Croatia joins the EU

A mere two decades after fighting a bloody civil war in Yugoslavia, Croatia will voluntarily hand over its hard-won independence by joining the EU tonight despite a large amount of opposition amongst the population.

Croatia will get about £11bn for joining the EU which is the same amount as the UK international aid budget or the annual subsidy paid to Scotland.  The Croatian economy is in deep recession, unemployment is at 21% and their economy has been downgraded to junk.  The Croatian economy is heavily dependent on tourism which will be decimated when EU membership drives up prices just like Greece, Cyprus and Spain to name just three popular tourist destinations that have been priced out of the cheap holiday market.

It's a sad day for Croatia and a sad day for the net contributors to the EU budget (that's 11 out of 28 members from tomorrow) who will have yet another hungry mouth to feed.

Germans get agreement on plundering bank accounts

The Germans have got the agreement they wanted that all EU member states will legalise the theft of citizens' money in the event of a bank failure.

Under the new rules which the British government backtracked on and supported, national governments will be prevented from bailing out a bank unless they have already written off large share and bond holdings, emptied corporate bank accounts and stolen anything over €100k in any bank account that hasn't yet been plundered.  Only then can they step in and financially support the bank to prevent it collapsing and that support will be limited to just 5% of the bank's liabilities.

Cllr Donna Edmunds wrote in favour of this proposal the other day - something that was met with scepticism from other UKIPpers in the ensuing Twitter debate.  In a nutshell, Donna says that it's better that they're open about their intention to steal your money up front and it shows people that the EU is prepared to steal from citizens to further its agenda which will surely damage the EU.  To a certain extent I agree with the logic - it's unusual for the EU to be so open about an abuse of trust and natural justice - but this "bail in" concept is a dangerous one.

The banking system is built on trust.  You put your money in the bank because you trust that it is safer in a bank than it is in a box under your bed but this shows that it's anything but safe in a bank.  Most people won't have anything like £85k in the bank but who's to say the £85k won't be dropped to £50k or even £1k if the government, on a whim, decides to do it?  There was no legal basis to steal anything over €100k from bank accounts in Cyprus so the Cypriot government simply ordered that all bank accounts were to be frozen  until they could pass a law to make it legal.  The British government could just as easily freeze and confiscate money - any amount of money - from bank accounts in the UK.

The idea of emptying corporate bank accounts is also a worrying one.  Left wing politicians and media like to cast big business as the bogeyman but they are responsible for a big proportion of what goes into the public purse and employ millions of people.  Depriving them of capital could bankrupt them or damage their creditworthiness making it harder for them to do business resulting in job losses and the destruction of entire local economies that rely on the supply chain of large employers.

Then there's the increased likelihood of institutional investors and multinationals pulling out of the UK and the EU as a whole to insulate themselves from potential losses from the kind of "solidarity" wealth confiscation system that you would normally associate with repressive regimes in third world countries and communist states.

Barclays Bank are quite happy with the "bail in" idea and the quote from their analysts gives away the reason:

good news, in our view, and paves the way for a start to discussions on the establishment of a single resolution mechanism, the second leg of the banking union

Complying with different banking rules and regulations in the 27 vassal states of the EU is an expensive business and a minefield for banks.  It's only natural that they would support a banking union that would reduce the cost of doing business across the continent and of course they don't care where the money comes from that supplies the safety net for when they get things wrong and run out of money.  Just because banks are experts on banking doesn't mean that what they support is in the best interests of their customers and this is certainly one example of where it isn't.

It's a damning indictment of our clueless and weak politicians when it's safer to keep your money in a box under your bed than it is to keep it in the bank.

If Germany wants to steal our money, let them try.

On Sunday, Stuart Parr blogged here about the German plan to enact Cypriot style bank raids on the savers of Europe. To which I say: well, good. I’m all for it. And no, I haven’t lost my marbles.  

Let’s get one thing straight: taking money from citizens is what governments – all governments – do. Unable to create wealth, and with most people fairly unwilling to simply hand cash over if it can be at all avoided, they are forced instead to find ingenious ways to extract it from their citizens. 

Colbert famously once said “the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”. Indeed, from a certain perspective it’s clear that the only factor separating a successful government from an unsuccessful one is the extent to which they have mastered this skill. 

