Duff-Verhofstadt drive to federal Europe sees its first Liberal casualty

 

Former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, in the running to lead the Liberals and Democrats group (ALDE) in the European Parliament, and his campaign manager UK Lib Dem MEP Andrew Duff make no secret of their desire to see a ‘federal Europe’. Andrew Duff has spoken and written on the subject over many years and is Chair of the European Federalists, and indeed Guy Verhofstadt has written on the need to create a ‘United States of Europe’. ( The United States of Europe by Guy Verhofstadt, 2006). Such Federalist credentials are impeccable and yet are starting to spook MEPs in the ALDE group. Today saw the first defection as the widely regarded Finnish MEP from the Liberal-linked Centre Party, Hannu Takkula, left ALDE to join the new UK Conservative-led grouping: the European Conservative and Reformist group. Last week saw the defection of the entire Italian ‘Democratici’ party to the Socialists. Such defections could be the first of many should Verhofstadt take over the leadership of ALDE.  Most MEPs in the ALDE group consider that the voters’ verdicts in early June was at best ‘no further integration’ placing them at odds with the Verhofstadt and Duff line. Could the ALDE group fall into 4th place behind the Conservative and Reformist grouping? Unlikely it has to be said unless there are defections on a massive scale but it will be acutely embarrassing for Verhofstadt to see the departure of so many of his MEPs within days of gaining the leadership. His stance also makes it very difficult to recruit additional MEPs from other parties.

(Note:  The Yorkshire Guidon is related to one of the other contenders in this contest)

Estate agents are the only people to benefit as MPs’ stock diminishes

By some extraordinary coincidence I happened to be campaigning in Scunthorpe yesterday and in Dewsbury today just as the stories relating to those town’s respective MPs were breaking. The Elliot Morley story broke it the morning and as I arrived in Dewsbury it had been just announced that Shahid Malik had resigned as Justice Minister. The anger of people in both communities was palpable and sadly was directed at ALL MPs of ALL parties. I have no doubt that this anger is seen by candidates up and down the country. I share that anger and I am so annoyed with MPs who still fail to see the seriousness of the situation. If only we could have kept out of this then the electoral dividends would have been massive. We have to be much firmer on the reform message and if that means a few heads on poles then so be it. Small parties may benefit, but in the longer term we may see the emergence of Independent candidates and coincidentally in Dewsbury that hs happened already albeit for unconnected reasons: www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/news/Councillor-resigns-from-party-to.5269961.jp Having said that the YouGov poll in The Sun today looks encouraging and others may be reading the situation in an equally positive way as I am starting to get letters from people wanting work as my Parliamentary Assistant when I am elected!

There was a scene on the ‘sweary chef in America’ programme where he took a restaurant owner up to the hills behind Los Angeles in order for him to get his frustration with his employees out of his system. To do that he was encouraged, miles away from people, to scream as loudly as he could. I feel I want to do just that. I am sure the last few days have been enormously demoralising for people seeking election to office. An estate agent I met yesterday said he was delighted with the recent events as for the first time in living memory his was no longer the most hated profession. He felt he could hold his head up high in polite society. Somebody else said that rather than become an elected politician he might go and sell cigarettes to Third World countries and then his friends might speak to him again.

Liberals in the European Parliament set to get their first female leader in 20 years

With Graham Watson, the current leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European Parliament, having already announced his intention to stand down from the post after June’s European Parliament elections, speculation has been mounting about who might be taking over. For a while, former Belgian PM, Guy Verhofstadt was being mentioned but nothing seems to have come of his possible candidature. Then the possibility of a German FDP member becoming leader was being mentioned. This won’t happen because the Germans are conscious of taking on too many senior roles in the Parliament. However, there has been a rising groundswell of opinion for Yorkshire (and the Humber’s) own Diana Wallis, who formally launched her campaign in Strasbourg yesterday with the backing of many of her MEP colleagues and at least one Liberal Commissioner. If successful Diana Wallis will be the first female leader of the Liberal group since Simone Veil in 1989. Her press release is below.

Liberal Democrat’s bid to lead her European Parliamentary group after June’s elections

Diana Wallis, a British Liberal Democrat MEP and currently a Vice President of the European Parliament launched her bid in Strasbourg today for the leadership of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group after the elections.

