UKIP's position on gay marriage

UKIP's NEC has announced the party's position on same-sex marriage.

This is, of course, an emotive subject and the position won't please everyone but the reasoning behind it is logical and consistent which is the most anyone could expect in the circumstances.

UKIP London chairman, David Coburn, says that UKIP supports same-sex civil partnerships but doesn't support same-sex marriage.  The party's position is that civil partnerships are a legal matter and marriage is a religious matter and that government has no business telling the church what does and doesn't constitute marriage.

I agree to a certain extent - it certainly isn't the business of the state to interfere in religious matters and if same-sex relationships are a sin for a particular religion then they shouldn't be forced to conduct same-sex marriages.  However, marriage isn't solely a religious matter - I didn't get married in a church because we're not religious in the slightest but it's still a marriage.

There's no reason why same-sex couples shouldn't have civil marriages if they want to go further than a civil partnership and conversely, no reason why heterosexual couples shouldn't be allowed to have civil partnerships if they don't want to go as far as marriage (something that heterosexual couples aren't allowed to do).

I don't agree that the church (any church) should be forced to marry a same-sex couple if it is against their religion - a vicar can refuse to marry a heterosexual couple if they're the "wrong" denomination, if they aren't from the parish, if they're not religious enough or if they just don't want to so why shouldn't they have the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples because they consider it a sin?

This really is a matter of conscience and not something for politicians to decide.  We can't force a muslim woman to remove her face covering even though it's not a religious requirement because it's a breach of her rights but we can force a vicar to marry a same-sex couple even though he or she thinks it's a sin?  I'm sorry but that's just not right.  Let vicars and other religious leaders decide if they want to condone and preside over same-sex marriages as a matter of conscience, not be forced to do so under threat of prosecution.

No doubt UKIP's announcement will be seized upon by the holier than thou, PC brigade and misrepresented as homophobia but that's the price you pay for taking a principled stand.

EU wants quotas for women in boardrooms

The EU is planning a directive to enforce quotas of women in boardrooms.

The EU Justice Minister, Viviane Reding, says:

It’s no secret that in countries where there are legal quotas, the figures have grown substantially.

In countries without obligatory quotas, progress is slow. I think we’re slowly running out of patience everywhere in Europe. I am not a fanatic about quotas ... but I like the results quotas bring out.

Of course the number of women in boardrooms increases when you pass a law forcing companies to have minimum numbers of women on their boards - it would be illegal not to.  The question is: has it actually improved the performance of the company or is success only measured in the level of compliance with someone's ideology?

Without considering any other factors, statistically there should be more women than men in the boardroom in the UK because there are a couple of percent more women than men.  But it isn't just down to demographics, there are a whole load of other factors that affect the number of women in boardrooms or just in business as a whole.

It is only relatively recently that women have gained equal status to men before the law and that society has changed to accept women forging a career instead of staying at home.  Two centuries ago, a woman could be a man's property through slavery and men had a common law right to beat their wives for not doing as they were told.

A century ago, women were housewives and men were workers.  The war changed that and ¾ of a century ago, it was less uncommon for a woman to have a job.  The anti-establishmentarianism and liberalism of the 60s changed the world again and ½ a century ago young women largely did what they wanted on a personal level.  A ¼ of a century ago the likes of Body Shop and Ann Summers bosses, Anita Roddick and Jacqueline Gold, showed the world that women were perfectly capable of running multi-million pound global brands.

Things have come on in leaps and bounds in historical terms but it will take decades - if not centuries - before women are naturally on a level playing field.  If they ever are.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing because it's much better for this level playing field to be a natural thing rather than something created by legislation.  It's much better that people instinctively think women are equally capable and valuable because the thought doesn't occur to them that they wouldn't be, rather than trying to force them to think that way by making laws to tell them they should.

If this law is passed, every woman that's appointed to a board to fill a quota will be left wondering if she is there on merit or to make up the numbers and in a great many cases it'll be the latter.  Is that advancing the cause of equality for women?

Spanish government rebels against EU austerity

The Spanish government has defied the EU over its budget deficit target, setting its own budget deficit target 1.4% above the EU-imposed maximum.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, described the act of defiance as a "sovereign decision" and broke with recent tradition by not informing the French and Germans beforehand.

Unlike Greece, Portugal and Ireland, a Spanish bailout would bankrupt Germany and the collapse of the fourth largest €urozone economy would devastate the single currency.  All of which means they can pretty much do what they want without the kind of threats given to Greece to ensure subservience.

