 | Home |
| What's New |
| Speeches & Articles |
| Newsletter - Jul 2008 |
| Biography |
| Diary |
| Contact Information |
| Photo Album |
| Parliamentary Highlights |
| Publications |
| Links |
| MEPs' Transparency |
| Conservative Party |
| Latest News from Conservatives.com |
| Conservative Party Website |
 |
|
Letter to the Editor
Nottingham Evening Post - Wednesday 3rd May 2006 Dear Sir I rarely take issue with Ivor Johns, but I cannot agree with him that "The EU's power is easy to miss -- like an invisible hand" (letters, 21/4). Not from where I sit, it's not. I have sat and watched an elected British government minister being told that he has to accept an EU law which the British government believes is bad for our economy and bad for British jobs (Alan Johnson on the Agency Workers' Directive). In the past few weeks I have seen pointless and damaging bans imposed in our country on little things like citronella in fly sprays for horses, and more important things like church organ pipes. And just to encourage our farmers, they are banning strychnine, which has been used safely to control moles for years. Without it, mole-casts will get into hay and silage, causing severe infections in cattle. And it seems that the EU's ground-water rules will ban nitrate fertilisers, and therefore close down agriculture, across much of the East Midlands. The German government reckons that 80% of new laws come from Brussels, and they could well be right. The EU is transferring power from elected representatives, who can at least be sacked at election time, to unelected foreign bureaucrats, and to activist judges, in foreign institutions where we have no control and little influence. Then there's the EU Constitution. Despite its rejection by voters in France and Holland, they're implementing most of it anyway, without our say-so. As my colleague Dan Hannan MEP says, the Constitution is not sneaking in by the back door. It's strutting brazenly in through the front door. The EU's hand is all too visible, and if we don't cut it off soon, it will be too late. Yrs etc. Yours faithfully Roger Helmer MEP |