News

Oct 13th 2009 - Are they planning to ditch the pound now?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:20:00 +0100

Are they planning to ditch the pound now?

Europe Minister Caroline Flint has been forced to deny that the government is planning to abandon the pound and push Britain into the euro.

Her denial came after Shadow Chancellor George Osborne accused Labour "euro-fanatics" of preparing to soften up the country to join the euro by seizing on current economic difficulties for political ends and an admission by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson that adopting the EU single currency was the "right long-term policy objective".

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso had already indicated that "the people who matter in Britain" were "currently thinking about" moving to the euro and "some British politicians have already told me, 'if we had the euro, we would have been better off'."

Ms Flint said it was "nonsense" to suggest that Labour was ready to embrace the euro, but Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has put down Commons questions demanding to know whether Gordon Brown has discussed euro membership with Mr Barroso and when the Cabinet last considered the matter.

It is well known that the Treasury has a Euro Preparations Unit and it has recently come to light that £43 million had been spent on the project up to 2004.

The unit planned a massive campaign to try to convert UK public opinion in favour of the euro. This was to include compulsory lessons on the currency for schoolchildren and a publicity campaign using TV programmes such as Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

The government has always promised a referendum before any move towards scrapping the pound – but it also promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and we all know what happened to that.

June 6th 2009 - £27m to promote Euro poll

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:20:00 +0100

Brussels officials are so worried that the European elections in June 2009 will expose the EU as deeply unpopular that they have set aside £27.5 million for a publicity campaign aimed at persuading people to vote.

The Daily Telegraph reports EU vice-president Margot Wallström as noting that "in next year's elections, the legitimacy of your parliament, and that of the Union as a whole, is at stake."

The paper says officials fear that the denial of referendums across Europe on the Lisbon EU Treaty, combined with the Irish No vote and a deepening recession, will prove to be catastrophic political mix.

Brussels fears that voter turnout will fall even below the 45% (in the UK 38.9%) recorded in 2004. The Commission is throwing money into the campaign to "mobilise our European and local networks, NGOs and other organisations with whom the Commission works", to target women's magazines and "to support a blogging project with young journalists" .

UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP comments: "With this the Commission both throws down the gauntlet, and recognises, finally, that there are question marks over the EU's legitimacy as a political project. Well, we in UKIP will gladly take up the challenge."

Dec 7th 2008 - Bosses warn of exodus over EU carbon cuts

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:20:00 +0000

Thousands of British jobs will be lost if the government signs up to EU cuts in carbon emissions, the Prime Minister has been warned.

The Sunday Times reports that the bosses of three big UK chemical companies have written to Gordon Brown emphasising the danger to a £60 billion industry that provides work for up to 600,000 people in Britain.

They say companies will move to other countries if they are forced to accept EU carbon caps and to pay 100% for emissions permits, as the Brussels scheme demands.

The plan will make the industry uncompetitive, the bosses say, because many rival firms will not be subject to such restrictions and costs.

They want chemical company permits to be given free and a reduction in the emissions limits.

The paper quotes Jim Ratcliffe, head of Ineos, Britain's largest private company, as saying: “Chemical businesses situated throughout the UK, especially in the north of England and central Scotland, with 80% of them foreign-owned, will be ‘decimated’, putting almost 200,000 jobs at risk.”