Roger Helmer MEP

Last Thursday, Nov 19th, I got back to Birmingham Airport in time to hear the BBC’s “Material World” programme on Radio 4 as I drove home.  Yet again, they were banging on about Climate Change, this time because a group of scientists has insisted that we are “at the top end of IPCC estimates”, and that global temperatures “could increase by 6 degrees”.  Of course the alarmists are ramping up the rhetoric in the hope of scaring us to death ahead of Copenhagen in December.  The truth is that global temperatures are below the low end of IPCC predictions, and the alarmists are terrified of the truth getting out.  See James Delingpole’s excellent exposé of the shenanigans being practiced at the Hadley Centre to keep the Great Carbon Myth alive, at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
 
They had a scientist called Louise Sime in the programme.  She had just undertaken research on ice cores in the Arctic, showing that during the Eemian Interglacial around 125,000 years ago, temperatures had been relatively high, and atmospheric CO2 levels had also been high.  Of course there is nothing new there.  We have had for some time the temperature and CO2 level records from the Vostok and other ice cores covering over half a million years, and they do indeed show a close correlation between temperature and atmospheric CO2.  And it is worth recalling that temperatures in that last Interglacial were higher than this time round, yet the polar bears survived, there was no runaway global warming, no tipping point, no disaster — at least until the end of the Interglacial, when the ice came back again.
 
The whole debate on the programme simply assumed that this was further evidence that CO2 causes climate change.  But hang on a minute.  There was no industry, no oil, no coal mining, no 4×4s.  So where did this elevated CO2 level come from?  It is of course just possible that a super-volcano eruption could have caused elevated CO2 levels 125,000 years ago, but I am not aware of any such event.  We know that Interglacials have occurred around every 120,000 years for over two million years, and just about everyone agrees that that regular periodicity can only be the result of astronomical cycles.
 
If you have two variables A and B, like temperature and CO2, that show a correlation, there are four possible conclusions:
 
1  A causes B.
 
2  B causes A.
 
3  Both A and B are caused by some third factor C (like the correlation between the number of murders and the number of Methodist Ministers in the USA over many decades — presumably both driven by rising population).
 
4  Or the correlation is purely coincidental.
 
In this case the correlation is too close, over too long a period, for coincidence.  And there is no very obvious “C” in this case.  So either temperature drives CO2, or CO2 drives temperature.  Which is it?
 
In fact if you look at the graphs of CO2 and temperature in high resolution, it becomes clear that the changes in temperature precede the changes in CO2 by around 800 or 1000 years.  This is conclusive proof that temperature drives CO2, not vice versa.  And it explains the elevated atmospheric CO2 discovered by Ms. Sime in the Arctic.  Why should temperature drive CO2?  Because there is a great deal more CO2 in the oceans than in the atmosphere, and warmer water can dissolve less CO2.  So rising temperatures cause the upper levels of the ocean to release CO2 into the atmosphere.
 
The whole global warming scare is driven by the wrong interpretation of this correlation.  Al Gore and the BBC jump to the conclusion that CO2 causes warming, without stopping to consider the obvious alternative.  And they threaten to bankrupt Western economies on the altar of their blind faith in the Great Carbon Myth.

For best part of a decade they have driven forward the EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty.  They have ridden rough-shod over the people, over democracy, over election results, over public opinion, because the EU has no reverse gear.  They were determined to create powerful posts and institutions so that the EU could rival the USA on the world stage.  Especially they wanted global representation, with an EU President and Foreign Minister to set the pace.
 
And who have they ended up with?  Rumpy Pumpy.  A little-known Belgian Prime Minister with not much track record.  We all know the jokes about three famous Belgians.  Rumpy Pumpy is not one of them.
 
And even more extraordinary — Baroness Ashton.  A woman never elected, with very little experience of government, little or no public or international profile.  A chinless one who personifies the faceless bureaucrat, the back-room apparatchik.  An entirely worthy and blameless woman who might make a good number two in a remote County Council is now the Foreign Minister for 500 million “European Citizens”.  Remind me, how do you spell “bathos”?
 
