[Liberty4eva]

Originally Posted by arista

Depends on who the Next PM Lady is
in Sept 2016



Australia & NZ
wants to set up Trade deals
right away.


Thats good a NZ Lamb
tastes good

In Texas (where I am currently staying) there always is talk of seceding from the US but there has been more rumblings than usual because of Brexit (Their version is Texit). Everything they eat there is meat so if you like meat a free trade deal with an independent Texas is the crown jewel of trade deals.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Liberty4eva

If the Brexiters mitigate their stated aims

I don't know if you've been keeping up with the UK news since last Friday (other than the basic "it was Brexit") but they basically already have gone back on most of the "big focus" promises. Or at least scaled them back to "more realistic" levels. "We said £350 million a week for the NHS but we actually meant just £350, that was a typo lol".

But yes one of those was immigration and major Brexit figures have already admitted that immigration levels are "unlikely to change significantly" (which means they won't at all).

Now... I get campaign promises having to change over time, as the world changes or things prove to be unworkable... But several of these announcements were made mere DAYS after the vote. That means they definitely knew before the vote that their promises on paper were straight up false. And they knew that's what people were voting on. But they waited until after they got their result to admit the flaws. That's a problem to me... That simply undermines democracy and turns it into a sham. These campaigns become purely about who can build the prettiest gingerbread house.

I agree that the EU is full of corruption and inefficiency and major problems but... These people described above are what we're trading it for. What is the point?

[kirklancaster]

SOME MORE TRUTH TO BITE ON, PREFACED AND FOLLOWED BY SOME PERSONAL COMMENT (BECAUSE I FEEL SO STRONGLY ABOUT THIS SUBJECT) WHICH SHOULD SAVE ANY PEDANTIC CRITICISM AND CONFUSION BETWEEN FACT AND OPINION:

All the Doom-Merchants are repeating the threats made by certain companies to 'relocate' from the UK following Brexit, and are forcasting permanent irrecoverable economic catastrophe with the loss of thousands of jobs as a result.

But far more damaging relocations of perfectly healthy, viable and profitable businesses FROM the UK to FOREIGN (mainly EU) countries has been occurring THROUGHOUT our membership of the EU, with thousands of job losses, and very real catastrophic consequences for the communities affected, and though the EU DENIES as much - these relocations have been effected by EU design, and with EU financial inducement and assistance:

1. In 2010, TWININGS - the tea company - moved from North Shields UK to a new factory in POLAND after being 'awarded' a £12 million pounds EU grant.

Kirk Coment: Twinings had the British workers at the plant TRAINING UP their Polish worker replacements prior to being 'laid off'. So not only had the British workers had their own tax payments used against them by the EU to take away their jobs, they had their faces rubbed in the brown stuff too.

Incidently, it is against European Commission rules to use Regional Development Fund grant money to create jobs in one area at the expense of job losses in another area - but, despite this being a cynical abuse of its RDF program, all the EU had to say, was that they 'Would seek assurances from Poland" ??? THAT BIRD HAS FECKING FLOWN AND YOU OPENED THE CAGE AND CHARTED ITS FLIGHTPATH.

2. In 2011, Cadbury moved a factory from Keynsham UK to Poland with 400 job losses.

3. In 2013, Ford Transit were given an £80 million poud EU loan to facilitate moving its production from SOUTHAMPTON to TURKEY.

This came 'close on the heels' of a separate £10 million pound cash payment to Ford by the BRITISH GOVERNMENT to 'aid its operations'.

MORE ON THIS:

The loan from the European Union’s bank, owned by Britain and fellow member states, was agreed in June as part of a billion dollar investment plan – about £600m – for Ford’s sprawling 395-acre site in Kocaeli which is taking over production of Transits from Southampton.

Last night UKIP leader and Hampshire MEP Nigel Farage, who uncovered details of the loan, said: “For a year there has been a plan in place to take the jobs at Ford away from Southampton and move them to Turkey.

“But the sting in the tail is that the money to update the (Kocaeli) factory is coming from those same workers and their families as British taxpayers who are being forced to lend millions of pounds without ever being consulted.”

Mr Farage said he would now be raising the issue with the European Parliament.

