21st May 2013: This morning at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Andrew Brons made the following speech during a debate, on the agenda of the forthcoming meeting of the European Council meeting which is to be held tomorrow.

He said:

"It is, of course, member states that have the responsibility to collect taxes and fight tax fraud. Yet here is the EU trying to extend its legislative competence.

"It is, of course, true that fraud is often committed across international borders - often by multi-national and globalist companies, so beloved by the EU's neo-liberal policies. However, the borders are all borders and not just the borders of member states. Action needs to be taken by extensive international agreement and not confined to the EU.

"On another topic on the agenda, to talk about growth, jobs and competitiveness in the context of the EU's energy policy is wildly optimistic.

"Renewable energy might well be a desirable ideal but it is inefficient and expensive. High energy costs will not create growth, jobs and competitiveness. They will destroy them.

"Suppliers of energy wishing to use fossil fuels are penalised financially and those plants will eventually be closed down. To make matters worse, emergent economies seem to be immune from strictures against the use of fossil fuels.

"In the United Kingdom we have vast quantities of coal, locked in the ground as the result of Mrs. Thatcher's policies in the 1980s. We must discard our prejudices against the use of fossil fuels and against nuclear energy. That will be the key to growth and jobs.

"The difficulties facing the Euro-zone will doubtless come up. Perhaps they might heed the words of Oskar Lafontaine* and begin an orderly dismantling of the Euro-zone. Only escape from the Euro-zone will rescue the troubled economies of the South from permanent stagnation."

* Oskar Lafontaine was German Finance Minister when the Euro was adopted but has now suggested that the zone should be dismantled.

21st May 2013: Yesterday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Andrew Brons delivered a One Minute Speech (under Rule 150) on Europeanism.

He told his fellow MEPs in the Chamber:

"The terms Pro-European and Anti-European are often used as shorthand for Pro-EU and Anti-EU. I, for one, find the term Anti-European to describe those of us who are opposed to membership, or even the existence, of the EU, as highly offensive.

"Europe is much older and much more than the EU. It is a cultural entity, a religious entity and an entity with overlapping and related ancestries.

"The EU goes out of its way to welcome Third World immigration and embraces the political and economic doctrine of Globalism. It is the EU that is Anti-European because its policies will destroy the distinctiveness of Europe.

"If Third World immigrants come to Europe, they do not become New Europeans to replace unborn European babies. They turn parts of Europe irreversibly into the Third World.

"It is Global Capitalism and its related ideologies that fuel immigration because it regards human beings, as though they were merely factors of production."

7th May 2013: In response to one of his recent letters to the press entitled 'UKIP's Real Purpose', Andrew Brons received a request from the Public Service Europe website for a 500 word article on that very subject.

In his letter to the national and the Yorkshire media Andrew had said:

"Mr. Nigel Farage, of the Establishment Safety Valve Party cannot help telling us what he is really up to.

"Yesterday in South Shields, he boasted that he was winning votes from the British National Party. Surely there are many more votes to be won from erstwhile supporters of the major parties and he must be able to boast that he is winning the support of many of them. However, he did not mention them. This echoes what he said on the BBC’s Any Questions on Good Friday 2010. He was commenting on his greatest political achievement. Was it winning thirteen seats in the European Parliament? Was it making Britain’s membership of the European Union a major political issue? No, it was, “preventing the British National Party from ever becoming a large political party”.

"Mr. Farage does not want to take Britain out of the European Union. He wants to occupy a space so that nobody else can."

Andrew's article entitled 'A Political Scam' can be read here.

7th May 2013: Last weekend Andrew Brons wrote to the editor of the Sunday Telegraph in response to a report by a UKIP representative.

He said:

"I have no doubt that your correspondent is an admirable councillor; we have his word for it. However, the question is: how much work do UKIP representatives do in the bodies to which they have been elected? The record of their MEPs has been appalling. The attendance records in the plenary of Farage, Bloom and Nuttall are amongst the lowest in the Parliament. Farage did not attend his Fisheries Committee once during 2011 and 2012. I have known the UKIP member of my LIBE Committee, Batten, to have attended only three times in four years.

"UKIP’s party election broadcast for the county council elections was devoted to contradictory views about immigration from ethnic minorities. It contained nothing about what they would do as members of county councils.

"Vote UKIP to hear nothing very relevant from an empty chair in the council chamber."