East Midlands CF Conference

Are you busy on Saturday, apart from recovering from a hangover possibly? No, well come to the East Midlands CF Conference to listen and debate with fantastic speakers who are also proper Tories.

Emma McClarkin MEP invites you to a great conference.

This is the 2nd time the East Midlands CF Conference has taken place and this year looks like it may be better than the last. As always the conference is hosted by Emma McClarkin MEP, who has taken some time out from fighting the good cause against a federal European superstate to speak to us. Also there will be Nicky Morgan MP, recently promoted to be Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and Sir Edward Garnier QC MP, not the hair shampoo man but a previous cabinet member and Solicitor General.

Nicky Morgan MP the new face at the Treasury.

As well as these three big names there are several other MPs, MEP candidates and Colonel Cooper. But if that's not enough for those interested in debate there is a free meal, which last year was top notch. Of course there is also copious amounts of freebees, which range from the obvious pens to the not so obvious mints.

The question of the day? Will Colonel Cooper be bringing KFC?

Richard Harris, the East Midlands Chairman, says "The second Annual East Midlands European Youth Conference allows Emma and I, along with the regional executive to showcase the very best of the talent that we have in the East Midlands, You will hear from a former cabinet member; the newly appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury and your European Candidates for 2014; as well as paying tribute to an extremely inspirational lady, who also hails from here in the East Midlands. Of course I speak of Lady T who would have been 88 this week."

Richard Harris has worked to prepare a really good day.

This is definitely something you should go to and it only costs £5. The event takes place at the Hallmark Inn Hotel, Midland Road, Derby, DE1 2SN on Saturday 10am - 4:30pm. You can get your tickets here https://emcfregionalconference2013.eventbrite.co.uk/ . What's even better for NUCA people is that Alex, the great treasurer of our society, says he will help towards travel cost through reimbursement.

There is no excuse not to come to the East Midlands Conference. I'll be there and so hopefully will you.

NUCA last year with Emma McClarkin

Conservative MEP Selection Results

Here is a list of people selected by the Conservative Party to fight the EU elections and their order on the ballot paper. This list is constantly updating so will have gaps.

North West

1. Jacqueline Foster MEP
2. Sajjad Karim MEP
3. Kevin Beaty
4. Deborah Dunleavy
5. Joe Barker
6. Daniel Hamilton
7. Chris Whiteside
8. James Walsh

North East

1. Martin Callanan MEP
2. Cllr Ben Houchen
3. Andrew Lee

Yorkshire

1. Timothy Kirkhope MEP
2. Alex Story
3. John Procter
4. Carolyn Abbott
5. Michael Naughton
6. [To be confirmed]

London

1. Syed Kamall MEP

2. Charles Tannock MEP

3. Marina Yannakoudakis MEP
4. Caroline Attfield
5. Lynne Hack
6. Sheila Lawlor
7. Glyn Chambers
8. Annesley Abercorn

South East

1. Daniel Hannan MEP (yay for Dann Hannan)
2. Nirj Deva MEP
3. RIchard Ashworth MEP
4. Marta Andreasen MEP
5. RIchard Robinson
6. Graham Knight
7. Julie Marson
8. George Jeffrey
9. Rory Love
10. Adrian Pepper

South West

1. Ashley Fox MEP

2. Julie Girling MEP

3. James Cracknell

4. Georgina Butler

5. Sophia Swire

6. Melissa Maynard

East 

1. Vicky Ford MEP

2. Geoffrey Van Orden MEP

3. David Campbell Bannerman MEP

4. John Flack

5. Cllr Tom Hunt (well done to Cllr Tom Hunt for making it on the ballot)

6. Margaret Simons

7. Jonathan Collett

West Midlands

1. Philip Bradbourne MEP
2. Anthea McIntyre MEP
3. Daniel Dalton
4. Michael Burnett
5. Sibby Buckle
6. David Price
7. Dan Sames

East Midlands

1. Emma McClarkin MEP (very well done Emma, looking forward to seeing you on the campaign trail)
2. Andrew Lewer
3. Rupert Matthews
4. Stephen Castens
5. Brendan Clarke-Smith

Wales 

1. Dr Kay Swinburne MEP
2. Aled Davies
3. Dr Dan Boucher
4. Richard Hopkin

Scotland

1. Ian Duncan
2. Belinda Don
3. Nosheena Mobarik
4. Jamie Gardiner
5. Iain McGill
6. Stuart McIntyre

 These are the people who, with the people's mandate, shall fight for the UKs interest against fools, ex-Euro Communists and over regulation.