News of Spain's defiance comes at the same time as the Irish government confirmed that it will be holding a referendum on the EU Fiscal Treaty which will be a huge disappointment to the Merkozy who thought they'd finally got their fiscal union in the bag.

Bradford West by-election

Sonja McNally has declared herself as a candidate in the impending Bradford West by-election for UKIP.

McNally is likely to have the left wing extremist, George Galloway, standing against her after he turned up to kiss babies and tell people he was a "freedom fighter".  He is reported to have said that he is "almost certain" to stand in the election.

Galloway's political career started in Dundee, then moved to Glasgow and then when he was booted out of the Labour Party he set up his own party (Respect) and moved down to London where his extremist views are more acceptable.  Having failed to get himself elected in London or to the Scottish Parliament, he has now decided to try his luck in Bradford!

"Gorgeous" George is presumably hoping that his support of the brutal and repressive regimes in Iraq and Libya will stand him in good stead with the large immigrant population in Bradford but I think he will be sorely disappointed.  He's also presumably banking on the traditional Labour voters in Bradford being as far left as he is but you'd struggle to find many people that lament the loss of the Soviet Union or call for mass nationalisation of industry, even in the Labour Party.

UKIP's candidate, Sarah McNally, was a Green Party member last year before seeing the light and joining UKIP.  She is a local, has stood in local elections in Bradford and is involved with local schools, voluntary groups and charities.

Which would you choose?  A Bradford local or Dundee/Glasgow/London/Baghdad George?

Desperate times call for desperate Tories

The editor of Conservative Home, Tim Montgomerie, has penned a desperate appeal for eurosceptics to stay with the Conservative & European Unionist Party.

Reconnecting with the grassroots, apparently

In his article he points out that 81 Tory MPs voted for a referendum on EU membership and suggests that this is the political event of 2011.  Just 81 out of 305 Tory MPs voted for a referendum, the other 224 voted against our national interest and the wishes of the majority of the electorate.  Wee Willy Vague himself said that the EU was undermining our sovereignty and that we need a law to stop them doing it but he and the rest of the europhile Tory leadership pulled out all the stops to make sure that we didn't get a say in our membership.  Just  a quarter of Tory MPs defied the whips and we are supposed to vote for a pro-EU, illiberal, high tax, big state Conservative Party on the strength of the record of 81 MPs in one vote?  You're having a laugh Montgomerie!

Montgomerie also thinks that under the rabidly europhile leadership of Martin Callanan, the Tory MEP group in the EU Parliament has reconnected with the grassroots.  This group of MEPs has voted for EU regulation of the City of London, for EU control of national budgets, for EU supervision of banks and for the EU arrest warrant amongst others.  Whose grassroots have they reconnected with?  Certainly not their own.

Once again we are told that UKIP are splitting the Tory vote and preventing euroscepticism from triumphing but UKIP is the eurosceptic party, not the Tories.  It is the Tories that are splitting the UKIP vote and preventing true eurosceptics from entering government, not the other way round.

Tim Montgomerie is way off the mark as usual - a party propaganda merchant through and through.  Roger Helmer made the right decision in joining UKIP, as did all the other Tories (and there are a lot of them, especially in the last year or two) that have defected to UKIP.  There is more to UKIP than opposing the EU and more behind the high profile Tory defections of the likes of Roger Helmer, Stuart Wheeler, the Lords Hesketh, Pearson and de Broke and Viscount Monckton than the continued Tory betrayals over the EU.

UKIP is attracting supporters from all parties and both ends of the political spectrum, not because they oppose the EU but because they believe in UKIP.

Roger Helmer MEP defects to UKIP

Roger Helmer MEP has defected from the Conservative & European Unionist Party to UKIP.

Helmer had intended to resign at the end of 2011 but withdrew his resignation after the Tories tried to bump their preferred candidate above his rightful replacement.  He has always said that people elected under one party banner should remain under that banner or resign and in fact he said as much in October 2011 when he announced his intention to resign, saying he wouldn't be defecting.

However, in today's resignation letter he explains that he has waited long enough for the Tories to do the right thing and is now doing what he believes is right and join the only party that actually stands for what the Tories falsely claim stand for.

Helmer's resignation letter, courtesy of the Northampton Chronicle, reads as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to let you know that after a great deal of thought, and much heart-searching, I have decided to leave the Conservative Party, and to join the United Kingdom Independence Party.

