NATIONAL ICON TO HELP UKIP LAUNCH ITS EUROPEAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

One of the nation's most well known and respected political icons will be helping the UK Independence Party launch its Eastern Counties and national campaign for the 2009 European Election. On Monday 20th April, at a special press conference being held at the Assembly House The Eastern region will Launch their campaign,

Outgoing UKIP MEP and former Party Leader, Jeffrey Titford, will be introducing his potential successors including lead candidate David Campbell Bannerman, who is also the Party's current Deputy Leader, alongside Norfolk poultry and arable farmer Stuart Agnew and City finance director Andrew Smith, who are the second and third candidates. The Party will also be launching its high-spending region wide poster campaign featuring the well-known icon who will be highlighting the immense daily cost of EU membership and exhorting the public to vote for the UK Independence Party.

David Campbell Bannerman commenting on the launch said: "This is going to be an eye catching and hard-hitting campaign. UKIP is the only Party offering the British people a genuine choice at this election. All three of the old parties are wedded to continued European Union membership, despite its immense cost to our economy, the appalling damage it is doing to our country's ability to govern itself, to control its own borders and immigration, as well as the grave loss of democracy.”

"The European Election represents the British public's only opportunity to say a big NO to the European Constitution or the Lisbon Treaty, as it is now known. We were promised a referendum and then denied it, on the spurious excuse of calling it something different. Voting UKIP on 4th June is the only way to say NO and make it clear that we want our country back as well as the £40 million per day it currently costs us. We simply can't afford it any longer. Regenerating our economy and getting people back to work are much more important than continuing to subsidise the corrupt and anti-democratic EU."

UKIP gained 12 MEPs at the 2004 European Election, taking third place nationally with 2.7 million votes, relegating the Liberal Democrats to 4th place and, with even stronger results in the Eastern Counties, where they took second place with over 296,000 votes, ahead of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This shocked the political establishment and demonstrated that the British people were deeply sceptical of the 'European Project'.

That scepticism has considerably hardened since then, with recent polls indicating that the majority of respondents support British withdrawal from the EU. UKIP is the only major party offering that option and its target of 20 seats in the European Parliament is a realistic prospect that would give it an extremely powerful mandate for pursuing British independence from the EU and repairing the damage 35 years of membership have done to the country.

Eastern Region Election Campaigns Moves up a Gear

Campaigning for the county council and European elections on June 4 steps up a gear for UKIP in the Eastern region with the launch of their manifesto on Monday.

On Monday, the UK Independence Party will be at the Assembly House in Norfolk for the launch of its region campaign. UKIP, which has one Eastern region Euro MP is hoping to build on its success in 2004 with an as-yet undisclosed celebrity-backed publicity campaign.

Outgoing MEP and former party leader Jeffrey Titford will be introducing his potential successors including lead candidate David Campbell Bannerman, who is also deputy leader, alongside Norfolk poultry and arable farmer Stuart Agnew and city finance director Andrew Smith, who are the second and third candidates.

UKIP will also be launching a region-wide poster campaign featuring a "well-known" national icon, who will be highlighting the cost of EU membership and urging the public to back the party.

Mr Campbell Bannerman said UKIP was the only party offering voters a genuine choice.

"This is going to be an eye-catching and hard-hitting campaign," he said. "All three of the old parties are wedded to continued European Union membership, despite its immense cost to our economy, the appalling damage it is doing to our country's ability to govern itself, to control its own borders and immigration, as well as the grave loss of democracy."

Euro Elections 2009 Our Time Has Come

BY THE TIME you read this, the countdown to the European Election 2009 will really beunderway. This is the time when we have to show that we are at the top of our game and to make even more progress than we did in 2004.

It is imperative that we don’t fall back, that we continue to gain ground. Fundraising is going teally well. Thanks largely to you, the members, the Eastern Counties are in a much better position than we were at this time in 2004.This is down to the excellent preparatory work done by the Eastern Counties Committee,led by George Curtis. However, don’t stop now, every pound is vital because we have to do even better than last time and, of course, everything is much more expensive than in 2004.