And consider the selection procedure.  The role of the EU President is designed to emulate and “balance” (read “compete with”) the role of the US President.  But if you want to be US President, you start with a gruelling round of primaries merely to become a candidate — primaries in which your record and character are dissected, your weaknesses exposed.  And only after that do you get to run on the presidential campaign itself, in which every American citizen is entitled to a vote.  And in the EU?  A private dinner in Brussels, unknown candidates, horse-trading over the hors d’oeuvres.  And winners who have passed no tests, and received no public endorsement.
 
There is no attempt to select the best.  On the contrary, they select the one with the fewest black marks from 27 member-states, and the public wait outside in the cold to here what their betters may have decided.  They have engaged in a race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator.  And at the end of the day, the new President emerges, lacking any public profile, lacking any democratic legitimacy, yet set to earn roughly double what the US President earns.  Welcome to European democracy.
 
This is a classic illustration of the way EU horse-trading works — “I do something bad for my country if you agree to do something bad for your country”.  Almost no one has got what they wanted.  The Federalists wanted powerful figures to strut the world stage and to “project Europe”.  They have got cardboard cut-outs.  Sarkozy and Merkel have got half a prize — at least they will not be upstaged by the new appointees.  But they got this at a cost, and the cost has been to vitiate their ten years of work on the Treaty that created the posts.  And while sceptics may rejoice that ineffective candidates have been appointed to these two potentially dominant posts, we nevertheless regret that the posts exist at all.
 
The whole project stinks.  It is the death of the dream, the death of any pretence of EU democracy.  A bad day for Britain, and for Europe.

“Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet.  But he did make up Global Warming“.  This is Maggie Thauersköld, Sweden’s most prominent climate-sceptic blogger, pictured after my Nov 18th Climate-Sceptic Conference in Brux.  Find her at www.theclimatescam.se

Have humans changed the climate?  That was the question posed on Wednesday Nov 18th in the European parliament, Brussels, at a Conference I hosted.
 
Nine eminent speakers from Europe and North America included Prof. Ross McKitrick, the man who demolished the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s “Hockey Stick” graph; Prof Fred Singer of the University of Virginia, author of the NY Times best-seller “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years”; and British columnist James Delingpole, self-styled guerrilla blogger on climate hysteria.  They covered the science and politics of climate change.  The morning session was chaired by my good friend and colleague Giles Chichester MEP.  Giles is the Chairman of the European Energy Forum, and a former Chairman of the parliament’s influential Industry and Energy Committee.
 
The Conference heard that the UN’s COP 15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen, due to take place in December, is unlikely to produce any substantive outcome beyond an agreement to keep talking.
 
Several key themes emerged.  The small (+0.7 deg C) increase in average global temperatures over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.  The predictions of the IPCC’s computer models continue to be hopelessly at odds with observed data.  The “fingerprint” of predicted warming (in terms of latitude and altitude) is wholly different from the pattern observed by ground stations, meteorological balloons and satellites.  Samples of ancient atmospheres from half a million years of ice cores clearly demonstrate that temperature changes drive atmospheric CO2 changes, not vice versa.  The theory of man-made climate change is not only unproven, but disproved by these findings.  Global temperatures are as likely to decline as to increase in the next decade.
 
A number of representatives from both the European Commission and the IPCC were invited to speak, but declined to do so.
 
However, this did not deter the hundred-strong audience, which included a number of MEPs, scientists, journalists, and constituents from my East Midlands region.
 
I was delighted by the level of support for this conference.  It is clear that the tide of public opinion is turning against climate alarmism.  The public are sick of being harangued, and blamed, and taxed over climate issues.  Recent opinion polls show a majority of British (and North American) voters no longer accept climate hysteria.  This is testimony to the robust good sense of the Great British Public.

To watch me speaking up for the “Derby Two” click here.

During the BSE crisis I visited a local butcher, Mr Morris in South Kilworth, and was offered the opportunity to see his small abattoir.  In the small slaughter house, to my astonishment, I watched three men working, while four men, armed with clipboards, looked on and criticised.  This is surely an insane level of inspection — and indeed of box-ticking.  No wonder meat is so expensive,.  No wonder so many small abattoirs are closing.

Last Sunday, Nov 15th, I attended a meeting with the British Meat Inspectors Association at the Ram Jam Inn on the A1 in Rutland, and was interested to establish whether the over-inspection I had observed several years ago remained the norm.