After decades with the Conservative Party, this has been a tough decision to take. I well understand that many of my friends and colleagues in the Party will greet the news with dismay, and I greatly regret that.

In recent months my increasingly tenuous relationship with the Party has been predicated primarily on people, not policies, and I cherish the hope that at least some of the good friendships I have made within the Party, both in the East Midlands and in Brussels, over my dozen years as an MEP, will survive my change of allegiance.

Peter Oborne has described UKIP as “The Conservative Party in exile”. He has a point. UKIP is closer than the Tory Party to the conservative principles and values that brought many of us into politics in the first place. It is right on Europe, right on climate and energy, and much closer to the views of most Conservatives on a range of issues including tax policy, immigration, “human rights”, foreign aid, University admissions and defence.

I have always argued that a parliamentarian who finds himself no longer able to support the Party should stand aside in favour of another Conservative, and I have roundly criticised former colleagues who failed to do so, like Bill Newton Dunn and Edward McMillan Scott. But in this case, as you will be aware, I sought in good faith to do the honourable thing, and to resign in favour of the next-in-line Conservative, Rupert Matthews. Indeed in October I announced my intention to resign at the end of 2011. But that plan was frustrated by the deliberate obstinacy and recalcitrance of the Party Chairman.

I wrote to Baroness Warsi in early January saying that I would not resign without a clear undertaking on the succession issue. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received. In these circumstances I believe that I have fulfilled my obligation to the Party, so far as I am able, and I therefore withdraw my offer to resign. I had made it clear to Baroness Warsi that I would not allow the stand-off to continue indefinitely, so I will now plan to fulfil my current term until 2014.

By seeking to do what I took to be the decent thing, and offering to stand aside in favour of another Conservative, I hope at least that I shall retain the respect of Party members in the region. They have selected and reselected me three times over the years, and I know that for the most part their views are closer to my own than to those of the Party leadership.

I will continue to work for a free, independent, sovereign and democratic Britain, trading and cooperating with our neighbours but governed from Westminster, not Brussels. Roll on Independence Day.

You dear much from that David Campbell Bannerman chap nowadays do you? I wonder how he's getting on in the SS Torytanic.

Britains most dangerous sectarian divide

Last night I managed to catch up with Channel 4's 'Proud and Prejudiced' documentary, about the bitter fermenting hatreds between militant Islamist's and the (largely but not exclusively) white working class in the town of Luton. Subsequently, these gave birth to the English Defence League (EDL), which has rapidly spread across the country.

For those such as myself who are interested in cultural issues the program was a disappointment. As might be expected neither side came out of the program with much glory and fully lived up to stereotype. The EDL and its leader, although when sober clearly highly articulate, came across overall as yobbish and immature;  the Islamist leader as a vain, ignorant self-publicist, 'raving on about Jihad', to use Anthony Howard's memorable line.

There was no attempt to explore the reasons behind the rise of the worst sectarian  tensions  last seen in England for hundreds of years, and therefore no attempt to understand how such tensions could be dissolved. Instead, what we got was a purely factual narrative which ended on the palliative assurance that 'support for both groups had plateaued' during late 2011.

The program was highly illuminating in one way, however, albeit unintentionally.

It showed once again that the most dangerous cultural divide in this country is between the Metropolitan liberal elite and the rest of us.

Most people are well aware of some aspects of this divide: the inherited wealth and privilege of those holding most senior positions  in all the LibLabCon political  parties, in the legal profession and of course the media means our Establishment is woefully out of touch with the lives of ordinary people. Having known nothing but elite success all their lives and, in the case of many members of the Political Class never having had a proper job,  their life experience is often pitifully narrow. Consequently, although in many cases people of extremely high  intelligence, their ability is not matched by the wisdom most people accumulate along the way with all life's set backs and disappointments. In terms of politics, the result, of course, is poor policies born out of ignorance of how most folk live.

So far, so obvious. But what is, to my mind, much less understood is that these factors are much compounded by a cultural trait of the metropolitan liberal classes far more dangerous than mere ignorance of the lives of others: - their overweening narcissism.

Narcissism  has been a increasingly important part of liberal culture since the1960s, and anyone who has spent much time in metropolitan liberal circles can attest to what an enormously inflated sense of self-regard they tend to have for themselves. Indeed, one scientific study has shown that such groups have a signifcantly higher levels of the chemical dopamine, which stimulates feelings of high self-esteem.