Weekly Poll Lowdown

So we had the European Elections early on #ThingsElliottSays and the results are below. The Conservatives did very well in increasing their share from 2009 and so did the Green Party who have romped into 2nd place. A bad day for UKIP who went down and the Lib Dems who lost a lot. The independents will be disappointed with no votes.

How will you vote in the European Elections in 2014?

Conservative	31%
Labour	21%
UKIP	10%
Lib Dem	4%
Green	23%
Independent	0%
Unsure	10%

Total votes: 48

So how would this translate into seats, the European Elections are done by regional PR so this is easy to calculate although will not reflect a true picture because of regional variation. This would account for some odd loses from the Conservatives when gaining % in the vote.

Party	Seats	Gains/Losses from 2009
Conservative	23	-3
Labour	16	+3
UKIP	7	-6
Lib Dem	3	-8
Green	16	+14
Independent	0	-1

I'm quite surprised by the lack of UKIP support because I personally think they are in with a good chance of winning the EU elections next year. The Greens did remarkably well too and I think that this results from the fact students are not so massively for Labour, there is nowhere else to go if you're left. Alternatively it could just be lots of Tories having a joke on my poll.

Nigel Farage may be confused by lack of support in the #ThingsElliottSays poll but is in with a fair shot of coming first in 2014, He will at least be second again. 

This poll was launched because it is voting time in the Tory Party for the ranking on the list of candidates of the elections to the European Parliament. If you live in the Eastern Region you have to vote for Cllr Tom Hunt on your ballot paper. Tom is a great campaigner throughout the East and one who is genuinely Eurosceptic. He has also bravely come out and said that if there were to be a EU referendum today he would vote to leave because it is currently not in our favour.

But what is my general advice on voting for Conservatives across the country. Well always pick a good campaigner. With such a large region to cover an MEP needs to pick more campaigns than small local to help as many people as possible in a huge region. A good campaigner is someone who has often travelled to all areas and not just stayed near to where they live.

Another trait which I would look for is someone who is genuinely Eurosceptic. It is very hard to imagine someone in the Conservative Party who is not in the least bit wanting reform of Brussels, the only one that comes to mind is Ken Clarke out of the 100s of members I have met. There is however a small band of these ever closer union Conservatives and they seem to be attracted more than most to become a MEP. It is very hard to judge who these people are because everyone will put in 're-patriation' of powers into a piece of literature just to be selected. A safe bet then to make sure you get someone who is secretly a would be Lib Dem member is to select first those who are plainly Eurosceptic.

Sadly a few Conservatives like Ken Clarke are just ignoring the facts on Europe.

There are two MEPs that you should definitely be voting for if you're in their region. Dan Hannan, for being one of those voices who knows a lot about what is going on in Europe and how it will be changing in the next few years. He presents the best case of why we must at least take a strong Eurosceptic stance in the Tory Party. Also vote for Emma McClarkin who also takes an equally national interest stance. I have met Emma a few times and she genuinely works hard for the people of the East Midlands as well as giving Europe flack over making our country worse than it should be. I will be voting for Emma next year in the East Midlands in Nottingham and she will be getting my full support for re-election.

Emma McClarkin on the Brussels trip, make sure you vote for her.

Vote in the new poll on the sidebar.

#thingsemmamcclarkinsays

#thingselliottsays spoke to Emma McClarkin MEP, this is what she had to say. The video is from the EU museum and is probably less anti-EU than Emma McClarkin would like to show.

Q: Is the timing of the proposed referendum wise considering some businesses are worrying about the uncertainty before 2017?
A: It is never the right time considering that Britain has hesitated for so long on what sort of relationship it wants with the EU. Now is the right time in my opinion because the EU is in crisis and their answer to end it is greater integration. Luckily we are outside the Euro so businesses see us as a safe haven. When the referendum was announced the FTSE went up, the CBI also backs the Conservatives policy for the British people to have a say. We, unlike Europe, are still competitive despite our many failings because of our strategic position near the continent making us ideal for international trade.