In a further twist, he will also be demanding answers from Chancellor George Osborne – who is one of the bank’s governors.

Mr Farage will be asking if the Chancellor knew the Turkey cash was being made available ahead of the Southampton closure. And if the Chancellor was in the dark about Ford’s Southampton’s intentions, Mr Farage will be asking why.

The Treasury declined to comment.

Kirk Comment: There's that 'self-server Farage again who 'only cares about stopping immigration'.

4. In December of 2015, Jaguar Land Rover announced it was building a new £1 billion pound factory in Slovakia with the help of an EU grant.

Kirk Comment: Jaguar Land Rover is owned by TATA - the very same Tata who have killed off the UK's steel industry, put thousands on the dole, and siphoned off the poor Welsh steelworkers pension funds.

5. In 2007 Peugeot closed its Ryton Coventry plant and moved production to Slovakia with over 2,400 job losses.

6. In December 2014 Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX) announced it was closing down the last of its production plants at Poole and relocating to Poland with the aid of an EU grant.*

This follows similar relocations by the company to Poland, Italy, and Spain and Germany. Over 1,200. jobs lost in total.

OTHERS:

Gillette gone to eastern Europe.

Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany.


Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.

Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.

Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.

ICI integration into Holland’s AkzoNobel with EU bank loan

and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobs

Boots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of £80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.

JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with £20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.

Kirk Comment: THERE ARE LOTS MORE, BUT I'M SURE THAT YOU 'GET THE PICTURE' – WELL THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT TO, THAT IS.

My point is, that the threats to 'Leave' (Nice word that ) the UK by certain companies following Brexit, is mere THREAT as yet , whilst for decades the EU has – largely with OUR OWN tax money – been instrumental in transferring our manufacturing industry from the UK to EUROPE.

FAR FROM BEING BENEFICIAL FOR THE UK - THE EU HAS DELIBERATELY DECIMATED THIS COUNTRY, AND A SUCCESSION OF OUR GOVERNMENTS FROM HEATH TO CAMERON, HAVE BEEN COMPLICIT BECAUSE THEY HAVE VESTED FINANCIAL REASONS TO BE -- £BILLIONS OF THEM OVER 42 YEARS.

[Johnnyuk123]

Another excellent post Kirk.

Won't these companies now have to clearly specify that their products were made outside of the UK or will the EU allow them to still say...made in Great Britain?

[Crimson Dynamo]

great post Kirk

[the truth]

What a mess. A PM on his way out, a labour coup to get rid of corbyn, an opportunistic sccotish leader trying to breakway from the Uk, will she take the euro? The spanish after Gibraltar, the Irish need a border? An invisible lib dem leader? Plaed are not taken seriously....Endless austerity...Tax breaks for corporations and billionaires across europe....Deregulation for massive corporations and endless red tape killing off SME's so healthy market competition is damaged....Just look at every local town? free parking and land gifted to massive out of town retailers, car parking charges high rates for town centre small businesses? its nationwide/europe wide pattern...With ttip on the way? which is a massive threat to all public services...debts across europe, now despicable racism on the rise? Lets hope the cops weed out these lowlifes.

There is no doubt as Tony Benn always said, the EU commission is in many ways anti democratic. That is and always has been its main intractable problem. The original common market was a wonderful idea and has achieved much. Quite why the EU couldnt have simply remained democratic and elected goodness only knows. Same with their unaudited accounts for 20 years ? The debts and unemployment rates across Europe are a travesty , youth unemployment is over 40% in some countries. I just wish a middle ground could be found, but listening to Juncker he has no interest as any compromise, as this would in his mind show weakness and would possibly open the door to other nations looking for deals. This total inflexibility will bring the EU down. The strongest men are those that remain flexible and bendable. Those who stay too stiff will snap.

In the meantime ftse has gone back to near its original , ftse250 still 6% down and the pound still 10% down on last week

Its rather interesting that london voted remain and the poorer areas like blaenau voted out....if we could go back a week or if we have a re vote today I think remain would win. but we are where we are.
Id like to think a compromise can be found in time , but it seems that will all come down to trade versus open borders.

