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Conservatives and Europe
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by Ben Patterson, former MEP and current chairman of the Conservative Party in Kent. What on earth is going on inside the Conservative Party? Are the last years of the Major Government repeating themselves, with “Europe” once again tearin...
A never-ending story of obsession
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Events over the last few days should not come as a surprise. Mr Cameron has for a while now been unable to impose his authority upon his party on the issue of EU membership. Even though he has expressed the wish to keep Britain in the EU (albeit the...
Britain must resume a positive role at the head of the EU table and be clear that we are in to stay
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by Robert Buckland MP Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee of Conservative Backbenchers and Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the EU. Margaret Thatcher was not a political leader who was much inclined to looking back, but her death la...
History for Hobbits?
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by Tom Spencer – former Conservative Member of the European Parliament. I believe that there will be an In/Out Referendum in 2017. I further believe that it cannot be won as a debate about the defects of the European Union as selectively chosen...
Three scenarios for the UK’s EU future
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by Peter Kellner – President, YouGov Will the United Kingdom still be a member of the European Union in 2020? Let us examine three scenarios. 1. The Conservatives win the 2015 and David Cameron is able to redeem his promise to renegotiate Brita...
A true plan for growth and reform in the EU
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by Lord Liddle – Chairman, Policy Network A lot of what has been said since Mr Cameron’s Europe speech in January seem to make an assumption that he is going to be Prime Minister after 2015, and that therefore the referendum promised for...
The rise of UKIP reflects a European trend that needs to be addressed
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by Giles Goodall and Petros Fassoulas, European Movement. UKIP’s relative success in the English local elections and South Shields by-election this week has met with predictable reactions across the political spectrum: from copycat politics and...
Scotland, Britain, the pound and the euro
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By Graham Bishop, economic analyst and founder of www.grahambishop.com The authors of the HMG paper ‘Scotland analysis: Currency and monetary policy’ (23 April 2013) faced a fundamental difficulty from the outset: If they were wholly...
What we need is a vision for the whole of the European Union.
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by Lord Dykes A few weeks after the PM sadly refused to attend the Nobel Peace Prizeaward to the European Union in Oslo, I had the chance to ask my noble friend Baroness Warsi, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, what further op...
EU police and criminal justice measures: The UK’s 2014 opt-out decision
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by Lord Bowness, Chairman of the EU Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection Sub-Committee and Lord Hannay of Chiswick, Chairman of the EU Home Affairs, Education and Health Sub-Committee Protocol 36 to the EU Treaties enables the UK G...
No Secret Deals: A tool to fight corruption in the developing world
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by Arlene McCarthy MEP (@EuroMP_ArleneMc) Following months of tough negotiations, the European Parliament has secured a deal on new disclosure requirements for the extractive and logging industries. But why do we need these rules and what differ...
Tax evasion is a cross-border problem that demands cross-border solutions
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by Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council Every year around one trillion euro is lost in EU Member States because of tax evasion and tax avoidance. To give you an idea. One trillion euro is about the same as the entire GDP or total inco...
You pay your money and you take your choice
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Last Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that the French and German governments, acting together, had decided not to make any contribution to the work of the British Coalition government’s “Review of Competences,” a study set up a...
Margaret Thatcher: Britain’s great (anti) European?
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The passing away of Britain’s first female Prime Minister and pre-eminent politician of the late 20th century has unsurprisingly been met with a barrage of comment and analysis. Her premiership helped to define the country for a decade and cont...
Britain’s future belongs in the EU
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by Charles Kennedy MP, President of the European Movement UK The Prime Minister’s speech at the end of January has created a sense of uncertainty and insecurity among those that believe in Britain’s membership of the EU. Many, both within...
A dangerous UK consensus on free movement of workers in the EU
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The UK government’s competence review, which will form the backbone of the renegotiation of the UK relationship with the EU that the Prime Minister wants to achieve – has not been completed. Yet there are no prizes for guessing one of the...
The Working Time Directive can be made to work better
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The Working Time Directive can be made to work better - but calling for the repatriation of social policy is not the way to do it. For many in this country the Working Time Directive (WTD) is the perfect expression of unwanted interference...
Is the Cyprus deal the lesser of all evils?
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In case anyone thought that the bank and sovereign debt crisis that has engulfed certain parts of the eurozone has produced all its dramatic twists, events this weekend came as a rude awakener. Eurozone leaders agreed early on Saturday morning a deal...
Tell the growth story!
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While the debate on Britain’s membership of the EU focuses on the loosely defined notion of “sovereignty” it ignores the fundamental principle at the core of European integration. In its simplest terms, the European Union exists to...
Pro-Europeans must fight the Euromyths
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by Catherine Bearder MEP There is a single word which has legions of Euro-sceptics flinging down their newspapers in disgust. The word is ‘now’. NOW Brussels wants tightrope walkers to wear hardhats, NOW meddling bureaucrats want to ban t...