Our 2009 campaign will be based on three essential elements; the cost of the EU,immigration and its effect on jobs and the breakdown of democracy being created by Brussels. In these recessionary times, the immense cost of British membership of the EU is beginning to resonate with the public. Immigration and the amount of migrant workers coming to Britain is also a hot issue here following the recent strikes and the calls for ‘British jobs for British workers’, the famous line from Gordon Brown, which he knew he could not deliver while Britain remains in the EU.

One by one,the major political parties made excuses for not supporting the call and even began criticising it as ‘protectionist’. Only UKIP had the courage to strongly support it. Peter Mandelson, the Business Secretary in one of the most shameful responses, told the British people to seek work abroad if they can’t find any here. Roughly translated, he is telling people struggling to find work in their own country to: ‘get lost’. This statement alone shows what a disaster it was when Gordon Brown inexplicably decided to return him to front line politics.

Any government’s first duty must be to defend the interests of its own people. Not anymore it seems.They are now more interested in being good little ‘Europeans’and protecting single market rules. One of the major themes of the euro election campaign will again be ‘lend us your vote’ as a means of teaching the political classes,who have become detached from and increasingly contemptuous of ordinary people, a big lesson. 4th June 2009 is also referendum day for all those voters who were promised but then denied their opportunity to express their view about the appalling Lisbon Treaty.

The silly-season which traditionally begins in the months prior to the election, where everything is done to try to undermine us, is already well underway. We’ve had the usual round of non-stories about high profile defections and some not so high, new parties setting up, etc. One common feature of the latest mischief has been that the few people leaving us have been those who have done nothing but try to disrupt the Party for long periods or who have done nothing at all to help the Party electorally (or a combination of both). We are better off without such people. Most importantly of all, members should not be disheartened. These attempts at sabotage are proof positive that we are getting somewhere.

If we were no threat to the political establishment, there would be no need to try to undermine our efforts. In the coming months we must be resolute and, when the going gets tough, ‘bloodied but unbowed’ for our time has come and we must march on to victory at the European Election and from thence to getting our first MPs elected to Westminster.

Jeffrey Titford MEP in Farmers Guide (April 2009)

The CAP - Who Really Benefits? By Jeffrey Titford UKIP MEP

The traditional view of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is that it was created to make Europe self-sufficient in food production and to ensure that smaller farmers were able to make a living. By the early 1970s, the CAP had more than achieved the self-sufficiency target. Farmers, encouraged by massive amounts of taxpayers’ money, were producing far more than EU citizens could eat or drink. Naturally, they chose to grow whatever attracted the largest subsidies, regardless of whether there was a genuine market for what they produced.

A new book, ‘The Great European Rip-Off’, by David Craig and Matthew Elliot and sub-headed ‘How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of our Lives’, published by Random House has an excellent section where it exposes the history of the CAP and also shows how it is now disastrously failing all but the richest farmers and lining the pockets of many who have little to do with farming.

The book makes it clear that Brussels , in coming up with the CAP, had in fact created a monster, which rapidly grew out of control. In the 1970s, there were beef and butter mountains and a huge 17.8 billion litre lake of extremely poor quality wine. The taxpayer, having shelled out for this over production also ended up paying for most of it to be stored, reprocessed and frequently destroyed. All of this was happening against a backdrop of a billion people in the Third World starving, with about 9 million dying of hunger and malnutrition each year. Not a pretty picture.

The book goes as far as to suggest that had Britain and Denmark not joined in 1973, the hugely expensive over-production generated by the CAP would have bankrupted the then European Economic Community. We now call it the EU. The generous new contributions from taxpayers in these two countries kept the whole thing going and have helped to create the strange situation that we find ourselves in today, where the CAP has become terribly distorted and diverted from its original purpose.

The EU frequently claims that the CAP is a key ingredient in maintaining the EU economy and sustaining a sector that is responsible for 19 million jobs. Among the key benefits the EU claims for CAP is that it ‘spends the money where it is most needed,’ but does it? Traditionally, French farmers are supposed to be the biggest beneficiaries of CAP largesse, although only 10% of EU farmers are located in France . The CAP ensures that they receive 25% of all CAP money. 130,000 French farmers each receive £18,400 per annum. This compares with around 120,000 farmers in the UK , Germany and Spain combined, receiving this level of subsidy. There are also 3,000 French farmers receiving annual subsidies of £91,940.