The tricky issue of immigration could factor in populations and population rises in member nations. the UK population increased 3.7 million in 10 years , in the same period german population fell 2 million as their birth rate is so low. This is crucial, germany are desperate for people to come and work there. Why cant the EU and the UK sit down and make some kind of trade off here. Furthermore the last few neo liberal governments havent bothered building social housing either? Is anyone really checking how many people are living in houses? There are many families with up to 5 or 6 children in 3 bedroom houses...Then we have gangmasters bringing in masses of people are simply not paying them a proper wage, even if they do pay them minimum wages they soon deduct rent, transport , food etc etc We must be able to discuss these topics calmly and openly , if we continue to ignore it, then all we do is embolden the far right and the racist idiots who are currently running rife.

AH i FORGOT TOO, CORBYN wants the opportunity to renationalize steel , bt, parts of transport , utilities, etc etc I mean why is water privatized for goodness sakes? what kind of competitive market is that? but the EU section 206 outlaws re-nationalization, even though german coal is nationalized lol...so from the outset corbyn and old labour were directly opposite to what the EU has become...Thats why the labour members want corbyn but westminster wants a neo liberal pro establishment blairite...The eu controls the tariffs and for some reason they have chinese steel tariffs at a mere 11% whilst the usa has it at 522% ? that is mindboggling...maybe rubbish chinese steel from a nation paying slave wages and polluting the planet suited some people in the EU, who at the same time hammer everyone else for emissions?..so port talbot steelworks is kaput....our government arent allowed to help finance it or nationalize it. ..meanwhile as chinese steel only has 11% tariff, african coffee beans are over 30%, like so many of their products tariffs are high and we are trawling their shores too...so the africans are even more impoverished , but the punchline is the germans made 3.8 billin from african coffee beans last year due the the EU racket on tariffs and they dont even produce coffee? the africans made just 2.5 billion. do you honestly think germany or anyone else on the gravy train would risk giving over some of these profits?lets destroy their agriculture costing them billions, then just give a few million to african charities to look good in public

One notable moment on the night came at 5am when the result was all but done and dusted... when the great dai dimbleby turned to hillary benn and said something along the lines of "I sat here with your father at the other referendum 41 years ago, he told me then the EU commission is appointed , unelected and anti-democratic....why has it taken you so long to catch up?".....Hillary was pretty tongue tied

TONY BENN WAS THE ONLY HONEST INTELLIGENT MAN LEFT IN BRITISH POLITICS AND HIS MAGNIFICENT ANTO EU SPEECH HERE UNDERLINES THE FACT HE WAS 100% RIGHT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnpbEMMsNw well worth a look


Both campaigns were staggeringly poor. Instead of delivering facts and speaking from the heart we got exaggerations and scaremongering. Cameron has fallen on his sword, the scots want out again, the spanish want gibralter, what a mess....Corbyn it appears decided to support remain after pressure from the party, but after 39 years of protesting with his mate tony benn, railing against the corruption and anti democratic elite bias of the unelected eu commission that was a hard sell, now that he did appease the party , theyre now sticking the knife in because he didnt appease them enough? Maybe he was better off speaking his mind in full when he had the chance, to thine own self be true and all that.

[Withano]

Only negative things have happened since the refferendum. Out campaign has a lot to prove

[user104658]

Genuine question here Kirk but what makes you think any of those companies would still be manufacturing in the UK without EU membership / EU interference? Operating and labour costs are, just on a very basic level, far lower abroad... these companies left for their own financial bottom line and I'm not seeing why that would be ANY different unless you are advocating the UK also paying abysmally low wages in order to keep "up" with competing labour forces?

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by the truth

What a mess. A PM on his way out, a labour coup to get rid of corbyn, an opportunistic sccotish leader trying to breakway from the Uk, will she take the euro? The spanish after Gibraltar, the Irish need a border? An invisible lib dem leader? Plaed are not taken seriously....Endless austerity...Tax breaks for corporations and billionaires across europe....Deregulation for massive corporations and endless red tape killing off SME's so healthy market competition is damaged....Just look at every local town? free parking and land gifted to massive out of town retailers, car parking charges high rates for town centre small businesses? its nationwide/europe wide pattern...With ttip on the way? which is a massive threat to all public services...debts across europe, now despicable racism on the rise? Lets hope the cops weed out these lowlifes.

