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A new e addition
Regular recipients of this newsletter may have sensed change is in
the air. The e colour version of my snapshot leaflet replaced my normal
September issue. The post plenary briefs will be an addition only
available on email so if any hard copy newsletter recipients would like
sight of it please give us an email address where we can send it.
Doctor’s orders
I experienced change on a personal level during the summer.
Following a routine medical I was diagnosed as having cancer of the
prostate and underwent serious surgery to have it removed at the
beginning of August. My immediate recovery period was happily spent
watching the crucial 2nd, 3rd and 4th
Test Matches of the Ashes series. I missed one week of meetings in
Brussels at the end of August but have been back at work since then,
trying to follow my surgeon’s instructions to “take it easy”.
European Information Receptions
This means, in my book, keeping faith with existing commitments
while being reluctant to take on new ones until 2006. Thus, I hosted a
European Information Reception near Exeter in late September for Devon’s
Conservative Associations’ members where I outlined my responsibilities
as a Committee Chairman and new President (Chairman) of the European
Energy Forum as well as touch on a number of issues that we are dealing
with. I am due to host a similar event in Cornwall in November.
Visitor Groups to Brussels
Furthermore, we are organising, through the good efforts of my agent
Ralph Wilkinson, not one but two visitor groups from Cornwall and Devon
Conservatives to the European Parliament in Brussels at the end of
November and a week later in December. The response was so great that we
decided to make up a second group. My thanks to all the Associations who
agreed to mail out my leaflet to their members. As you may know, under
the
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arrangement agreed between Neil Parish, Caroline
Jackson and myself for providing constituency cover on a geographical
county by county basis, I am covering Cornwall and Devon.
Leadership contest
I have been following the press and media coverage of the debate
about and contest for the leadership of our Party. At last they are
taking an interest in us and it seems to me the extended period of
discussion can only be a good thing. I am pleased that the MPs’ attempt
to take back the election process entirely in their own hands was not
endorsed by the necessary qualified majority.
A better voting procedure?
I voted against because I felt that the arrogant attitude of the
Westminster Parliamentary Party deserved a check. I cannot understand
why they do not realise that an electoral college, heavily weighted in
MPs’ favour but with sections for Conservative Peers, MEPs, MSPs, WAMs,
GLAs, Councillors and Constituency Chairman, is a sensible workable
compromise between the present rather lengthy procedure and the old
system.
Europe matters
I hope very much that old wounds and differences over Europe policy
will not re-emerge during the leadership contest. The position that was
established by Michael Howard, and formed both the Manifesto on which I
was elected in 2004 and a part of the General Election platform this
year, is a sensible and realistic one. We do not want to go down the
road of more integration; we do want to repatriate powers in certain
policy areas such as fisheries and employment where decisions would be
far better taken at a national level. We want a flexible Europe of
nation states working together, not a United States of Europe.
The lessons of history
We do not, however, want the blinkered Little England policy of
withdrawal, disengagement and isolationism typified
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by UKIP. A glance back over our history shows
that we stand aloof at our peril and an ultimately heavy cost.
Keeping our commitment
There is talk of a new Conservative leadership repudiating the
commitment given in our 2004 manifesto and to our political partners
in the European Parliament by demanding the withdrawal of Conservative
MEPs from the centre right political group of which we are currently
allied members – the EPP-ED (European Peoples Party – European
Democrats). It is no secret that this link is vehemently disliked by
the most eurosceptic fringes of the Party.
In bad company
So much so that an MEP elected as a Conservative manoeuvred to
have himself expelled and has gone off to join a couple of reject UKIP
MEPs in the non-aligned rump of the Parliament, a rump made up of
those no-one else wants. I am surprised he did not go the whole hog
to join UKIP.
Mixed signals
One is bound, however, to ask what sort of signal would be put out
if an early act of a new, modernising Conservative leadership, intent
on re-capturing the centre ground of UK politics from Tony Blair, was
to break an undertaking valid until 2009, sever links with the other
major parties of the centre right across Europe and consign
Conservative MEPs to a peripheral, marginalised membership of the
non-aligned. Look before you leap applies equally well to
Conservatives at home and abroad.
Good news
Constituency casework and correspondence goes on all the time in
addition to all the meetings and travel. I have just heard the great
news that my intervention persuaded a time share company to refund a
large deposit to a reluctant constituent customer. Wonders will never
cease to amaze but good news is always welcome.
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