Indeed, looking at where most of the CAP money is spent, the suggestion that it is being spent ‘where it is most needed’, becomes highly questionable. 85% of the budget (£55.3 billion) goes to just 18% of farms and the most wealthy 2% of farmers and agricultural companies receive no less than a quarter of the total budget. The identity of the recipients tends to be shrouded in secrecy and one Scottish newspaper battled for more than two years to identity CAP subsidy recipients in Scotland . They eventually discovered that the country’s largest farmers were receiving an average of £230,000 a year, while the average subsidy for all farmers in Scotland was a mere £9,000.

Two large food companies in Sweden and Denmark , hardly the most needy of recipients, have been given a combined total of £1.37 billion since 2000. Another major company, Campina operating in Germany , Holland and Belgium has had almost £920 million. Nestle, which operates in Britain , Austria , Denmark , Spain and Holland has received hundreds of millions. Even closer to home, Tate & Lyle is one of Britain ’s largest CAP recipients at £100 million a year.

Landowners who don’t actually do any farming have a hand in the pot and even airlines and cruise ship companies are getting hand-outs as they are allowed to claim because they are exporting food! Think of that next time you tuck into an airline bread roll! However, altogether the most disturbing of the decidedly odd list of CAP beneficiaries is the four French banks, based in the poshest areas of Paris . The BNP, Credit Mutual, Credit Agricole and Banque Populaire have each received over £91.9 million for supporting French agriculture largely through loans to farmers. There are vast sums also given to members of the Royal families of a number of European countries including our own.

When you consider that the average subsidy given to farmers in the EU is probably as low as £8,000 a year, you have to question the whole purpose of the CAP. The problem is that whenever suggestions are made about reducing subsidies, enraged farmers take to the streets to protest, little realising that they are protecting the interests of a lot of very wealthy people. The EU has promised to publish details of CAP recipients this month (April). It will be interesting to see if they keep this promise and if there is any reaction from our normally supine media when they see how the CAP is making the rich richer.

SWANSONG FOR AN EU-REALIST

By Jeffrey Titford MEP UK Independence Party - Eastern Counties

This is my last column for the East Anglian Daily Times as the European Election beckons and I am not seeking re-election. After ten years in the European Parliament, my second career, having already retired once, I have decided that it is time to stand aside and let younger candidates come through.

Writing these columns has been one of the great pleasures of my time as an MEP. The EADT is to be congratulated for being one of the very few newspapers prepared to carry regular material from the region’s MEPs. Instrumental in that has been the paper’s Political Editor, Graham Dines, who has always been very fair and even-handed in his treatment of UKIP, for which I am very grateful. My thanks also to the readers of the EADT, who I hope will have appreciated the independent views I have expressed.

What I have tried to do in my columns is to bring some realism to the debate about Britain ’s membership of the European Union. I have tried to blow holes in some of the empty, rose tinted rhetoric of those who see EU membership as some sort of sunlit upland that provides peace, security and secures our economic future. It provides none of these things but is quite happy to claim the credit for them, credit which belongs elsewhere to organisations like NATO.

In regard to economics, events are now rapidly catching up with a eurozone that has been built upon quicksand. No one cared very much about adhering to EMU entry requirements. Rules about national debts tended to be overlooked or excuses made in the rush to get countries signed up. Well the pigeons are coming home to roost right now. Consumer and business confidence in the zone have fallen to an all time low and many EU countries are on the brink of disaster, including, alas, Ireland , which is in a real mess.

These are tough times for us all but at least Britain , independent of the euro and in control of its own interest rate, is in a better position to ride out the storm. We have been able to cut our rate to try to stimulate our economy, whilst the eurozone countries have to sit and wait for the European Central Bank to decide what to do and hope that it will help their economy rather than that of their neighbour. They are trapped in the euro straitjacket and cannot act in their own best interests. Surely it is the first duty of any government, to act in the best interests of the people it represents? Is it not the case that in signing up to the euro, they have abdicated their most important duty?

A recent report produced by the Bruges Group puts the annual cost of EU membership at £4.64 billion per month, £1.07 billion per week, £152.8 million a day, £6.36 million per hour and an astonishing £106,117 per minute (net figures). EU membership was always grossly expensive but in the boom times, the cost could be overlooked or avoided, by its supporters. It cannot be overlooked any longer. With people losing their jobs and their homes, the expense and the huge regulatory burden it generates are no longer sustainable. We have to leave and soon.

