Thursday, 14th May 2009
Scots Tory MEP rallies troops at Scottish Conservative Conference
I want to say a bit more about the European elections, but first let me echo Timothy’s tribute to my great friend and colleague John Purvis. John is retiring from the European Parliament at the elections in June, after serving three terms as an MEP. He was first elected for Mid Scotland and Fife back in 1979 and served one term. Then he was elected together with me again representing the whole of Scotland in the 1999 elections and has been a faithful and loyal ally ever since, defending UK and Scottish interests to the hilt. He has held one of the senior and most challenging posts in the parliament as Vice President of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and has come to be regarded as a bit of a statesman and a fine ambassador for Scotland by everyone. I will certainly miss John and on behalf of the Conservative Party let me say a big thank you.
I recall with some clarity and a little schadenfreude, the eve of poll in the 1997 election when Tony Blair turned up in Dumfries, for a big open-air rally, which I gate-crashed wearing my blue rosette. He was accompanied by Richard Wilson of “One Foot in the Grave” fame! They played the tedious pop song “Things can only get better” endlessly and told us how a new dawn was about to break. Well, as we know, the new dawn proved to be false and things didn’t get better. They got worse. Richard Wilson’s favourite catchphrase was “I don’t believe it!”
Well he’d better believe it now, because Britain’s got both feet in the grave! That’s why we need change. That’s why we need David Cameron.
As we move towards the European elections on 4th June, Scotland and the rest of the UK are reeling in the depths of the worst recession for 50 years. Gordon Brown first tried to blame the world for our economic woes and then to say his policies had saved the world!
His mangled performances on Youtube and his massacre at the hands of my friend Dan Hannan in the European Parliament, have made him into Europe’s laughing stock. His outpourings have become the stuff of legend: 'no more boom and bust' - 'British jobs for British workers'. Prudence! His opportunism has only been outdone by his ineptitude and incompetence. His one startling achievement is that he has succeeded in making Tony Blair look almost accomplished by comparison.
Gordon Brown became Chancellor in 1997 when Tony Blair swept to power. He held that post until Blair retired in June 2007, then becoming Prime Minister himself, the job he had much coveted and conspired to achieve. So there is no hiding place for Brown. He inherited the strongest economy in Europe when he took office in 1997 and in 12 short years he has wrecked it. We now have the biggest debts of any country in Europe.
No other EU Member State, not even Ireland, not even the so-called economic PIGS - Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, can match our spiral of decline. I was recently in Bulgaria…Bulgaria!....where they have economic growth of 1.5% and a flat rate income and corporation tax of 15%. Go to Bulgaria Gordon and learn some lessons on how to run an economy…and take Darling with you!
My God, Alastair Darling’s budget was the last straw. The 50p top rate of tax to soak the rich was a direct rebuttal of their manifesto commitment never to raise top rate tax. That’s the second manifesto pledge they have reneged on…the first was to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution. So Labour can’t be trusted. They have lied to and cheated the British public.
But Darling’s fantasy forecasts really stretched credulity. One minute he was announcing that national debt was set to increase over the next two years to £1.4 trillion….that’s more than all the previous UK governments in history put together have ever borrowed and that’s just over the next two years!!....and the next minute he was predicting a fantasy increase in growth next year of 3.5%! It used to be customary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sip a glass of whisky during his budget speech. I think Darling must have drunk the whole bottle!
This budget was a real return to old labour politics. Soak the rich. Nationalise the banks. £1000 tax rise on every family over the next two years. Massive unemployment, rising to 3 million and higher. Our pension funds raided and our gold reserves sold off at rock-bottom prices.
Bankrupt Britain! Every man, woman and child in the UK now faces a bill from the taxman of £22,500. Every baby that is born will start life with that enormous debt. Just paying interest on that debt will cost every child a lifetime of extra taxes.
Well as many of you will know, I’ve been around in politics for a long time. I was first elected as a councillor 40 years ago next June. So I’ve survived two previous Labour governments under Wilson and Callaghan. Both bankrupted Britain. It’s their stock in trade. It’s what they do best.
Gordon Brown - the so-called Iron Chancellor - ignored the warnings, failed to put in place the necessary regulatory systems and entered the credit crunch with the biggest budget deficit of any major economy; worse than 104 other countries.