So far our government seems to be doing a remarkably good job on this front, for make no mistake, it has been busily helping itself to our savings as surely as the Cypriot government dipped into their citizens' pots. Our leaders have just been far more sneaky about it. How have they done it? In two ways:

Firstly, inflation. The 2% inflation target has been routinely ignored for over three years now. Instead, in 2005 the consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate ranged up as far as 5.2%, whilst the RPI has been even higher, all whilst banks were paying out only 1-2% interest on savings. The effect has been to erode in real terms the value of the money in those accounts. Essentially, anyone with money in a British savings account has been fleeced as surely as the Cypriots have. But has there been rioting in the streets or a run on the banks? Nope.

The second way is through quantitative easing. Let me hand over to Louise Cooper writing in The Spectator(£) for this one:  “QE … uses digitally created money to ‘buy’ government IOU notes, or Gilts, thereby reducing the interest rate at which government borrows. The Treasury, nowadays, lends this money to banks (so-called ‘Funding for Lending’) and they, in turn, can depend less on borrowing from their customers. This means they offer derisory levels of interest, as anyone who is applying for a cash ISA will attest.”

Of course the situation is even worse than that. This government has made quite a song and dance about taking the lowest waged out of taxation (by which they mean income taxation – these people still pay plenty of other taxes). But the extra £700 in people’s pockets has been more than wiped out by the huge cost of inflation caused by QE, estimated to be as much as £779 a year for the poorest 10%. That’s before we even mention the £400 a year extra on VAT, or the consequences of wages also dropping in real terms. 

By contrast, the Cypriots made a rather poor fist of stealing their citizens savings. As I commented at the time, they’ve overplayed their hand and given the game away. People were lining up down the roads to guard their savings from being imperilled. In fact, it’s something of a miracle that the move didn’t spark a run on the banks across the Eurozone – and indeed if Germany continues to press in this manner, it just might. Which is exactly why I’m in favour of it. Transparency is bad for governments but good for democracy.

So savings grabs may be good for governments in the very short term if it allows them to meet the terms of a bailout, but in the long run they can only serve to fatally undermine the system. The goose is hissing loudly. It’s the measures such as our government has been employing that are really insidious, as they produce no protest, just a slow long descent into poverty. So go ahead Germany, make my day. Let the citizens of Europe know that the EU is hellbent on stealing their money. They’ll remember the lesson when they get to the referendum ballot box.

Germany wants to force all EU member states to steal from savers' accounts

The Germans are trying to get an agreement to force all EU countries to adopt the Cypriot model of stealing peoples' savings to bail out failing banks.

We're from the ECB, we'd like the make a withdrawal

There was a lot of anger in Cyprus and around the world when the EU instructed the Cypriot government to freeze bank accounts and steal anything over €100k to pay its share of an EU bailout.  The Russians were particularly unhappy as they had invested heavily in Cyprus following the Russian government's decision to bail Cyprus out so they could avoid EU austerity.  It was this Russian bail out that resulted in the particularly punishing and degrading terms of the bail out Cyprus had to get from the EU when it was unable, under EU law, to give Russia preferential creditor status to secure more funding.

At the time, the Germans said they wanted the Cypriot method of stealing money off citizens and cancelling bonds owned by investors such as pension funds and charities to be the blueprint for future bailouts.  They backtracked when it was reported in the media and was widely condemned but have been quietly pushing for it behind the scenes.

Talks have been held in Luxembourg which have come to nothing with the Irish finance minister describing them as chaotic but €urozone finance ministers will meet again on Wednesday to try and get agreement.  The German plan is to create a €500bn bailout fund made available only to eurozone countries but the rules requiring the theft of savers' money to shore up failing banks will apply to all.

Alex Wood was a victim of a criminal smear campaign

Police have confirmed that the UKIP candidate called "the ugly face of UKIP" by the Daily Mirror was the victim of a smear campaign.

A picture of Alex Wood supposedly doing a Nazi salute was printed along with racist comments that did not appear on his Facebook profile.  The story was picked up by the media and the anti-UKIP pressure group, Hope not Hate and Wood was branded a racist despite protestations that he was innocent.

The police have confirmed that the racist comments that the Mirror and others claimed were made by Wood on Facebook didn't appear on his Facebook account and are satisfied that in the picture he is simply reaching for his girlfriend's phone to try and stop her taking a picture of him fooling around as he claimed from the outset.

The Mirror haven't published a correction or apology for defaming Alex Wood, nor have Hope not Hate who attacked him more than once.  The Huffington Post, which has been anti-UKIP almost since inception, haven't apologised for branding Wood a racist but have reported the outcome of the police investigation which is as close to a mea culpa as he's likely to get out of that Guardian wannabe rag.

We look forward to the police clearing Cllr Chris Pain's name too.  He was also branded a racist - and explicitly so by Hope not Hate - over comments that don't appear on his Facebook account and appears to have been a victim of the same criminal smear campaign.