I was informed that unfortunately it did. Apparently the over-manning could have arisen primarily from a misinterpretation of the word “vet” or “veterinarian” in EU legislation.   We choose to interpret this term as a fully qualified veterinary surgeon.  On the Continent, however, they expect a much lower level of qualification.  In the trade in Britain, many believe that a qualified British Meat Inspector is roughly what the EU legislation intends by the term “vet”, and that the employment of vets alongside Meat Inspectors is effectively redundant. 

Ten years ago, the vets were mainly British.  They were well-qualified and experienced, and they commanded the respect of the abattoir operators.  But today, many of the vets in our slaughter-houses are from other EU member states, such as Spain.  They are frequently less well qualified and experienced, are poorly paid, and often have problems with the English language.  They are unable to command the respect of Food Business Operators (FBOs) and so are potentially unable to ensure high standards are maintained or reached.  Moreover the vet is assumed to be senior to the Meat Inspector, so if the vet cannot command respect, then the advice of the Meat Inspector is devalued too. 

The Food Standards Authority (FSA) wants to change all this.  It is proposing a new, very limited set of qualifications for Meat Inspectors.  They will study a narrower syllabus in a short course, for example, white meat or red meat or offal, and not the complete range.  The FSA is also proposing that Meat Inspectors will no longer be independent but may be employed part-time by the FBO for inspection work, and the rest of their time will be spent in other capacities in the slaughterhouse.

This is a stark conflict of interest.  The employee of the FBO will be under huge pressure to concur, to maximise production and not to make difficulties.  With the current generation of vets having trouble holding their own against FBOs, it is obvious that a part-time employee/inspector will have no chance. 
These are very worrying developments indeed.
 
I am advised that in Ireland, the authorities have taken a different route.  They are seeking to enhance the rôle and competence of Meat Inspectors, while reducing the rôle of vets as far as possible within current EU law.  This seems to me to be a much more sensible route.
 
The FSA has declared its intention of influencing the development of EU policy in this area.  I believe it should be pressing for an independent, unified service in which one single operative — call him a Meat Inspector if you like — can do the whole job of ensuring that standards are maintained in abattoirs.  We could save costs, and raise standards at the same time, by cutting out the absurd duplication of work and division of responsibility, while maintaining the independence and integrity of the Inspectorate.

Last Thursday, November 12th, I was privileged to attend a lecture and debate in Church House, Westminster, sponsored by The Spectator and chaired by Andrew Neil, entitled “Global Warming: Myth or Reality?”.  The speaker was the prominent Australian climate sceptic, Professor Ian Plimer, author of the recently published book “Heaven and Earth”, which deals with the science of climate alarmism.
 
Professor Plimer (Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide) treated us to a thumb-nail sketch of 4½ billion years of Earth history.  He described how massive changes had taken place in the constituents of the atmosphere, driven by life itself, the introduction of oxygen to the atmosphere, the exchanges of gases between the atmosphere and the oceans, tectonic plate movement leading to massive changes in ocean currents (for example the isolation of Antarctica allowing for permanent glaciation on that continent).  He described six major glaciations or Ice Ages, and pointed out that during five of them, levels of atmospheric CO2 were higher or much higher than today — surely presenting a challenge to today’s warmists.  And at other times the whole earth, poles as well, enjoyed tropical conditions.
 
The Earth, in fact, has had periods when it was much colder than today (with CO2 levels much higher), and other periods when it was much warmer than today.  The IPCC tells us that an increase of 2 degrees celsius could be disastrous, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect, ocean acidification, the dissolution of all crustacea in the oceans, the death of coral.  They will need to explain why none of these disasters seems to have occurred at earlier periods of Earth history when the Earth was much warmer, and the atmosphere much richer in CO2.  As Professor Plimer pointed out, far from being a pollutant, CO2 is an entirely natural trace gas in the atmosphere, which is essential to life, and to plant growth.  Today’s atmosphere is in fact relatively impoverished in CO2 compared to most of the Earth’s history.  Higher levels of CO2 would increase crop yields and rates of biomass generation — perhaps an advantage as we struggle to feed a growing population.
 
As I learned recently, commercial market gardeners using greenhouses will release CO2 into their greenhouses to raise the level from 390 ppm to around 1200 ppm, simply to enhance crop growth.
 
