Tuesday 2 June 2009

Jury Team dishonesty

Jury Team, the pretend EU political party that pledges to do nothing if they get an MEP elected, has a website attacking UKIP. Understandable that they should feel as threatened by UKIP as every other party standing in the EU elections but that's no excuse for telling lies ...
UKIP leader, Nigel Farage has claimed up to £2m of expenses
The average cost of any MEP and that's spread over 10 years. This is roughly the cost of a Westminster MP. An MEP's constituency is 100 times bigger than an MPs. A recent report has shown MEPs can make up to £2m every 5 years.
UKIP MEP, Ashley Mote was found guilty of fraud and jailed
Ashley Mote was never a UKIP MEP because once the party found he had a case pending they stopped him taking his UKIP seat and that was before seats were taken in 2004. His sins were nothing to do with EU money as it was before he got his hands on any and before he was elected.

To UKIP's anger the EU would not let the party reject Mote from the UKIP list, which is what they strongly requested because he had lied in his application papers. So from day one he sat as "unattached" but never as a UKIP MEP. Nigel Farage took very swift action as soon as it was known that he had a case pending against him, but this had nothing to do with MEP expenses or the EU.
UKIP MEP, Tom Wise has admitted claiming bogus expenses
Initially Tom Wise MEP was cleared by the Parliament and told no OLAF investigation was necessary. Tom has not taken any money, he did however draw down from his budget to pay a contract and then paid money back into his budget when he decided not to pay it all to the contractor. Tom kept none of the money.

Nigel Farage however took a robust view, and kicked Tom out. It was a UKIP member who initiated the investigation of the Bedford Police. The police initially said the request was of no interest but the UKIP member reported the Bedford Police to Police Complaints for favouritism on the grounds that Tom Wise was a former police officer. This motivated an enquiry which is not complete. Tom is innocent until proven guilty
UKIP MEP, Jeff Titford has been ranked as the second least active MEP
He's standing down as he can no longer commit to the needs of his "constituents".
UKIP MEP, Godfrey Bloom said "no small businessman should employ a woman of child-bearing age"
The quote is wrong and out of context. He said it as a joke, making the point that the more rights you give pregnant women, the more of a bar those rights become to employment. He was on the EU Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality at the time.

Feel free to vote for Jury Team if that's what you want but don't do it based on lies and bear in mind that Jury Team candidates won't ever go to the EU Parliament. Any Jury Team candidate that gets elected deprives us of a UKIP MEP that will fight EU encroachment on our sovereignty.