Q: Why are the Commission the only group able to initiate legislation?
A: I hate this right and the way it is named. This is certainly wrong. There is a huge democratic deficit in the EU. We are only allowed to tinker with legislation in the EU which is totally wrong. We must accept all the proposed Commissioners that the Commission itself thinks should run the union as they are elected jointly. This often means that inefficient and incompetent people are appointed, although we did manage to stop a Bulgarian lady who had explicit links to the MAFIA. The fact is that the Commissioners are in their ivory towers protecting their own jobs. The EU exists to fund several thousand people’s extravagant lives and they do not care what they do for it to happen.

Q: How do you think David Cameron will renegotiate with the EU?
A: This will be the hardest job in the world. Cameron must choose the areas he wishes to reform carefully. It would be best for him to ask Barroso why we should remain in the EU, because despite the Commission trying to show Britain as a problem child they need our money to exist?

Q: Has the EU moved from a trading zone to a protectionist racket?
A: The Commission keeps sending out directives made legitimate by saying these are necessary to complete the single market. I ask why they haven’t done this already. The Commission would rather focus on politically based discussion than discuss trade. It seems they do not want external trade at all. The New Zealand ambassador asked me whether the UK and his own country could reduce their trade barriers and was amazed to discover that we have no control and that any negotiation takes years, if at all happening. It is amazing that they trade more with South East Asia than England considering our very close links.

#NUCAontour

On Tuesday and Wednesday NUCA went to Brussels. We were invited to go by Emma McClarkin, the MEP for the East Midlands. The trip on the whole was fairly enjoyable. I ate lots of mussels and drank lots of very strong Belgium beer. We spent most our time in the centre of Brussels and only really left to get the Eurostar on the metro (see video below of what the metro is like).

However, we were invited to go to see the European Parliament and not just have a massive party so we had to go see the building for 2 hours. The building itself was immense and very modern. But it was covered in posters of self congratulation over achieving peace in Europe from 1945. But this isn't particularly true. firstly the EU wasn't around in 1945 and didn't really get itself going till the late 60s. It was NATO and the looser alliance between the West and US beforehand that kept peace in Europe. But no one in Brussels would say this considering how much they hate the US for no other reason than Europe being economically and militarily inferior to it. Also has the EU been a force for peace? I don’t see many Greeks and Spaniards rioting peacefully against centrally imposed austerity nor are the people of Bosnia happy that the EU from their own inaction allowed a war to kill many thousands in the former Yugoslavia.

The Museum of the EU which we saw next was equally full of such lies claiming to be accountable for the first man in space, despite him being Russian, the Friday peace agreement, which they weren't involved in, and ending the Icelandic volcano eruption in 2010, although I wasn't aware of the ability to control natural disasters. Furthermore one lady was very much missing from the quite detailed history of the EU, but don’t worry we made sure she was added by writing the phrase ‘NO! NO! NO!’ to many posters, boards and the only picture we could find of her.

After this we had two talks about the EU. One was from the educational officer, a committed Europhile that would make even Nick Clegg cringe. This chap tried to argue that democracy can’t be a part of the EU because it would be against the interest of Euro-sceptics for an elected Commission or power switched from to the Parliament on account of more sovereignty being lost.  Personally I don’t understand how switching powers creates more and clearly having a quasi-communist dictatorship is preferable.

Luckily our minds were saved from such foolishness by Emma McClarkin who is by all accounts a proper Tory. She has been highly critical of the EU for trying to have the Bulgarian MAFIA run the commission, debating whether Chicken was a meat (apparently the Danish took issue with this) and the architectural design of the parliament, which keeps caving in. Effectively from what I heard the EU is far worse than anyone can imagine which quite frankly is scary.  Nothing short of ex-Euro Communists trying to create a new USSR describes what I heard and saw.

It’s quite clear the EU has nothing to do with trade considering it debates more the creation of an EU army than ending the financial crisis. Quite frankly anyone who wishes to see neither drastic reform to the EU or leave is making sure this country sleep walks into a future fate on a level of letting excepting dictatorship. I hope we leave because we’ll be freeing the people of Europe. At least some people in the Conservative party actually support a free society rather than contradictory buzzwords.