Diana Wallis said at the launch of her campaign earlier today:

“There have been a number of rumours about who may or may not be candidates; I want to make it clear that I will be. I have received clear indications of support from across the group and beyond which make be believe I should put myself forward if I am returned as an MEP after June’s elections.

 “I think the new mandate will offer good potential for strengthening and growing the Liberal and Democrat force in the parliament and I would like to play a key role in that. I believe after having served as my national delegation leader twice and building on my experience as a Vice President of Parliament I am ready for a new challenge if I am successfully elected in the June elections.”

 Commenting on the announcement, fellow ALDE group member form Slovenia, Jelko Kacin MEP, said:

 ”Diana Wallis is one of the most active and committed parliamentarians that I’ve ever met. As Vice-President of the Parliament she conducts the votes in such a relaxed and positive mood that she is admired by all political groups. She is more than sensitive to the most difficult issues in the Western Balkans and she has always inspired me how to cope and how to communicate with the people who suffered in a war zone. 

 “She knows the group and the Parliament best and she enjoys the trust of colleagues, so she is the evident choice.”

 A further endorsement came from Liberal Commissioner, Neelie Kroes:

  ”I am very pleased that Diana Wallis has announced her candidacy for the leadership of the ALDE group. In fact, I could not think of a better person for the job. She is motivated for the job, dedicated to her work, she is an excellent team player, open minded and above all I believe that she is determined to defend the principles of ALDE.”

 In addition, Ms. Wallis was delighted to receive a message of good wishes from Pat Cox, a former leader of the Liberal group and a previous President of the Parliament:

 “By virtue of your experience and competence as an MEP, qualities that I came to appreciate when we worked together as colleagues, I wish you well in your endeavours.” 

 end.

 Note

 The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe is the grouping in the European Parliament of Liberals and Centrists including the British Liberal Democrats. It currently has 100 members in the 784 seat Parliament and it usually holds a pivotal position as no one party has overall control.

 The current Leader, Graham Watson, from the UK (South-West) has announced he will be standing down after five years in the post.

 If elected leader, Diana Wallis will be the first woman to lead this group (or its predecessor parties) since Simon Veil in 1989.

Why the smart money won’t be on Verhofstadt to lead the Liberal group in the European Parliament

According to the gossip pages in the Brussels-based English language newspaper, European Voice, former Belgian PM, Guy Verhofstadt emerges as an early front runner to lead the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats group (or ALDE) after next June’s elections to the European Parliament.

 It is widely expected that Graham Watson after several years leading the group will stand down as a part of his bid to be elected to the European Parliament’s top job of President. Whilst most expect his chances of achieving this to be slim (another right-left carve up of the top jobs is on the cards), it does throw up the question of who in turn will lead the increasingly pivotal Liberal (and Democrat) group after June.

There are, however, several reasons why in my view Verhofstadt won’t get the job and why the smart money will look to back a different candidate.

Firstly, he is a newcomer to the European Parliament. Whatever his background, there will be enormous resentment that an outsider can come into the group and take over. There is no recent precedent for that in the Liberal group. The only other recent former PM to come into the ALDE group has been Anneli Jätteenmäki, who is not even a Committee Chair.

Further, there is a no track record of successful outsiders in the Europeans Parliament. In fact quite the opposite. Joseph Borrell in his first term as an MEP was immediately thrust into the role of President of the Parliament and is widely considered to be the poorest occupant of the post in recent years.

There is also a view that Verhofstadt just wants a job with a European dimension and doesn’t really mind which one it is. After all, even just a couple of months ago, he was being touted as a possible replacement as the Commission President. I think to win over ALDE MEPs he would have to show a commitment to the European Parliament over and above all other ambitions.

Secondly, he is a man in suit. There is a strong lobby in the Liberal group that is urging for the appointment of a woman to one of the top posts in the EU institutions when they come up later this year. (Liberal Democrat Voice carried once such piece from three ALDE female MEPs just a day or so ago). The idea that a man should nevertheless get to be leader of the political group most strongly advocating this ‘gender balance’ would open the Liberals to accusations of hypocrisy.

Thirdly – federalism. Despite its pro-European credentials, the Liberal group is not settled on further integration. There will be many in the UK Liberal Democrats, for example, who would feel it sends absolutely the wrong message ahead of the European Parliament elections to elect as the leader such a fervent federalist. Verhofstadt is a federalist which is why he has been overlooked for the post of Commission President in the past and will be again the future.