Just to show how easily these things can be mocked up, this took less than 5 minutes to produce using one of the hundreds of websites out there that have been set up to create fake Facebook walls.

Cllr Tony Baker funeral arrangements

Kidderminster Councillor, Tony Baker's funeral is being held on Friday 21st at Wyre Forest Crematorium DY13 8DE at 1pm.

Cllr Baker's death came as a shock to his family and colleagues in the party.  If you are able to attend his funeral to ensure he has a memorable send-off then please do so.

Scottish Independence - I oppose it even though it would be good for English economy.

I support the union 100% - my birthright, being UK born,  is to have free movement and equal treatment anywhere in Great Britain and Northern Ireland (unfortunately not in Southern Ireland though).

That said, Scotland's independence is out of my hands, it is up to the people currently living in Scotland to vote on it in a referendum next year. Note it is people currently living in Scotland not just (nor all) Scots as many Scots don't currently live in Scotland, and many of the people living in Scotland are not Scots...

If Scotland do get independence, what I would like England's Government to do is:

1) Require all Scots (as non EU citizens) to have visas for being in the UK.

Work visas only issued if an UK(/EU) citizen provably cannot do the job. This would free up many jobs in the UK and so reduced our unemployment substantially at little cost to the UK.

2) Put the maximum possible tariffs on Scottish goods.

England is Scotland's primary export market, with imports blocked, the goods services provided by Scottish companies would have to relocate south of the new border - bringing a massive boost to English manufacturing and services (especially in the North) at little cost to the UK.

3) Veto any Scottish application for EU membership.

To ensure the benefits set out above come to fruition, there would have to be no doubt that Scotland would never be a member of the EU while England remains a member.

It is tempting to support Scottish independence for the huge economic benefits that would accrue to the remaining UK - however I would much prefer the Union to remain and be strengthened.

Scotland leaving the UK would not be a repetition of Eire leaving the UK, but more a repetition of Pakistan ceding from India.

First published at http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/scottish-independence-i-oppose-it-even.html

EU wants to abolish VAT exemptions

The EU is planning to abolish zero VAT-rated goods and raise VAT on reduced-rate goods.

Currently there is no VAT charged on (amongst others) books, childrens' clothes, water, fresh food, donated items sold by charities, equipment for disabled people, medical equipment, newspapers, personal protective equipment and insurance.

A reduced 5% rate of VAT is charged on things like childrens' car seats, boilers, heating oil, gas, electricity, coal, mobility aids for old people and energy saving materials.

The EU has already banned new VAT exemptions which is why energy saving materials are charged at 5% even though the British government is desperate to convince people to use them.  Charging the full rate of VAT on zero and reduced rated goods will drive up people's shopping bills and reduce their purchasing power.  The EU claims that charging the top rate of VAT on everything will increase revenue to pay down national debt without taxing labour because that costs jobs but if you take money out of peoples' pockets they buy less which also costs jobs.  Putting tax up depresses the economy, the only sustainable answer is to cut spending.

Far left extremists disrupt UKIP meeting

Far left extremists from Unite Against Fascism tried to disrupt a public meeting with Nigel Farage in Hove.  See if you can spot the fascists trying to suppress free speech and subvert democracy.

The fascist UAF are backed by the Trades Unions and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and jointly controlled by Labour and the SWP.  It's time the security services cracked down on these thugs and the politicians that support them and give them credibility - including David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg - denounced their anti-democratic and violent conduct.

Come the revolution, MEPs with 99% voting records will be the first against the wall

UKIP MEPs have been branded as lazy by the media and europhile MEPs after records have shown that they are amongst the lowest attending MEPs.

There are many reasons why UKIP MEPs have such low attendance ratings for votes. While the europhile Tories, Labour and Lib Dems all go to Brussels or Strasbourg to vote to give more power to the EU, UKIP MEPs only vote to take it away. Most votes only offer alternative ways of grabbing power, not an option of taking it back or even standing still. What is the point of going to Brussels or Strasbourg, claiming travel and attendance allowances, not to vote when they could be doing something constructive at home?

Which leads nicely onto what our MEPs have been doing while the LibLabCon contingent were on the continent voting away our sovereignty and pursuing their dream of a federal Europe. A month ago UKIP caused the biggest upset to English politics in living memory taking hundreds of seats off the old parties in the English local elections. During the election campaign our MEPs - and Nigel Farage especially - were travelling around the country meeting the public and drumming up support for the election campaign. Farage managed nearly 40 public meetings in 10 days during April and more since. This is what MEPs should be doing - getting out and meeting the public, not sat in the EU Parliament hundreds of miles away betraying their country.