Professor Plimer admitted that the causes of climate change over geological history are not entirely well understood, but the main factors appear to be solar irradiance, variations in Earth orbit, and oscillations in the orbit, leading to long-term climate cycles, other astronomical factors including gas and dust in space, volcanic activity including super-volcanoes (for example the Deccan Traps which may have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs), changes in cloud cover and cloud formation possibly linked to cosmic ray activity, and tectonic plate movement leading to major changes in ocean currents.
 
In the face of all these factors, said Professor Plimer, the idea of taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change, is an absurdity bordering on madness.  Yet that, it seems, is where we are today as the world’s political processes grind on toward the UN’s COP 15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December.

There is a new vogue for national leaders to apologise for historical events and actions by their country, even when they themselves can have no personal responsibility, because the events took place before they were born, or at least when they were in no position to influence the outcome.
 
Gordon Brown was a babe in arms when the child migrant policy started, and was still a young man when it ended.  He was not responsible for it.  He didn’t agree to it.  He had no part in it.  Therefore an apology (as opposed to an expression of regret) is both meaningless and mawkish.  Given that it amounts to little more than fine words (I have not heard that either Kevin Rudd in Australia, who has already apologised, or Gordon Brown, who is expected to apologise, has proposed any practical measure to support the aging child migrants), an apology could be seen as a rather cynical attempt to generate a feel-good factor at little or no cost.
 
We have seen pressure for equally meaningless apologies over slavery (though no one suggests that a British Prime Minister should claim credit for the brave and sustained actions of the Royal Navy in the 18th Century in closing down the trade).  Should we now look to President Sarkozy to apologise for the Norman Conquest, or Prime Minister Berlusconi to apologise for the Roman invasion of Britain?  Where does this stop?
 
The child migration policy was an outrage against defenceless children, in defiance of the principles of freedom and democracy.  But it is absurd for our present Prime Minister to apologise for it.
 
… nor should Gordon apologise for his handwriting ….
 
Gordon Brown has taken a lot of stick in the Sun, from the mother of Jamie Janes, for sending her a hand-written letter of condolence which contained (she said) many spelling mistakes — though to others most just looked like poor hand-writing from a man who, after all, has only one eye.
 
I rarely have a good word for Gordon Brown, but I think there is something rather admirable in a workaholic Prime Minister taking time out to send handwritten letters of condolence to the families of fallen soldiers, and I think the attacks on his handwriting and minor errors are ungracious.  Indeed they may well be counter-productive, since they seem to be generating a sympathy vote.
 
…. but he has much else to apologise for.
 
Gordon should not apologise for things he never did.  But there are many things he has done for which an apology would be in order.  Sending our troops to war on a peacetime budget, for a start, and failing to take the war seriously and form a War Cabinet.  Sending troops into danger without flak jackets, in unprotected Snatch Land-Rovers.  Failing to provide the helicopter support that would have saved lives, and that commanders in the field called for.  And constantly telling us that the troops would get all they needed and all they asked for, when everyone could see that that was a lie.
 
And more generally for destroying our pension system, selling our gold reserves at the bottom of the market, leaving our country over-borrowed in the face of a global recession.
 
I say to Gordon: don’t apologise for the things you never did, and for which you are not responsible.  But we’d all like to hear some apologies for those things which you actually did, and for which you carry a heavy burden of responsibility.

Alistair Darling (God bless him) is proposing, in the forthcoming Queen’s speech, to introduce a measure to allow the government, or the FSA, to “rip up” bankers’ contracts, if they feel that the contracts promote undue risk.
 
Questions are being asked about whether bankers’ bonuses are necessarily the right target, or whether the focus on them might be distracting us from more important systemic issues  The attack on bonuses could be seen as an atavistic desire for revenge, rather than a logical policy response.  Other are asking whether, in fact, such a measure can be made legally watertight.  There will be all sorts of questions about how risk is defined and assessed.
 
But these questions miss a more basic point.
 
Free societies and free markets don’t just happen by accident.  There are clear and prerequisite criteria to enable free markets to exist and to operate effectively.  These criteria include the rule of law, the right of property, and enforceable contracts.  Take away any one of these preconditions, and you are hacking at the very foundations of the free market.
 
Oxfam tries to solve the problems of Africa with aid, with various worthy projects and the injection of money.  But those of us on the right of politics know that money is not the root of the problem, nor the solution to it.  Africa has the potential to be rich.  What it lacks is those three essential pre-conditions: rule of law, rights of property, enforceable contracts.  And not just Africa.  Croatia, which hopes to join the EU next year, has very similar problems.
 