The list of Verhofstadt supporters in the ALDE group seems small and it is more a case of whose not on it rather than who is on it. He is said to have upset the Dutch VVD by describing them as ‘illiberal’ and the Germans are not mad keen either, given his federalist zeal.

Who will get the job of ALDE leader remains uncertain at this stage. As a betting man, I am keeping hold of money until after the ALDE group meeting in London at the end of April. I think by then an obvious candidate will emerge. You may draw your own conclusions from what I said above about some of the characteristics the new leader will have.

Winning here – in Yorkshire & the Humber

Winning here!

Out canvassing over the weekend with Liberal Democrat candidate, Ian Dowling, in the Temple Newsam ward in Leeds. In a couple of weeks time, the voters there face a by-election caused by the well-publicised resignation of one of the Labour councillors in the ward. The demographics of the community in the ward suggest no reason why the Liberal Democrats could not do well there. The party picked up over 500 votes last time with a pretty minimal campaign. 

There have been several local council by-elections on principal local authorities since last summer and I thought it would be useful to do an analysis of the results. Over 20,000 votes were cast in total, in a range of wards from inner city Leeds to rural North Yorkshire. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats, along with the Conservatives were the only party to field a candidate in each of the seats. The Liberal Democrats quite comfortably held the three seats they were defending but perhaps most importantly the Liberal Democrats won the overall popular share of the vote: (Liberal Democrat: 6260; Con: 5120, Lab: 5069, BNP: 1948; Green 1416). As an indication of the way the 6 seats in this region would split in June’s European Parliament elections, the results suggest: Liberal Democrat 2, Conservative 2, Labour 2. Overall this would mean that Liberal Democrats would gain a seat from UKIP compared to 2004. I’ll drink to that Nigel!

Another by-election success in the region

Following on the succesful by-election defence of the Liberal Democrats’ seat in Hull a couple of weeks ago, news reaches me of further success, this time from across the Humber estuary. In a by-election on Haxey parish council, which lies in the Axholme South ward of North Lincolnshire District Council, Liberal Democrat Don Lange ‘romped home’ (to use the words of the agent) 569 to 444 in a straight fight with an Independent. For those of you know the area this was a pretty sensational result and is further evidence of the great strides the local party is making there.

Iceland edges a little closer to the EU as the Liberal Democrats’ sister party says yes to membership

The Liberal Democrats’ sister party in Iceland, the Progressive Party, (or Framsóknarflokkurinn if you prefer it in the vernacular) at a special conference yesterday voted strongly in favour of supporting Iceland’s entry into membership talks with the European Union.

Largely representative of the agrarian community and fishermen it has traditionally opposed Iceland’s entry to the EU. But after a four hour debate the Progressives become the second party in Iceland, after the Social Democrats, to publicly support EU membership. The ruling Independence Party (for which read ‘Conservative’) intends to hold a similar vote at its conference beginning on the 29th January.

In a statement, the Progressive Party explained that it would support Icelandic entry into the European Union if personal and business rights were protected, especially in regard to fishing and agriculture; and if the accession talks were open and democratic. Icelandic would also have to become one of the EU’s official languages.

If the Independence Party votes to change their policy too (which in some ways woukd be even more likely than the Progressive Party given the latter’s voting base) then Icelandic application to the EU is a done deal I would think. Olli Rehn, the Commissioner responsible for EU Enlargement, says membership for Iceland could be achieved in months rather than years (after all they sign up to most EU legislation already given their membership of the EEA Agreement). It is even conceivable that Icelanders could be voting with the other 27 EU countries in the European Parliament elections in June this year.

Of course, the shift in opinion amongst Iceland’s political parties is a reflection on just how bad the economy is there. After all many have been agitating for Euro membership already, but the Commission quite rightly said this is not feasible without full membership. What is interesting of course now is what will happen to Norway. Don’t be surprised if the Norwegians themselves start to look at membership again. After all, without Iceland the EEA and EFTA are effectively dead and besides, the last thing the Norwegians would want down the track in any membership negotiations is to be faced across the table by an Icelandic Commissioner for Fisheries!