No other party leader or group of MEPs has put themselves in midst of the electorate like Nigel Farage and the other UKIP MEPs. Most people don't even know who their MEPs are, let alone what they look like and certainly wouldn't expect to meet them in public. Any MEP attending much more than a third of the votes in the EU Parliament isn't getting themselves higher up the hard working MEP list, they're just rising to the top of the treason charge sheet. Come the revolution, those MEPs with 99% voting records will be the first against the proverbial wall!

Britain must obey Strasbourg judges or quit the EU, warns new chief of European Court of Human Rights

Once again the EU Technocrats are sticking their oar in.
In all reality it would be better for us to just give them the Churchill Salute and go our separate ways and negotiate a trade agreement.

But we all know the outcome, dithering Dave will bend over and take one up the proverbial for the country once again.
When will cast jelly Dave realise that the country will be better off out of this political union, while we are still in it he is leader in name only. More of a provincial governor than a PM of the once great country we live in.
If this gets drawn out any longer old Cast Ironic Dave and his bff's, Cleggy and Millipede,will be popping over to Strasbourg and begging for forgiveness and promising more of British taxpayers money to pay fines etc.

Here is the story so far:

Britain must obey Strasbourg judges or quit the EU, warns new chief of European Court of Human Rights

Judge Dean Spielmann also says ministers should grant vote to prisoners

• Intervention puts unelected court on a collision course with Westminster

• MPs including Tory backbencher Dominic Raab 'won't give in to threats'

By JAMES SLACK and STEVE DOUGHTY

Britain was yesterday threatened with having to quit the European Union if it refuses to 'kowtow' to Strasbourg's human rights judges.The warning was delivered by the new head of the European Court of Human Rights, amid an increasing determination among Tory Cabinet ministers to leave its jurisdiction.Judge Dean Spielmann, from Luxemburg, also insisted that ministers had a duty to grant the vote to prisoners.
Threat: The warning was delivered by Judge Dean Spielmann, from Luxemburg, amid an increasing determination among Tory Cabinet ministers to leave its jurisdiction
His intervention once again puts the unelected court on a collision course with Westminster.Technically, the EU and the European Court of Human Rights are separate institutions, with the ECHR overseen by the 47-member Council of Europe.But Mr Spielmann opted to combine two of the most explosive issues in British politics by saying that, if we want to leave the court, we may also have to exit the EU.
His logic was that quitting the court would mean also exiting the Council of Europe. He added no state had ever been a member of the EU without first joining the council.Mr Spielmann said: 'That would plainly be a political disaster.'Any member state who would leave the Council of Europe, who would denounce the convention, would lose its credibility when it comes to promoting human rights also in different parts of the world.'Last night, MPs said they would not give in to threats - particularly where they involved Britain's membership of the EU.
Different: Technically, the EU and the European Court of Human Rights (pictured, in Strasbourg, France) are separate institutions, with the ECHR overseen by the 47-member Council of Europe
Tory backbencher Dominic Raab said: 'Mr Spielmann had no previous judicial experience before ascending to the heights of this European ivory tower, and it shows.'The only thing undermining the credibility of the Strasbourg court are the Mickey Mouse judgments it spews out. He and the other judges should take a long hard look in the mirror before complaining about British democracy.''If Mr Spielmann thinks threatening to kick us out of the EU is going to persuade anyone in Britain to kowtow to the perverse rulings of the Strasbourg court, he's got another thing coming'Dominic Raab, Tory backbencher He added: 'If Mr Spielmann thinks threatening to kick us out of the EU is going to persuade anyone in Britain to kowtow to the perverse rulings of the Strasbourg court, he's got another thing coming.'Home Secretary Theresa May has said the UK should consider its relationship with the European court after a string of adverse judgments.These include blocking the deportation of Al Qaeda hate-preacher Abu Qatada and the long-running battle over whether convicts must be allowed to vote.Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, has also discussed walking away from the court. This would allow the final say to rest with Britain's better qualified Supreme Court.Judge Spielmann told BBC Radio Four that all decisions reached by his court must be respected - including prisoner votes.
Suggestion: Home Secretary Theresa May has said the UK should consider its relationship with the European court after a string of adverse judgments
This is despite the fact that the democratically-elected Westminster parliament has voted overwhelmingly to keep the ban in place.He claimed: 'A decision of a court must be executed. If a decision is not executed this is a violation of the rule of law which is a basic principle of any democracy'.Quoting a long-standing argument of the human rights lobby, he said there was a risk that such an attitude would set a bad example to other member states. He added: 'They might say "Well if the UK doesn't comply with our judgments, why should we comply?"'A decision of a court must be executed. If a decision is not executed this is a violation of the rule of law which is a basic principle of any democracy'Judge Dean Spielmann'Such an attitude causes real damage to the UK's international reputation, because it undermines the whole system and it causes great damage to the credibility of the UK when it comes to promoting human rights in other parts of the world.The European court has 47 members, many of whom have no prior judicial experience.The court's 'one country, one judge' rule means Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco and Andorra each have a seat despite their combined populations being smaller than that of the London borough of Islington.A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'We are clear in the view that prisoner voting is a matter for national parliaments to decide.'We will continue to push for further meaningful reform of the European Court of Human Rights when negotiations start later in the year.'