There is no doubt as Tony Benn always said, the EU commission is in many ways anti democratic. That is and always has been its main intractable problem. The original common market was a wonderful idea and has achieved much. Quite why the EU couldnt have simply remained democratic and elected goodness only knows. Same with their unaudited accounts for 20 years ? The debts and unemployment rates across Europe are a travesty , youth unemployment is over 40% in some countries. I just wish a middle ground could be found, but listening to Juncker he has no interest as any compromise, as this would in his mind show weakness and would possibly open the door to other nations looking for deals. This total inflexibility will bring the EU down. The strongest men are those that remain flexible and bendable. Those who stay too stiff will snap.

In the meantime ftse has gone back to near its original , ftse250 still 6% down and the pound still 10% down on last week

Its rather interesting that london voted remain and the poorer areas like blaenau voted out....if we could go back a week or if we have a re vote today I think remain would win. but we are where we are.
Id like to think a compromise can be found in time , but it seems that will all come down to trade versus open borders.

The tricky issue of immigration could factor in populations and population rises in member nations. the UK population increased 3.7 million in 10 years , in the same period german population fell 2 million as their birth rate is so low. This is crucial, germany are desperate for people to come and work there. Why cant the EU and the UK sit down and make some kind of trade off here. Furthermore the last few neo liberal governments havent bothered building social housing either? Is anyone really checking how many people are living in houses? There are many families with up to 5 or 6 children in 3 bedroom houses...Then we have gangmasters bringing in masses of people are simply not paying them a proper wage, even if they do pay them minimum wages they soon deduct rent, transport , food etc etc We must be able to discuss these topics calmly and openly , if we continue to ignore it, then all we do is embolden the far right and the racist idiots who are currently running rife.

AH i FORGOT TOO, CORBYN wants the opportunity to renationalize steel , bt, parts of transport , utilities, etc etc I mean why is water privatized for goodness sakes? what kind of competitive market is that? but the EU section 206 outlaws re-nationalization, even though german coal is nationalized lol...so from the outset corbyn and old labour were directly opposite to what the EU has become...Thats why the labour members want corbyn but westminster wants a neo liberal pro establishment blairite...The eu controls the tariffs and for some reason they have chinese steel tariffs at a mere 11% whilst the usa has it at 522% ? that is mindboggling...maybe rubbish chinese steel from a nation paying slave wages and polluting the planet suited some people in the EU, who at the same time hammer everyone else for emissions?..so port talbot steelworks is kaput....our government arent allowed to help finance it or nationalize it. ..meanwhile as chinese steel only has 11% tariff, african coffee beans are over 30%, like so many of their products tariffs are high and we are trawling their shores too...so the africans are even more impoverished , but the punchline is the germans made 3.8 billin from african coffee beans last year due the the EU racket on tariffs and they dont even produce coffee? the africans made just 2.5 billion. do you honestly think germany or anyone else on the gravy train would risk giving over some of these profits?lets destroy their agriculture costing them billions, then just give a few million to african charities to look good in public

One notable moment on the night came at 5am when the result was all but done and dusted... when the great dai dimbleby turned to hillary benn and said something along the lines of "I sat here with your father at the other referendum 41 years ago, he told me then the EU commission is appointed , unelected and anti-democratic....why has it taken you so long to catch up?".....Hillary was pretty tongue tied

TONY BENN WAS THE ONLY HONEST INTELLIGENT MAN LEFT IN BRITISH POLITICS AND HIS MAGNIFICENT ANTO EU SPEECH HERE UNDERLINES THE FACT HE WAS 100% RIGHT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWnpbEMMsNw well worth a look


Both campaigns were staggeringly poor. Instead of delivering facts and speaking from the heart we got exaggerations and scaremongering. Cameron has fallen on his sword, the scots want out again, the spanish want gibralter, what a mess....Corbyn it appears decided to support remain after pressure from the party, but after 39 years of protesting with his mate tony benn, railing against the corruption and anti democratic elite bias of the unelected eu commission that was a hard sell, now that he did appease the party , theyre now sticking the knife in because he didnt appease them enough? Maybe he was better off speaking his mind in full when he had the chance, to thine own self be true and all that.