Readers interested in more information about Jeffrey Titford MEP or UKIP can find it on www.jeffreytitfordmep.co.uk

Euro Realist January 2009 Edition Out Now

Read the January edition of the Euro Realist newsletter produced by UKIP's Derek Bennett. This edition includes articles from UKIP MEPs Jeffrey Titford and Gerard Batten, also a report of who the EU is setting in place an EU navy by stealth from Anne Palmer. To read the January 2009 edition click here to download.

UKIP MEP calls EU 'enemy of democracy and freedom of thought'

In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg today (17.12.08), Jeffrey Titford, UKIP MEP questioned the democratic legitimacy of the European Union's proposed budget for 2009. He attacked the EU's 'arrogance' in assuming that it should be 'a global player' and demanded to know who had ever wanted it to play such a role. "I put it to you all that the EU has no democratic mandate whatsoever for the empire building outlined in this budget", he said. Mr Titford also attacked plans included in the budget for an EU trademark and an information campaign which he dismissed as 'brainwashing' because the EU would: "sell itself as the greatest benefit to humanity since penicillin rather than the grotesque enemy of democracy and freedom of thought that it really represents." The full text of Mr Titford's speech is as follows: Draft General Budget of the European Union 2009 – Strasbourg 17.12.08

Mr President

Arrogance is the word which keeps springing to mind when reading this lengthy report, because the text is redolent with it. For instance, clause 25 laments the fact that the funds available quote: ‘do not allow the Union to assume its role as a global player’ unquote. The same clause refers to the EU having the capacity to assume its role as a global partner’.

Who ever wanted the EU to have such a role? Why does it have such an inflated sense of its own importance? Certainly, no one in my country has been given a vote on the development of the EU as a global player. We were told it was a common market and would provide cheap wine and nice holidays.

I also note that the global player wants its own trademark for use in all communications with the masses and wants a major information campaign for the 2009 European election campaign. For ‘information’ read ‘brainwashing’ because the EU will no doubt sell itself as the greatest benefit to humanity since penicillin rather than the grotesque enemy of democracy and freedom of thought that it really represents.

The aforementioned arrogance spills over into everything it touches. There is no better example than the disgraceful and disrespectful treatment of President Klaus, a head of state, at a meeting in Prague recently by members here.

I put it to you all that the EU has no democratic mandate whatsoever for the empire building outlined in this budget.

EU to cause Winter heating crisis for thousands of pensioners

"The EU's climate change package debated yesterday (16.12.08) in the European Parliament is not merely wrong but potentially lethal", said Jeffrey Titford, the UK Independence Party MEP for the Eastern Counties.

"With December in Britain already being described as the coldest for thirty years, and significant hikes in fuel bills already in place, the idea of the European Union adding enormous increases to carbon taxes, via its 'Cap and Trade' system, is not merely misguided but downright dangerous.

"Figures from the Office for National Statistics, tell us that during last Winter in the UK we lost 22,400 pensioners over and above the statistical norm - what they call 'Excess Winter Mortality’. A significant proportion of these will be from the Eastern Counties. Of course, what we are really talking about here is not just another statistic but people's loved ones - parents and grandparents".

According to Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern: “It is a national scandal that we have a higher number of excess Winter deaths than every other country in Europe . With this Winter set to be colder than the last‚ the numbers are likely to rise". He added: "The impact of increased energy bills is causing thousands to risk their health by cutting back on heating".

The uncritical acceptance of the climate change agenda by the EU is causing major shortfalls in our energy generating capacity as coal fired power stations are forced to close. According to the CapGemini Report, the European Energy Markets Observatory, published in November: “ From 2013, 100% of the Emission Rights will be auctioned to the power sector, which currently gets most of them free of charge. This change will result in tens of billions of euros/pounds in extra cost for the utilities, which will certainly be passed on in the electricity prices".

" Britain cannot afford these extra costs, which are being driven by an outmoded and scientifically dubious panic about climate change. Worse still, what is bad for Britain could be fatal to thousands of pensioners", said Mr Titford.

End this madness Join us Today