Once again they’ve bankrupted Britain. They spent too much and borrowed too much even before the recession began. It’s time we got rid of them and got a Conservative government. At a time of austerity it is Conservative thrift that counts.
And it doesn’t stop there. Twelve years under Labour and Britain is moving relentlessly towards becoming an authoritarian state. Amongst all the other worries that people face: recession, crime, hospital superbugs and terrorism - a new fear has emerged - The Big Brother State.
As Belinda Don told us, we have more CCTV cameras in Britain than the whole of Europe put together. In the name of national security, our civil liberties are being systematically eroded. The government tells us that this is for our own good, for our protection, but in fact they use this massive surveillance to enslave and bully us with a litany of red tape and regulation. Police and government officials have turned from being our servants into our masters.
Powers that were granted to the government on the understanding that they would only ever be used to protect us from terrorists and gangsters are now being used to browbeat ordinary, tax-paying citizens, particularly when they oppose the Labour government's point of view. Hidden cameras can be placed on your rubbish bins.
The DNA of innocent people can be stored for 12 years. Women are arrested for reading out the names of dead British soldiers on the Cenotaph.
Every British citizen last week even received a government pamphlet about Swine Flu, telling us how to sneeze into a handkerchief. In Gordon Brown’s Orwellian state, massive and costly overhead gantries on the motorways beam down banal messages like 'check your fuel' and 'tiredness can kill'! Well we’ve got a full tank Gordon and we’re tired of you!
And let me remind you of Labour’s other broken promise. They promised we would have our say on the EU Constitution. Every party made that pledge in their manifestos at the last election, but only the Conservative Party has remained true to its word. William Hague has repeatedly said that if all 27 Member States have not ratified the treaty, David Cameron will give the people of Britain their say on the Lisbon Treaty and we will urge them to vote NO. Despite the Eurocrats attempts to bully Ireland into a second referendum this autumn, there is still no absolute certainty that the Irish will vote 'yes'.
But in any case, the Czech President – Vaclav Klaus – has said that even although the Czech Senate has now approved Lisbon, he will never put his signature to it and he is due to remain in office for another three years.
So it looks like the Czechs will not finally sign up to Lisbon before David Cameron becomes Prime Minister.
So it may be Britain’s historic duty once more to save Europe from itself. We may yet consign the Lisbon Treaty to the dustbin of history and stop the relentless push towards a federal United States of Europe. Because Conservative MEPs always stand up for Britain, unlike Labour, the SNP and the Scottish Lib-Dems who support greater integration and the Lisbon Treaty; unlike Labour, the SNP and the Scottish Lib-Dems who want to scrap the pound and join the Euro; unlike Labour and the Scottish Lib-Dems who support the Working Time Directive and the 48 hour week and voted against Britain’s opt-out. Only the Conservative Party can be trusted in Europe.
And for those who tell you that Europe is unimportant remind them of this.....more than 70% of all the legislation that affects our everyday lives emanates from the EU.
We have seen more and more of our sovereign authority drained away from Holyrood and Westminster to Brussels and more and more red tape and regulation heaped upon us as a result. And every time a new bit of red tape rears its head and threatens Scottish business or industry or the fire service or the NHS, you can just about bet your boots that Labour, the SNP and the Lib-Dems will have voted for it. Well enough is enough. Just as Britain needs change, Europe needs change and Europe needs the Conservatives.
We have a chance on 4th June to change Britain and to change Europe. We have a chance to show Labour what we think of their authoritarian and bankrupt policies. If we mobilise our Conservative votes we can win two of Scotland's six Euro seats and elect Belinda Don to serve alongside me in the European Parliament. What a victory that would be. It would represent a resounding triumph and would act as a massive springboard for our candidates in the Westminster elections. This must be our target. But it means hard work. It means making sure that every Conservative pledge comes out to vote. That is why I am relying on you. I need each and every one of you to help in this historic task.
We have shown what we can do at Holyrood. Annabel Goldie has seized every opportunity to promote sensible Conservative policies.
We can do the same in Europe and we can do the same at Westminster.
Our job on the 4th of June is to win the European elections in the UK and by so doing, bring David Cameron one step closer to being our next Prime Minister.