'the truth', you and I have disagreed a lot in the recent past but I do remember when we agreed far more.

While I agree with most of what you have in the post above and I do too feel for Corbyn and do accept he uncomfortably went down the party line, I just cannot see how in any scenario anywhere,where someone can lead if the people he is leading and in this case it is MPs,don't want him to.

They are the people he has to have in the main supporting him.
You know I have joined labour and it is awful witnessing this chaos.

However your post is really balanced,from immigration to the EU and the common market as was, I found myself agreeing more and more as I went through it.
You make a lot of valid points all through.

I also laughed at a particular few words you slotted in there as to 'an invisible Lib Dem leader'.

Well said to that whole post and really I mean that.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Withano

Only negative things have happened since the refferendum. Out campaign has a lot to prove

like what?

[user104658]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

like what?

"What negative things" or "what to prove"?

For the first... endless, both domestically and internationally, but as I said in the other thread you don't want to hear about them / will flat out deny them no matter what so it's pointless to go over that.

If you meant "What do they have to prove?"... the answer is anything. Anything at all. Just one positive thing would be nice. I'm aware that it's early days and the answer is likely to just be "Oh just give it time"... so time it will be given... but they still - in time - have a LOT to prove.

[the truth]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

'the truth', you and I have disagreed a lot in the recent past but I do remember when we agreed far more.

While I agree with most of what you have in the post above and I do too feel for Corbyn and do accept he uncomfortably went down the party line, I just cannot see how in any scenario anywhere,where someone can lead if the people he is leading and in this case it is MPs,don't want him to.

They are the people he has to have in the main supporting him.
You know I have joined labour and it is awful witnessing this chaos.

However your post is really balanced,from immigration to the EU and the common market as was, I found myself agreeing more and more as I went through it.
You make a lot of valid points all through.

I also laughed at a particular few words you slotted in there as to 'an invisible Lib Dem leader'.

Well said to that whole post and really I mean that.

glad we agree on the majority

corbyn won by a members landslide and he would win again, its only the elite westminster mps who want him out, because they want to return to neo liberal values and they think they have an opportunity to over turn brexit

[kirklancaster]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Genuine question here Kirk but what makes you think any of those companies would still be manufacturing in the UK without EU membership / EU interference? Operating and labour costs are, just on a very basic level, far lower abroad... these companies left for their own financial bottom line and I'm not seeing why that would be ANY different unless you are advocating the UK also paying abysmally low wages in order to keep "up" with competing labour forces?

If you ran your own company T.S. in Britain prior to us joining the European Union, and rising Government taxation (deliberate by the way) was affecting you, in addition to higher wage levels, and you could move to another country where taxes and wages were lower, but that move was going to cost you £millions - you would not be so eager to make that decision to move.

If you KNEW that a multi million pound low interest loan was available in addition to a muti million pound grant (dependant on area) you would NOT think twice.

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

"What negative things" or "what to prove"?

For the first... endless, both domestically and internationally, but as I said in the other thread you don't want to hear about them / will flat out deny them no matter what so it's pointless to go over that.

If you meant "What do they have to prove?"... the answer is anything. Anything at all. Just one positive thing would be nice. I'm aware that it's early days and the answer is likely to just be "Oh just give it time"... so time it will be given... but they still - in time - have a LOT to prove.

Withano made a rather silly post that only negative things have happened since the ref so I asked him like what?

You know to try and find out what on earth it means

[Crimson Dynamo]

Youtube video

[Withano]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

Withano made a rather silly post that only negative things have happened since the ref so I asked him like what?

You know to try and find out what on earth it means

Toy Soldier has answered it for me, I'd like to add a divided nation, the uncertainty of global, european and british politics and the steep incline of british racism and xenophobia. The lies that lead to victory has been condemned by the people who supported the lies and the realisation that our political leaders are ruthless and untrustworthy is deeply saddening. Farages speech to the eu council was dangerous immature and irresponsible and huge businesses like Virgin losing a third of heir wealth. there has been literally zero pros to us leaving so far.

I dont feel like you could have missed any of this happening, so it seems more like denial from your part but yes they have a lot to prove, they no longer have to just slightly improve, they now have to also reverse this damage.

