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		Speeches & Articles - Archive 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Click on the headline to see the text in full. British government backs the Mad Mullahs - Conservative Home - December 21 2007 An extraordinary headline, but a sad truth. The British government has bowed to pressure from Iran's Ahmadinejad régime, and has proscribed the most prominent and effective opposition-in-exile to the Iranian government, the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), arguing that it is a terrorist organisation. Man made global warming – is it all hot air? - By Kenneth R Jones - added December 2007 Over the last 6 years, since its third report, 2500 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sifted through thousands of studies on global warming and distilled the world's accumulated knowledge into this conclusion - "Warming of the climate is unequivocal". Future of Europe - Plenary Speech - Wednesday, 28th November 2007 The Lisbon Treaty, also known as the Renamed Constitution, is fundamental to the future of the EU. This is the Constitution that was decisively rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, and which we are now seeking to force through without the consent of the people. ILS Takes 'Freedom Philosophy' to Brussels - By Eric Jansson of the FT - Wednesday 14th November 2007 The Fourth Annual International Leaders Summit (ILS), held in Brussels on October 10-11, 2007, showcased views and personalities from the leading edge of the struggle for political and economic freedom in Europe, the United States and beyond. European Political Parties - Plenary Speech - Tuesday, 13th November 2007 Let us be clear about Mr. Leinen's report. It is not about democracy. It is about propaganda. It is about using the taxes collected from our reluctant citizens to drive forward the European integration about which they are increasingly uneasy. Emissions Trading System - Plenary Speech - Monday, 12th November 2007 We propose to bring a new industry, aviation, into the European Emissions Trading System. Yet that system is spectacularly failing. It has not reduced carbon emissions at all, yet it has created a whole new stratum of bureaucracy and administration and expense for industry. AGORA Submission on behalf of The Freedom Association - Monday, 5th November 2007 The EU claims to be "a Union of values based on democracy and the rule of law". Yet its clear determination to force through the Renamed Constitution without referenda and in the teeth of public opposition in several member states, shows extraordinary contempt for democratic values and for the will of the people. House of Lords submission on Law and Institutions Enquiry - Wednesday, 31st October 2007 TFA is strongly in favour of trade and voluntary intergovernmental cooperation in Europe (and beyond Europe), but is opposed to political union in Europe. We believe that the EU as currently constituted is inimical to Britain's interests: it is making us poorer, and less democratic, and less free. Reul Report - Plenary Speech - Monday, 22nd October 2007 There is much to commend in this report. Of course it makes the ritual genuflection to climate change hysteria. But it also recognises the importance of diversifying energy supplies, and of using fossil fuels, including coal, in the energy mix. Give us one, Gord! - October 9 2007 When troubles come, they come not as single spies, but in battalions. The Prime Minister has yet another problem. The Knight of the Gnawed Nail has something new to chew on. Peter Bone MP signs up to BOO - October 8 2007 I am delighted that Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough (where I was married twenty years ago!), and a good friend and colleague, has signed up to The Freedom Association's "Better Off Out" (BOO) campaign. I salute his principled decision. Gummer's plan: A Non-Conservative Manifesto - September 11 2007 I have just read the trailed highlights of John Gummer's "Quality of Life" report, and I am hopping mad. It reads like a joke caricature of a Non-Conservative Manifesto. The ritual genuflection at the altar of climate hysteria was predictable, but it gets worse. More taxes. More complex tax allowances. More regulation. More quangoes. More nanny-State. The role of nuclear power in a low carbon economy - September 10 2007 Roger's submission to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on behalf of the Freedom Association. Better Regulation - Plenary Speech - September 3 2007 As we debate "Better Regulation", we should first recall the scale of the problem. No one imagines that you can run a modern economy without regulation, but equally, excessive regulation can be hugely damaging, and the Commission's own figures prove it. Let freedom ring! - July 30 2007 "I have heard more about conservative values in one hour in Philadelphia than I have heard in years in the Conservative Party". So said one of the Conservative MEPs with me on a visit to the 34th Annual Meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Philadelphia (July 25/29). A slow-motion coup d'état - Constitutional Affairs Committee - June 25 2007 First may I correct a misconception in your earlier remarks? You said that the United Kingdom does not have a Constitution. It does. But its Constitution was developed over many centuries. We British believe that this may be better than a Constitution recently drafted in the small hours in Brussels. Definition of Vodka - Plenary speech - June 19 2007 I am known as a frequent critic of the European project, but even I see the benefits to industry of a Single Market, and a Single Market requires common definitions, so that products and brands can be legally sold across the EU. German Presidency - Plenary speech - June 7 2007 We claim to be a Europe of values based on democracy and the rule of law, yet this attempt to resurrect the Constitution in defiance of the clear and expressed views of the voters demonstrates a vast contempt for democracy and for European citizens. Global Europe - Plenary speech - May 22 2007 There