Another Labour Councillor defects to UKIP

Another Labour councillor has defected to UKIP, making it two in a little over a month.

Cllr Beverley-Anne Mennell has had enough of the party whip, male domination and lack of transparency in Northampton Labour Party.

In May, North East Lincolshire's Cllr Jayne Bramley became the first Labour councillor to defect to UKIP citing the party whip as her main reason for leaving the Labour Party.

Cllr Mennell is the first UKIP councillor on Northampton Council.

City donors joining UKIP

UKIP is starting to receive large donations from wealthy businessmen and city workers.

Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey organised a party recently to introduce Nigel Farage to potential donors in the city - until now the natural hunting ground of the Tories.  City finance types are concerned about the EU taking control of financial regulation and the prospect of the so-called Tobin tax on financial transactions which the EU wants to contribute to its "own resources" slush fund.

Several donations have been made including a £20k donation from Adrian Buckley who started Buckley Jewellery.  He is concerned about personal freedoms and the size of the state so joined UKIP last year.  Schroders fund manager, Andy Brough, joined UKIP a couple of weeks ago over the relentless attacks on the city by the EU and the coalition.  Brough manages £1.4bn of assets for Schroders.

EU plans to halve power of vacuum cleaners

Hot on the heels of the abortive attempt to ban olive oil in resealable bottle, the EU is now planning to ban 2,000 watt vacuum cleaners and introduce a limit of just 900 watts.

It doesn't take a genius to see that if you reduce the power of a vacuum cleaner's motor by more than half then it's not going to be as effective.  Just like many people have had to supplement their ceiling lights with lamps because energy saving bulbs aren't as good as the incandescent bulbs the EU has banned, many will use their vacuum cleaner more often because a 900 watt vacuum cleaner doesn't do as good a job at cleaning as a 2,000 watt cleaner which kicks the supposed energy saving "benefits" into touch.

Climate change targets are behind this of course - the EU reckons that they can reduce electricity consumption in 2.3m homes if they make their vacuum cleaners useless.  The irony, of course, is that we've just had the coldest spring for over 50 years and reports from the Met Office and IPCC confirm that there has been no global warming for two decades.

UKIP on 21% in Opinium poll

An Opinium poll for the Observer has UKIP on a new high (for Opinium) of 21% with the Lib Dems on their lowest ever rating of 6%.

David Cameron's rating is down again to 28% while Ed Miliband's rating is just 22% and Nick Clegg's a lowly 12%.

We incorrectly attributed this poll to Survation last night. Let that be a lesson to you all on the dangers of late night blogging!

Norfolk councillor being harassed over past mistakes

A newly-elected UKIP Norfolk councillor is being put under pressure to resign over a past mistake.

Cllr Peter Georgiou - who beat his Labour opponent by just 1 vote in the elections last month - was arrested for an alleged theft from Poundstretcher last year and had to pay HMRC £4k in unpaid duty.  Georgiou was on anti-depressants at the time and in his own words "was in a bad place".  He thought that he had paid for the items from Poundstretcher but when he realised he hadn't he paid for them and the matter was dropped.  The unpaid duty he owed HMRC was also paid and neither incident resulted in arrest or conviction.

There is a difference between dishonestly concealing something about your past and just not talking about it because it's not relevant.  Cllr Georgiou made the party aware of both incidents and made no attempt to cover up what had happened when asked.  Quite the opposite in fact - he has been completely open about what is a very personal thing.

It's time the relentless personal attacks on UKIP councillors stopped.  If the Tories put as much effort into fixing the problems with local councils and the country as a whole as they have into trying to dig up dirt on UKIP then they might not be suffering so badly in the polls.