But like any other chemical high, dopamine highs can be become addictive, and this leads to a pronounced metropolitan cultural tendency of incessant ego-masturbation. It is not going too far to say that many Metropolitan liberals are dopamine junkies, addicted to forever telling themselves and their friends just what great people they really are.

The political ramifications  are far more serious than is generally realised: mistakes in policy for wider society are not only made out of ignorance, though that is undoubtedly an important factor, but because policy choices are made on the basis of what "feels good". It is not only the case that hard choices are avoided because of cynical careerism, but also out of emotional and moral cowardice.

The result is that malign cultural trends in society are simply ignored, or at best, grudgingly acknowledged but not dwelt on, on the basis that if something doesn't make you feel good, it isn't really happening. Long before last summer's riots, for example, the liberal left laughed at the idea of 'feral' children. After the riots showed without doubt such children existed, there was a desperate attempt to blame the cause of the riots on material deprivation alone.  Such deprivation could, of course, be alleviated by more government spending, administered no doubt by nice metropolitan liberal people such as themselves.  On the Left in general, there was a total refusal to even countenance that the widespread breakdown in civil order may have had deeper cultural reasons such as family breakdown.

And that leads us back to Channel 4's 'Proud and Prejudiced': profoundly malign cultural trends in British society which the program should have examined are avoided, because such examination itself would prove to be unpleasant. Meanwhile, an increasingly alienated and disengaged electorate are forced to live with the consequences.

Because the people who are most 'Proud and Prejudiced' are the metropolitan liberals themselves.

EU foreign office withdraws UK ambassador from Belarus

The EU Foreign Minister, Baroness Ashtray, has recalled the ambassadors of all 27 EU member states from Belarus and instructed them to return to their capitals to have consultations with their governments.

When the EU's foreign ministry was created, everyone was reassured that it wouldn't encroach on the foreign policies or operations of member states yet here we have the unelected multi-millionaire communist sympathiser, Cathy Ashton, controlling our ambassadors and setting our foreign policy.

We're broke but still spending £73m a day on EU and international aid

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has given a stark warning that the UK has run out of money and they will not fund any more tax cuts or spending increases with borrowing.

This is clearly a sop to the credit reference agencies who have threatened us with a downgrade.  It also sets expectations low so when he finds a few million down the back of the sofa to pay for something nice everyone will be impressed by his financial genius and perhaps the big bad Tories aren't so bad after all.  Or so the theory goes.

Meanwhile, the economic mastermind that is George Osborne is still handing over £50m a day to the EU and £23m a day in international aid to, amongst others, Argentina.


The answer to our economic problems does not lie within the EU.  We can't afford the £50m a day membership fee or the extra £30m or so a day in extra costs related to membership.  We can't afford the guilt by association that comes with membership of the EU damaging our economy.  We can't afford to subsidise the crooks behind the global warming scam or the scam itself.  We can't afford to keep imposing high taxes on people and businesses that stifle economic growth and increase reliance on the welfare state.

Paul Nuttall impresses on Question Time

UKIP MEP and Deputy Leader, Paul Nuttall, put in a fantastic first appearance on BBC Question Time on Thursday night, attracting applause every time he spoke.

The Minister for Communication, Ed Vazey's attempts to emulate Boris Johnson's air of foppish buffoonery failed to make him a hit with the audience and he spent most of his time with his face in his hands and a look that said "why did I agree to this"?  Rather amusingly he argued that his government's Workfare programme was voluntary and had to be informed that it is, in fact, mandatory and those who refuse to take part lose their benefits.

The Labour Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, was pretty stereotypical of female Labour MPs and dropped a bit of a clanger by saying that Syrian rebels had  plenty of weapons and didn't need any more.  This on the day after a reporter had just been killed by a rocket fired by the Syrian army into a house in a residential area and amid reports from all sorts of agencies about the atrocities being caused by the Syrian authorities.

The other two guests were Cristina Odone, the Telegraph reporter, and the historian, Simon Schama.  Simon Schama got the biggest laugh when asked for an opinion about Rupert Murdoch starting the Sun on Sunday and replied something along the lines of "there are very few things in this world I don't give a damn about and this is one of them".

Paul Nuttall was by far the most convincing, most popular and most human of the panelists.  Small wonder than the phrase "Paul Nuttall" was the #1 trend in the UK on Twitter after the programme and #4 in the world.