My post was not pro eu, it was just realistic. There is no way that you, I or anybody else could know whether leaving it is a good thing for at least three years. But right now, 29th of June 2016, we can conclude that it was the wrong decision. This could change.

[kirklancaster]

IN SUPPORT OF MY EARLIER POST CONCERNING THE APPALLING COST OF MEP'S:

European MEPs cost £1.79m a year each - three times as much as MPs

MEPs sitting in the European Parliament cost three times as much as Westminster MPs at a price tag of £1.79 million each a year, new figures shoLord Sassoon, the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, revealed the cost of an MEP is £1.79 million compared with £590,000 per MP. Peers sitting in the House of Lords cost just £130,000 a year.

He gave the breakdown of costs per politician based on figures that show the European Parliament costs £1.3 billion per year, shared by taxpayers across member countries. In contrast, the combined cost of the House of Commons and House of Lords was £494 million last year.

MEPs are also more highly paid than MPs, getting a salary of around £80,000 per year compared with £65,738 in Westminster.

The data emerged in answer to a parliamentary question by Lord Stoddart of Swindon, an independent Labour peer, who said they laid bare the "appallingly high running cost of the European Parliament".

“These are eye watering figures that make Westminster look like very good value for money," he said. "The European Parliament costs £838 million per annum more than the combined cost of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

The former Swindon MP urged the Government to take a "serious look at its contribution to the cost of running the European Parliament" as it seeks to reduce the deficit.
"This is an institution that does not hold proper debates and whose members cannot even introduce a Private Members Bill," he said. "It merely acts as a rubber stamp for the unelected European Commission’s legislative proposals. The number of MEPs has risen from 736 to 754, since these figures were produced, so even these huge figures fall short of the real cost.”
David Cameron last year met with resistance when he urged European institutions to cut costs as he went to Brussels to negotiate the next seven years of spending.

He called on the Europe Commission, the Brussels civil service, to reduce its budget by sacking staff and cuts the pay of 4,000 officials on six-figure salaries.

However, the Commission repeatedly ignored requests from member countries to reduce staffing costs.

A commission spokesman told The Daily Telegraph at the time: "We declined as it's a lot of work and waste of time for our staff who busy with more urgent matters.

"Because of language requirements, we are better educated than national civil servants. We're high fliers not burger flippers."

ARROGANCE AND CONTEMPT FROM THESE INSTITUTIONALLY CORRUPT ELITISTS. 'BETTER OFF OUT' - YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.

[kirklancaster]

MORE ARROGANCE AND CONTEMPT FROM THESE INSTITUTIONALLY CORRUPT EU ELITISTS, AND YET ANOTHER HUGE REASON WHY 'LEAVE' WAS THE ONLY SENSIBLE DECISION:

HISTORICAL AND ONGOING, INSTITUTIONAL FRAUD, THEFT, AND CORRUPTION IN THE EU.

Have the EU accounts been signed off or not?

March 30, 2016 by Richard Milton - with personal comments added by me:

Have the EU’s accounts for the past 19 years been signed off by the auditors or not? The EU says they have been signed off, while critics in parliament and the media say they have not. So who is telling the truth about the accounts? What are the real facts?

First, a little background to the controversy. Since 1977, the EU’s budget has been audited annually by a body called the European Court of Auditors, based in Luxembourg. The Court is nominally independent, although it is funded by the EU.

In the 1980s, the EU’s budget became the subject of allegations of fraud, so in 1988 the EU formed UCLAF – the Unit for the Co-ordination of Fraud Protection.

After 10 years, no-one was prosecuted

A decade later, In 1997, the Court of Auditors investigated UCLAF and discovered that it was dealing with 40 cases of potential corruption, conflict of interests, favouritism or just bad management. Many of the cases had been brought to UCLAF by members of staff of the Commission reporting their suspicions about other officials.

In a report described as “devastating”, the Court revealed that no-one had been prosecuted for fraud and no-one was likely to be prosecuted, because UCLAF had no powers of investigation or arrest and there was no European prosecutor to take on such cases.


It recommended that UCLAF be replaced by, in effect, an economic FBI with the staff and the powers to police the EU’s huge budget – a fully fledged operational fraud squad.