By way of a note, currently, the Progressive Party has slipped in support but is traditionally one of Iceland’s bigger political parties holding the post of Prime Minister as recently as 2006.

Liberal Democrats gain Conservative seat in Hull

As I anticipated, the Conservatives were heavily beaten in yesteday’s by-election in Drypool in Hull. In fact in a seat they held they were beaten into 4th place behind the National Front candidate as Linda Chambers for the Liberal Democrats stormed to victory. It shows two things to me: one, that the people of Hull are comfortable with the changes that the Liberal Democrats are bringing to the city and, two, that the Conservatives remain a long way from mounting any sort of recovery to their fortunes in the North. As I’ve said in  the blog before ,this was a difficult seat for the Conservatives to hold but nevertheless to put in such a poor result was surely a humiliation.

This is what the Hull Daily Mail is saying in its online version:

The Liberal Democrats have won the city council by-election in Drypool.

Lib Dem candidate Linda Chambers polled 1,306 votes to secure the seat vacated by Conservative Andy Sloan who resigned before Christmas because of work commitments.

Labour’s Gary Wareing finished second with 891 votes while the National Front’s Mike Cooper came third on 184 votes. Conservative Andrew Allison polled 117 votes. The turnout was 26.7 per cent.

The result increases the overall Lib Dem majority at the Guildhall to 15.

Lid Dem leader Carl Minns said: “I am very pleased because it shows the public are still backing the way we are trying to reform the council.”

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/Lib-Dems-win-Drypool-election/article-598866-detail/article.html

The crime rate in Brussels might make people rethink the single site of the European Parliament

There is a considerable majority of MEPs and staff who support the idea of a single site for the European Parliament. Doing away with the monthly trek between Brussels and Strasbourg would be eminently sensible at various levels, not least economic and environmental. There has always been the assumption that the single site for the parliament would be Brussels, after all that is where the majority of the other institutions are already. However, whilst Brussels, against most measures. is a pleasant place to live, the thing that drags it down is the low-level street crime which can make living there unpleasant.

 

News reached me that a Brussels based journalist who I had been speaking to just earlier in the afternoon had pepper spray squirted in her face and her bag snatched in a park near to the European Parliament building. Once people started to talk about this incident then others come forward with similar stories about walking through the poorly lit Parc Leopold which it seems has been the scene of many similar crimes.

 

But not just there because we also learnt that one Lib Dem MEP had his briefcase stolen while he was waiting for a train and another MEP had her suitcase snatched from the luggage racks at the end of the carriage as the train was stopped at a station

between Brussels and Antwerp.

 

I’ve had my wallet lifted in Brussels (the only city this has ever happened to me). One of my colleagues had a bag snatched from her car as she waited at traffic lights. The passenger door was locked and the thief smashed the window. This in broad daylight and is not an unusual occurrence as theft from vehicles, both moving and parked in Brussels, is common. And so it goes on.

 

As I say Brussels is otherwise a pretty decent place to live but this low-level crime is actually rather off-putting. I am not sure what the answer is, after all Belgian police are fairly efficient and CCTV is in place after all cameras were used to convict a Polish guy who had stabbed a teenager to death in Brussels Central station when he refused to hand over his MP3 player. However, unless there is a real attempt to reduce this low-level crime I think people will start to think that the single site for the European Parliament will would be better placed in Strasbourg.

Conservatives losing here albeit in somewhat unusual circumstances

I am reasonably confident that come Friday Drypool will appear as a Conservative loss in the  previous night’s local by-elections. The by-election in Hull comes about because of the resignation of a former Liberal Democrat councillor who switched to the Tories and was found to be living and working in Guernsey yet still claiming his Councillor’s allowance. (See previous blog on the subject: Hull Tory councillor who works in Guernsey forced to resign)

 

Delivering in the ward today and chatting to people as I went round, I found little evidence that the Conservatives would hold this seat. Interestingly the outgoing Tory councillor doesn’t even get a mention on their leaflet such, I guess, is the complete lack of impact he made in the ward. So the fight, as is usually the case in Hull, will be between the Liberal Democrats and Labour (the Tories got less than 9% in Drypool in 2008). Probably too close to call but if Linda Chambers does win for the Liberal Democrats it will be the party’s first gain from the Conservatives in Hull since the early 1970s. So Thursday could be quite historic in that sense albeit in somewhat unusual circumstances.