UKIP on 4% in YouGov poll

YouGov's latest poll has UKIP in fourth place again but with a wider than usual gap between UKIP and the Lib Dems.

Because YouGov only likes to promote the LibLabCon, some maths is needed to correct their inflated headline voting intentions from this:

Con: 39%
Lab: 38%
LD: 10%
Other: 14%

To this:

Con: 30.4%
Lab: 29.6%
LD: 7.8%
UKIP: 4%
SNP/PC: 3%
Green: 3%
BNP: 2%

The percentages don't quite add up because YouGov also round up the LibLabCon votes but without the source data and methodology (which YouGov don't publish) this is as close as you're going to get.  UKIP has dropped a bit against the Lib Dems since Sunday for no apparent reason but it's bucking the trend and unlikely to reflect a real downturn in UKIP support.

Beware Greeks bearing debts

An agreement has been reached for a second bailout loan for Greece, plunging the country further into unsustainable debt.

I wonder if they think taking on another
€130bn of debt is a "historic moment"

The terms of the pay day loan are still vague and it all hinges on private creditors "voluntarily" writing off of 53.5% of their debts.  The Greek government is passing a law in case they don't agree to the "voluntary" write-off to force them to "voluntarily" write off the 53.5%.

Prior to the meeting, the EC, ECB, IMF, Netherlands, Austria and Germany had all said that they wouldn't be moved on a target of 120% debt to GDP ratio (ie. national debt would be no more than 120% of the total amount of money the Greek economy produces in a year) by 2020 but they caved in and upped it to 123%.

One of the conditions of the €130bn loan is even deeper austerity measures which is frankly bizarre given that a joint EC/ECB/IMF report was leaked last night that says the EU-imposed austerity measures have weakened the Greek economy and made it harder for them to meet their demands.

The BBC reports that the Greek government has agreed to "enhanced and permanent" external monitors to oversea the economic recovery.  This is clearly a reference to the Dutch demands for permanent representation of the EC/ECB/IMF in Greece to make their financial decisions for them.  The EU-funded BBC's wording suggests the agreement on this is a little softer than what the Netherlands were demanding but the Independent is more equivocal and it would seem that the Greeks have agreed to hand over permanent control of tax and spend to an unelected group of economists.

The unelected, EU-appointed Greek Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, has called the loan and further damaging austerity measures that are being inflicted on the Greeks a "historic moment".  The protesters who've been rioting in Greece for the last few weeks might have a different opinion.  As I said yesterday: this isn't a bailout, it's a coup d'état.

Greek bailout masks EU coup d'état attempt

Talks started about half an hour ago on Greece's pay-day loan which has to be agreed today to avoid a default next month.

Finland has said for a long time that it is unwilling to bail out Greece again unless it has some hard guarantees for its loan but was talked down from that position last October.  It is a sign of how desperate Greece is that it has signed a bilateral collateral agreement with Finland today.

The German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has clearly had a good talking to and is now confident that a deal can be found to lend Greece more money to make repayments on the existing loans it can't afford to pay back, having previously told Greece there is no hope of survival and to declare itself bankrupt.

The most outrageous demand so far today is by the Dutch government who want permanent representation from the EC/ECB/IMF in Greece taking permanent control of Greek spending and borrowing.  They already have an EU-appointed unelected Prime Minister, now they want to permanently bypass elected government with unelected foreign technocrats answerable to the EU Commission, EU Central Bank and IMF making all the decisions on the Greek economy.

This isn't a bailout, it's the next stage of an EU coup d'état.  Italy has already gone through phase one (replacing the head of the government with an unelected EU-appointed technocrat), they'll be more than a little concerned if phase two is implemented in Greece.

UKIP on 6% in YouGov poll

YouGov's latest daily poll has UKIP on 6%, just 1% behind the Lib Dems again.

You wouldn't know UKIP was trailing the Lib Dems by just 1% as it has pretty consistently for almost a year by looking at the headline figures because YouGov still insists on putting UKIP in the "other" bucket, despite snapping at the tail of the Lib Dems for months and the closest "other" party having half of UKIP's vote.  Unlike Angus Reid, YouGov has yet to recognise that UKIP is virtually level pegging with the Lib Dems on a national level and could conceivably replace them as the third party in Westminster at the next election if the prediction of them losing all but 9 of their MPs is correct.

