survey on the UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors, Ernst and Young found Britain remained the number one FDI destination in Europe owing largely to the City of London and the UK’s close corporate relationship with the US. EU membership was not mentioned at all in their table of key investment factors, which were (in order of importance): UK culture and values and the English language; telecommunications infrastructure; quality of life; stable social environment, and transport and logistics infrastructure. In any case, open access to the EU market would continue through a Free Trade Agreement in the manner of Switzerland and Norway whilst the UK would gain from higher growth, less regulation, more public spending and/or lower taxes and more suitable trade deals.
Myth 9: “Britain will lose all influence in the World by being outside the EU.”
The Reality:
Britain has a substantial ‘portfolio of power’ in its own right, which includes membership of the G20 and G8 Nations, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (one of only five members) and seats on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board of Governors and World Trade Organisation (WTO). The UK also lies at the heart of the Commonwealth of 54 nations. Moreover, London is the financial capital of the world and Britain has the sixth largest economy. Last but not least, the UK is in the top ten manufacturing nations of the world. Far from increasing British influence in the world, the EU is undermining UK influence. The EU is demanding there is a single voice for the EU in the United Nations and in the IMF, has made the British economy and City of London less competitive through overregulation, and negotiates more protectionist and less effective trade deals on behalf of the UK. The new European External Action Service (EEAS) and its EU ‘Foreign Minister’ Baroness Ashton are undermining national diplomatic representation and the furtherance of British political and commercial interests through British embassies, which are being closed or downsized around the world. Foreign Office support for the BBC’s World Service is being eliminated also. EU diplomats owe their allegiance to common EU interests and not British ones. Indeed EU diplomats are now claiming to have the right to speak for Britain on key issues such as security and defence – the EU Ambassador to the US Joao Vale de Almedia made such a claim in 2010. The Commonwealth is increasingly being discriminated against by the EU policy on visas, so that non-EU Commonwealth citizens face having to obtain visas whilst citizens of even new EU entrants have automatic entry, and bonds with Britain are being lost.
Myth 10: “Legally, Britain cannot leave the EU.”
The Reality:
Technically, Britain could leave the EU in a single day. Legislatively, this would be achieved simply by repealing the European Communities Act 1972 and its attendant Amendment Acts through a single clause Bill passing through Westminster. If the British people voted to leave in an In/Out Referendum or by voting in a party with EU withdrawal in its manifesto, Parliament would have to respect the will of the British people and there would be no justification for delay or obstruction in either House. However, the process of setting up a replacement UK/EU Free Trade Agreement will take longer, though there would be no need for time-consuming negotiation of tariff reductions if the UK/EU Free Trade Agreement merely replicated existing EU trade arrangements. In addition, even the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 50 enshrines the right of Member States to leave the Union, albeit in an unattractive manner. The same article requires the EU to seek a trade agreement with a member which leaves. Greenland established a precedent for a sovereign nation by leaving the EEC in 1985, and is prospering well outside of it. With Westminster still sovereign (for the moment), it is the British Parliament who will decide how and when Britain leaves the EU. As the European Commission Treaties Office Database shows, an independent Britain will then be able to negotiate around many different types of EU association. Whilst France is a full EU member and Denmark is a full member with opt outs, Norway has an EU internal market association. On the other hand, Turkey has an EU Customs Union arrangement, while Switzerland has signed a free trade agreement. In contrast, Georgia has concluded a partnership and co-operation agreement, and Japan enjoys a ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status.