Alistair Darling has already followed Zimbabwe (or Southern Rhodesia, as I still think of it — though it was a much richer place in those days) in his policy of printing money — for that is what Quantitative Easing means.  He is now following Zimbabwe by abandoning enforceable contacts.  This will eventually cause our market economy to perform less well.  It will also be a huge disincentive to foreign investors (and not only in the financial services area).  Who would want to invest in a country where the government of the day can tear up your contracts on a whim?

My fellow Conservative MEPs along with my European colleagues in the European Conservatives group (ECR) in the European parliament have come up with a novel way to respond to comments about “faceless politicians in Brussels”.  All 54 of us now have our faces  featured on a new pack of playing cards.
 
My colleague, recently-elected East Midlands MEP Emma McClarkin appears as the Six of Clubs, while myself and Dan Hannan appear as the two Jokers in the pack!!

 The ECR Group Leader, Polish MEP Michal Tomasz Kaminski, gets top billing as the Ace of Spades, while the Conservative Leader in  Brussels, Timothy Kirkhope, becomes the Ace of Diamonds.

We constantly bang on about EU bureaucracy in a general sort of way, but I just came across the most extraordinary and egregious example.  I have spent months — literally months — trying to get the parliament authorities to accept and approve contracts for the guys who manage my web-site and blog — and to pay them some money.  I have been back and forth to my Lutterworth accountants again and again, almost weekly for quite a number of weeks, dotting i’s and crossing t’s.
 
The parliament insisted on having paper invoices hand-carried from the supplier, to the accountant in Lutterworth, then to Brussels.  Are we in the 21st century or the 19th century, I wonder — will it be quill pens next?  We’re dealing here with IT guys, to whom the idea of producing original, hard-copy invoices on a monthly basis is just lunatic.  They want to submit bills electronically, and so they should.  But no.  Brussels won’t accept them.
 
Then they noticed that the bills were (very good) photocopies.  No good, they said.  Must be original, hand-signed in ink.  And the accountant has to sign a special parliamentary form attesting that he has studied the invoices, and compared them with the contract, and confirms that they are consistent with the contract and with relevant UK law.
 
After all this to-ing and fro-ing, surely now it was all fixed?  Ah no.  They also want a new letter from the accountant explaining why VAT is not payable.  But hang on — they already have the official parliamentary form, signed by hand in ink by a qualified accountant, saying that the bill is in accordance with UK law.  So the VAT issue is covered.  Isn’t it?  No.  It is not.  I quote verbatim the reply I received from the parliamentary services — because you couldn’t make it up.
 
“As you rightly point out this explanation is provided already by the paying agent and, admittedly, the requirement might appear as an unnecessary duplication. However, the requirement of explanation on the invoice itself is a direct obligation under Article 226(11) of Directive 2006/112/EC (the “VAT Directive”) which lays down explicitly that in the case of an exemption, a reference to the applicable provision of the VAT Directive, or to the corresponding national provision or any other reference indicating that the supply of goods or services is exempt, is required on the invoice. Accordingly, this is a Community requirement which pertains to the validity of the invoice itself. The requirement for the paying agent´s certification is, in turn, one which arises from Article 41(2) of the Implementing Measures and pertains to the procedure for reimbursement of the relevant costs. As you undoubtedly know, these rules have been decided by the Bureau and the Administration has no alternative than to ensure their implementation. Consequently, both requirements need to be complied with, each for its own reasons”.

Late at night on the 2nd of December 1984, one of the world’s largest industrial disasters took place in Bhopal, India, exposing around half a million people to deadly chemicals. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, as many as 10,000 people lost their lives. Since then, a further 15,000 people have died from illnesses caused by gases released, while more than 100,000 others are believed still to suffer from related diseases. As we mark the 25th anniversary of this disaster, it reminds us of the need for proper controls and rigorous safety procedures in dangerous industrial processes.
 
Yet this anniversary notwithstanding, Bhopal gets relatively little media attention  By comparison, we seem to hear constantly about the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which happened seventeen months later, in April 1986.  The deep-green anti-nuclear lobby is always banging on about Chernobyl, as an awful warning against those who advocate a new nuclear building programme.
 