Some other statistics in the poll are interesting and make encouraging reading.  Despite the perception that UKIP is a eurosceptic version of the Tories, 5% of people who voted Lib Dem in the last election and 1% who voted Labour intend to vote UKIP in the next election compared to 8% of Tory voters - UKIP attracts votes from left and right in similar numbers, including people who traditionally vote for the rabidly europhile of the LibLabCon.  UKIP also attracts more women voters (7%) than men (6%), putting paid to the myth that it is an old boys and blazers club and attracts more working class voters (7%) than upper and middle class (5%).  Support for UKIP is pretty even across England except for the Midlands where it falls short, although this is probably down to the "Wales effect" (YouGov, quite inexplicably, combines the Midlands and Wales which produces some strange and often irrelevant data).

YouGov's ignorance of devolution and national institutions has skewed some of the statistics.  Indifference towards the British government's £9k a year university tuition fee regime in England has been artificially inflated by including Scottish opinions on a tuition fee regime that doesn't apply to Scottish students and support for grammar schools in England has been depressed by including Scottish opinions on a grammar school system that doesn't affect Scotland.  The number of people having the opinion that the Church of England plays a valuable role in "Britain" has similarly been depressed by including the opinions of Scottish people whose national church is, of course, the Church of Scotland (still protestant but importantly, not English).

Most encouragingly, though, are the opinions on UKIP policies.  A whopping 88% agree with UKIP's policy of increasing the tax threshold to take low earners out of the tax system altogether and 56% support UKIP's policy of rewarding families and married couples through the tax system.  UKIP's policy of supporting and expanding the grammar school system is supported by most voters, as is UKIP's policy that universities should admit students based on academic ability rather than quotas.

Dr Miguel-Angel Meizoso and the European Arrest Warrant - From the pages of Ukip Hillingdon

Dr Miguel-Angel Meizoso and the European Arrest Warrant

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Martin Shelvey

I alongside other UKIP Hillingdon representatives recently attended a Launch for the Greater London Assembly Campaign. There I had the pleasure to meet Dr. Miguel-Angel Meizoso, a charming man who had been threatened with arrest an subsequent deportation for something not that he had done but something that he might do ! This is the European Arrest Warrant in action. (mjs)

As you can see our MEP Gerard Batten is on the case.  Thank Heavens UKIP stands up for the ordinary citizen against the clumsy ignorant might of the EU.  (mjs)

Parliamentary questions
2 March 2011
E-001715/2011
Question for written answer
to the Commission
Rule 117
Gerard Batten (EFD)

Subject: Dr Miguel Meizoso and the European Arrest Warrant
Answer(s)
My constituent Dr Miguel Meizoso is facing immanent extradition to Spain on a European Arrest Warrant, which accuses him of a fraud he has not committed but allegedly ‘wants to commit in the future’. The EAW is issued by a Spanish ‘investigative magistrate’ on a private complaint without any further judicial or prosecutorial scrutiny. If extradited, Dr Meizoso may be kept in pre-trial detention without charge for up to two years, solely at the discretion of the magistrate.

The ill-defined ‘crime’, the oppressive procedure, and the very office of ‘investigative magistrate’ are all peculiar to the Spanish inquisitorial legal system. In response to criticism, the Spanish Government has now pledged to abolish ‘investigative magistrates’, a relic of the Franco regime, in the future. Meanwhile, an EAW from an ‘investigative magistrate’ still must be obeyed without question under the EU doctrine of ‘mutual recognition’. Dr Meizoso is not even allowed to place the evidence of his innocence before a British court.

1. Does the Commission consider ‘investigative magistrates’ in Spain to be a proper authority to issue a European Arrest Warrants?

2. Does the Commission think that an EAW should be used for a preliminary investigation before a charge is laid?

3. What safeguards against the outrages of inquisitorial legal systems of some EU Member States are provided in the EAW framework to protect the liberties enjoyed under English law for many centuries, especially freedom from arbitrary arrest?

4. In view of Dr Meizoso’s case, is the Commission satisfied with the operation of the EAW system, and that it includes sufficient safeguards against unfounded, unjust and malicious accusations?

5. Will the Commission take steps to improve the situation by repealing the framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant and leaving it to the national governments to make appropriate extradition arrangements on a bilateral basis?

As Dr. Meizoso says ” Why (does) the British and European media keep silent about my case ?   Why (does) the fate of law abiding citizens who stand for Justice & Democracy not matter to the media ?  ..

Why indeed !

Dr. Meizoso has a web site   www.Habeas-Corpus.net