Later the same year, 1998, Paul van Buitenen, an assistant internal auditor in the European Commission’s Financial Control Directorate, turned whistleblower and wrote directly to the European Parliament expressing
his “. . discontent with the way the Commission services are dealing with irregularities and possible fraud.”

His whistleblowing led ultimately led to the resignation of the Commission presided over by Jacques Santer. His reward was to be suspended with his salary halved. He fought back and his exposures triggered the collapse of Santer’s Commission.

Formation of OLAF
In the wake of the “Santergate” scandal, UCLAF was replaced by a new organisation, OLAF. This was said to be an improvement since OLAF had more staff, more money and clearer guidelines and was described as representing a move towards a more serious investigative prosecuting body. But it remained the case that only national member states could take legal action against suspected fraudsters – the same central weakness that had defeated UCLAF.

OLAF is notified of some 12,000 cases of possible fraud every year, and says that it adopts a “zero tolerance” policy towards corruption and fraud in EU institutions.

In reality, OLAF must be somewhat more tolerant than “zero” as it investigates only some 200 cases per year – that is to say 98% of reported cases go uninvestigated.

This is the most likely explanation of the fact that, since 1999, OLAF has sent only 335 people to jail and recovered only 1.1 Billion Euros of EU money – less than one-thousandth of the amount unaccounted for.

Kirk Comment: YES - That is over £1,000 BILLION.

[SIZE="2"]One other obstacle to OLAF nailing anyone inside the EU is that EU law gives EU officials immunity from prosecution both while they work in the EU and then for the rest of their lives for any acts committed in the course of their duties. [/SIZE]Even if OLAF managed to put together a case against an EU employee, he or she could not be prosecuted anyway.

Kirk Comment: STILL say the EU is NOT corrupt?

This long history of corruption and fraud brings us to the case of Marta Andreason, who in 2002 was appointed the EU’s first Chief Accountant, the director responsible for budget execution and the EU’s accounting officer.

From the start, Andreasen was critical of the EU’s accounting system for being open to fraud, criticisms she raised with her superior but to no effect. She voiced her doubts to Commissioner Michaele Schreyer and the Commission President Romano Prodi, and when she got no reply approached members of the EU Parliament’s Budget Control Committee.

Because of her doubts, she refused to sign off the 2001 European Commission accounts and went public with her concerns. She suffered a similar fate to Paul van Buitenen before her, and was sacked for speaking out (“failure to show sufficient loyalty and respect”.) In reality she was fired for refusing to sign the account and embarrassing the Commission by letting the cat out of the bag about the extent of fraud.

A series of other EU officials tried to blow the whistle on the fraud and corruption of their colleagues and all received similar treatment, Dorte Schmidt-Brown, Robert Dougal Watt and Robert McCoy. Their cases are detailed below.

At this point, in 2002, EU officials realised that they could no longer conceal or ignore the extent of fraud and corruption in the EU budget and that they must act to try to restore public confidence in the EU’s financial affairs. So they did what most large bureaucratic organisations do in these circumstances. When you cannot change the facts, you change the way the facts are presented. So the EU turned to public relations to solve their problem.

From 2002 until the present, the Court of Auditors continued to audit the budget annually, but they no longer signed off the accounts as a whole. Instead, they have split the budget into two sections – the part to which they are willing to give a clean bill of health, and the part to which they are not willing to give a clean bill. The Auditors refer to this second part as its “opinion on the underlying payments which have been negative or adverse”.

To justify this change in established auditing procedure it came up with a number of arguments. The budget is too big and too complicated for us to expect them to account for every penny. Every large organisation has amounts missing and unaccounted for. We can’t expect the EU Auditors to know every little thing that goes on inside member countries. The bit that’s not signed off is “only” a few per cent of the budget so it’s not worth making a fuss about. And, in any case, said the Auditors, although we do not know where the money went or who took it, we can say that it definitely wasn’t fraud or theft.

Kirk Comment: Four fecking decades of this fraud and corruption and this is their arrogant 'feck you, take it or leave it' explanation. You could NOT make it up.