Yet according to the WHO, as late as mid-2005 — nearly two decades after the disaster — only 50 deaths could be attributed to Chernobyl .  Admittedly the same report suggested that up to 4000 more could eventually die as a result of radiation exposure, but the mid-2005 death toll was only fifty.
 
Of course fifty deaths are a serious matter, and should not be trivialised.  Yet they pale into insignificance against Bhopal’s 10,000 dead and 100,000 damaged.  I hear no one calling for the closure of the chemical industry because of Bhopal, yet there are green NGOs demanding an end to nuclear power because of the very much lower toll at Chernobyl.
 
The Greens also conveniently forget that the Chernobyl reactor was a very old, fifties-style Soviet design, poorly maintained, as most industrial infrastructure was poorly maintained in Eastern Europe.  It makes as much sense to compare the Chernobyl reactor, and its risk profile, with a modern nuclear power plant as it would to compare an East German Trabant with a modern BMW.
 
Other than Chernobyl, there have been almost no fatalities associated with nuclear power plants.  That is an extraordinary statistic for a major, mainstream, base-load power generation technology, especially when you recall that hundreds of thousands have died over the years in the coal industry, and in hydro accidents.
 
Far from being dangerous, nuclear power is by far the safest mainstream generating technology we have.
 
As our Labour government starts to press ahead with new nuclear capacity — better late than never — we will no doubt hear the name of Chernobyl shouted from the rooftops by green campaigners.  When you hear that word, remember mining disasters, remember hydro accidents, remember Bhopal.

Many commentators have remarked on the similarities between religion and climate alarmism.  Both are based more on faith than on evidence.  Both warn of dire consequences unless we have faith, and change our way of life.
 
The Church of England seems to have abandoned religious faith entirely, and taken up the new religion of climate alarmism instead.   The children’s writer G.P Taylor, formerly an Anglican Minister and author of the best-selling “Shadowmancer”, has just announced his intention to leave the Anglican Church and join the Roman Catholics, saying that the C of E is “a sinking ship that has become the spiritual arm of new Labour”.  He adds “many bishops spend more time preaching about climate change than preaching a gospel of salvation”.
 
The recent multi-faith conference at Windsor, with its famous Vegan dinner, suggests that other world religions are taking a similar line.
 
This is particularly ironic at a time when the world is cooling, and when more and more scientists around the world are breaking cover to challenge the theory of man-made global warming.
 
Most religions make a virtue of humility.  Yet it is hard to imagine a better example of anthropocentric arrogance and hubris than the belief that mankind has changed, and can change, the climate.
 
Perhaps world religions should have a little more faith in God, and a little less in the IPCC.

On Sunday November 8th, I went along to the Leicestershire village of Croft for their Service of Remembrance.  Like so many communities up and down the land, Croft makes a real effort.  There was a parade through the village, led by the Croft Silver Band.  The sister of a neighbour from my own village plays trombone in the band, and was striding out purposefully in the front row.
 
The band was followed by contingents of British Legion veterans, and cadets and youth organisations, while a good number of the public lined the pavements or followed the parade.  Eventually the band, and the parade, and the public, formed up in the big open road-junction area between the Croft War Memorial and the pub, for a very moving Service of Remembrance.
 
Of course it was impossible not to be very conscious of the war in Afghanistan, with its seemingly daily toll of casualties — and to be mindful of the polling data showing increasing public concern about our country’s rôle in Afghanistan.
 
A recent opinion poll shows that a majority of the British people want the troops brought home “as soon as possible”.  Of course they do.  So do I.  But that begs the question, “How soon is possible?”.  If we fail to leave Afghanistan with a tolerable and sustainable government, with a degree of development and order, then we betray those brave young men who have already lost life and limb in that country.  We hand a triumph to the Taliban and to Al-Qaida, and more generally to the forces of fanatical and fundamentalist Islam.  We destabilise a nuclear-armed Pakistan.  We strike what might quite possibly be a death-blow to NATO, on which our security has ultimately depended for most of my lifetime.  And we increase the level of hard drugs and terrorism on the streets of our own country.
 
My biggest concern (beyond the human tragedies and the costs of the war) centres on the nature of the legacy we seek to leave in Afghanistan.  We are implicitly offering a model of a Western liberal democracy in a unitary state.  That is (more or less) our Western model, so we assume without question that it is the model for everyone else.
 