are some good things in this report. It recognises the importance of the Transatlantic relationship, and calls for the progressive reduction of tariffs on Transatlantic Trade. It recognises the importance of trade liberalisation, and the fact that protectionism leads to unemployment. Alcohol duty - Plenary speech - May 22 2007 In this House we love to talk about "Harmful Tax Competition", so let's get one thing straight right away. There is no such thing as harmful tax competition. All tax competition is good. Any attempt at harmonisation represents a cartel operated by governments against the interests of the people. Echoes of Versailles in Zagreb - May 18 2007 In four intensive days in Croatia in May, I met the Prime Minister of Croatia, parliamentarians, entrepreneurs, foreign investors, Ambassadors of EU member-states, the media, and even the European Movement and the European Commission. They all agreed that Croatia suffers very severe problems of corruption, despite pressures for reform resulting from Croatia's status as an EU accession state. And they agree that efforts to reform are stalled Cool Thinking on Climate Change - May 9 2007 Al Gore's film shows dramatic graphs of temperature and CO2 levels over very long periods, and the match is undeniable. What he fails to mention is that the CO2 graph lags the temperature by about 800 years. The conclusion is inescapable: the temperature drives the CO2, not vice versa. And we have a plausible mechanism to explain the effect. Transatlantic Relations - Plenary speech - April 25 2007 Here in this House we love to boast about our green credentials, and to criticise the USA and President Bush for their environmental vandalism. After all, we signed Kyoto and they didn't. A different view on climate change - Conservative Home - April 13 2007 Is there good evidence that the rate of warming is increasing and becoming catastrophic? No. Is it caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions? Probably not. Do proposed policy responses like Kyoto make sense? Definitely not. Common security and foreign policy - Plenary speech - March 28 2007 I was born in 1944, in the dying months of the Second World War. For the whole of my lifetime, it has been NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance which have kept the peace in Europe. Berlin Declaration - Plenary speech - March 13 2007 This Berlin Declaration fails to recognise that the EU is making us poorer, and less democratic, and less free. It also evades the one huge issue that is really exercising heads of government across the EU. It is the elephant in the room, and it is called the European Constitution. Corporate social responsibility - Plenary speech - March 12 2007 In this House we constantly talk about the Lisbon Agenda, which is supposed to make the EU the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010. Commission President José Manuel Barroso likes to boast about his plans to control excessive regulation, to help enhance competitiveness of European economies. Free trade is fair trade - February 27 2007 In case you missed it, Fair Trade Fortnight started, alliteratively, on February 26th. Who could argue with Fair Trade? We all want to be fair. We all love to see photos of the smiling faces of indigenous coffee growers who have been helped by a new initiative from our friendly neighbourhood super­market (although it's odd that the same supermarket has rather less sympathy for the British dairy farmer!). CIA Committee - Plenary speech - February 14 2007 This CIA initiative has been a "Me-Too" exercise from the start. The Council of Europe under Swiss Senator Dick Marty produced a report on extraordinary rendition, so the European parliament had to do one as well. A British government Minister said that the Marty report was "As full of holes as a Swiss cheese", and the Fava report is not much better. What they didn't tell you about climate change - Book review - February 2007 The current slight increase in global temperatures is well within the earth's customary temperature range. Temperatures today are lower than they were in the mediæval warm period. Sea level has been rising slowly since the end of the last ice age, but the rate of rise shows no sign of increasing. A slap in the face for Democracy - New Europe - February 2007 Back in 2005, the French people voted by a substantial margin to reject the European Constitution, and days later the Dutch rejected it by an even larger margin. The document contained its own ratification criteria. It required all countries to ratify, yet two major EU founder-members rejected it. Climate Change Policy in the EU: Chaos and Failure - European Journal - February 2007 The EU's climate change response is facing failure in several key areas. Meantime the EU institutions have suddenly woken up to the extent of the damage which current plans will do to the EU's already-lagging competitiveness. A State of Fear - Freedom Today - February 2007 Governments and the media are in a state of panic over climate change. A recent mocked-up photograph in the Daily Telegraph showed the ill-fated Dome at Greenwich roof-deep in water. Glaciers are melting. Tropical islands like the Maldives threaten to disappear entirely. Starvation looms as agricultural land is desertified in blistering heat. Every weather event, especially every hurricane, confirms the threat. Nuclear power - Plenary speech - January 31 2007 We are speaking as though the debate is over, and the threat of catastrophic global warming is real. Yet there are many climatologists who take a different view. They believe that current changes are within the normal historic range, and that predictions of future warming are exaggerated and alarmist. Free at last! - Freedom Today - January 2 2006 David Cameron is absolutely firm in his principled decision that Tory MEPs should leave the EPP. He is absolutely right that we should not make euro-sceptic noises in the UK while we cosy-up to the federalists in Brussels (as I and a number of colleagues have argued since 1999). Previous articles from this section 2004 2003 2002