“Errors”, said the auditors, “do not mean that EU money is lost, wasted or affected by fraud.” When asked to give an example of some money that had gone missing that wasn’t fraud, the EU said, “A farmer was granted a special premium for 150 sheep. The Court found that the beneficiary did not have any sheep. The corresponding payment was therefore irregular.” The missing money is accounted for by changing the word “fraud” to the word “irregular”.

Despite Orwellian verbal contortions like this, there are some elements of truth in the EU’s arguments. Balancing the books and accounting for all the expenditure of an organisation as big as the EU is not an easy task.

But remember, the question we are trying to answer here is not, “How difficult is it to audit the EU’s accounts?” but rather “Have the EU accounts been signed off for the past 19 years.” And the only honest answer to this second question is clearly, “No, they have not been signed off”.

What the EU has done is not to make extra efforts to get to the bottom of its accounts and sign them off, but to change the normal rules of accounts auditing so that they no longer apply to the EU, and to change the meaning of ordinary English words to try to persuade us that this procedure is acceptable.

So that when The Daily Telegraph says “that EU auditors refuse to sign off more than £100 billion of its own spending” or the BBC’s John Humphreys on Radio Four’s “Today” says the same thing, they are – according to the EU – the victims of a “misunderstanding”.

(I am reproducing the EU Court of Auditors press handout of 11 November 2014 in its entirely below because it is a masterpiece of sleight of hand that deserves to be read word for word, very slowly.)

Some of the EU’s arguments might hold water were it not for one over-arching fact that makes them pale into insignificance. It’s true that, in 2015, the amount not signed off by the Court of Auditors was “only” 4.7% of the budget. The problem is that 4.7% of the budget is 6.97 BILLION Euros – enough to build 70 major hospitals or 150 large secondary schools.

And in the Court of Auditors own words, (their emphasis) “The £109 billion refers to the spending areas for which our audit work shows a material error rate.”


Over the past twenty five years, I have delivered hundreds of training courses in PR and Journalism to thousands of PR people and journalists. I’ve also written four books on PR and propaganda, one of which the Sunday Times was kind enough to name as its Business Book of the Week. A key element of my workshops is to caution delegates against the temptation to try to use PR methods dishonestly to influence people. I illustrate this using the most egregious press releases sent to me over the years as examples.

In future I shall not use my collection of ‘black’ press releases. I shall instead use the press handout from the EU Court of Auditors (below) as my primary training example as it is the worst that has ever crossed my desk. In my opinion, It has everything that a press statement should not have: dissembling, deceit, weasel words, misdirection, a fog of undefined terms, arrogant condescension, and a personal attack on journalists reporting accurately and honestly. It is a clarification that it wholly lacking in clarity.

It says the EU’s accounts have been signed off but at the same time says that part of the EU’s accounts has not been signed off. It places the blame for failure to comprehend this elementary distinction on us, the public. If we think the accounts haven’t been signed off, it’s all been a “misunderstanding” on our part because we don’t understand EU accounting procedures.

Or, as George Orwell (who must be spinning at near light speed in his grave) would have said, we have not yet learned, like the EU, to practice the art of Doublethink.

Kirk Comment: The LARGEST amount of 'Missing Money' which the EU 'LOST' BUT NO ONE STOLE is, of course, the £259 BILLION POUNDS which the auditors discovered in 2014, which cost the UK an extra £34 BILLION POUNDS in a EU DEMANDED one-off payment to help replace the stolen money - even though it had FECK ALL to do with us. CAMERON said very emphatically in public that he would not pay this ransom, before paying it in secret 6 months later.

BETTER OFF OUT - YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.

[Johnnyuk123]

I'd like to say that i can't believe how corrupt the EU is but i would be lying!
Absolutely amazing posts full of facts once again Kirk! Well done!

Thankfully the future is now looking brighter thanks to Nigel Farage.

[arista]

Originally Posted by Johnnyuk123

I'd like to say that i can't believe how corrupt the EU is but i would be lying!
Absolutely amazing posts full of facts once again Kirk! Well done!

Thankfully the future is now looking brighter thanks to Nigel Farage.

Yes he started taking Daves men
we got OUR EU Vote


And Good on DAVID CAMERON
telling everyone (before the vote)
who voted No 2nd chance
and dragging the pathetic USA President over


Cheers Dave