Yet Afghanistan is not like that.  It is regional.  It is governed (to the extent that it is governed at all) by local warlords and strong men who offer at best a tenuous allegiance to any central government — which is a key reason why Karzai is having such difficulty getting his writ to run beyond the capital.
 
In a sense it is an almost feudal society.  There is not much difference between an Afghan warlord and a mediaeval baron, give or take nine hundred years.  We have seen in the EU the disaffection that can result from the creation of political structures which resolutely fail to recognise the identity and aspirations of the people.  I trust we shall not make the same mistake in Afghanistan.

‘Photograph from “The Armistice Collection” by Digital Impulse Event Photography’

Yesterday (Nov 4th) I joined a phone-in programme on the Lisbon Treaty on BBC Radio Northampton.  I am well aware of public attitudes to the EU, yet even I was taken aback by the relentlessly hostile flow of comment about the Lisbon Treaty, and the way that it has been rail-roaded through in the teeth of public opposition.  It is clear that the EU has lost any claim it might have had to democracy and legitimacy.  Many speakers were also very unhappy about the withdrawal by the Conservative Party of its commitment to a Lisbon referendum.
 
The presenter turned to me in the forlorn hope that, as an MEP in Brussels, I might have an alternative view.  He was disappointed.
 
Like all Conservative MPs and MEPs, I was elected on an explicit Manifesto Commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.  Yesterday, David Cameron rejected that commitment and repudiated that policy.
 
I respect the view of those who say that you can’t have a referendum on a fully-ratified treaty, but I think they’re wrong.  Such a referendum would serve three ends: first we should be keeping our word.  Second, we should put the spotlight on the shocking betrayal of the British people by this Labour government.  But third, and most important, we should give a future Conservative government a rock-solid mandate for renegotiation.
 
Yet if those who argue against such a referendum win the day, we at least have an obligation to give the British people a say in some form, perhaps along the lines proposed recently by David Davis in the Daily Mail.  We have a clear duty to let the British people speak at last on this vexed issue.
 
Our new policy is confused.  We have said that now that the Lisbon Treaty is EU law, we are not in a position to repudiate it.  Yet we have made a series of proposals which repudiate significant parts of it, and run counter to EU law — for example the proposed Sovereignty Bill.  But as we all know, the supremacy of EU Law is explicit in the Lisbon Treaty.  If we accept Lisbon, we accept the supremacy of EU law.
 
A “Referendum Lock” will not work, because we have already thrown away the key.  Our policy fails to recognise the self-amending nature of Lisbon, with its passerelle clauses.  Until now, EU integration has been step-wise, Treaty by Treaty.  Now it will become a continuous process of daily attrition, successive salami slices.  That is, in large part, the main point of Lisbon.  It is designed to eliminate the problems and referenda defeats which successive Treaties have faced, and to provide for integration by stealth.   If we are not prepared to stand and fight on the enormity of the Treaty itself, we will scarcely stand and fight on the subsequent salami slices.
 
What we have is an essentially cosmetic policy.  We are installing a largely ineffective burglar alarm when the family silver has already been stolen.  But the British people don’t want vague promises.  They want the family silver back in good order.
 
I intend to continue to support the Party, and to work for a Conservative victory in 2010, since it is overwhelmingly in the best interests of my constituents, and of the country, to have a Conservative government under David Cameron, rather than the present failing and disastrous Labour administration.
 
But I can neither justify nor support our new EU policy.  In these circumstances, I have concluded that I can no longer continue to serve as a spokesman for the delegation.  I have accordingly resigned both my spokesmanships with immediate effect.
 
So have I given up in despair?  Not yet.  These developments are a set-back, but not yet a death-knell.  For years I have publicly supported the Better Off Out campaign (www.tfa.net/betteroffout), and I will continue to do so.  You can only defy the will of the people for so long, and the longer you do so the angrier they get.  Transnational governments that fail to respect the identity and aspirations of the people cannot survive — consider Yugoslavia, or the USSR.  We have lost the hope of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, but I believe that I shall live to see the day when we have a referendum on EU membership, and Brussels is working hard, if unconsciously, to firm up the OUT vote.  I put my faith in the angry callers of Northamptonshire, and others like them up and down the country.