I am appalled by this facebook group which has 228,840 members.  Just search for …It’s funny how our flag offends you but our benefits don’t!!!… and get as angry as I am.

I am an Austrian living in London. I will support England in this World Cup as I have supported England in 2006. However, with co-fans like these I have to seriously consider. I look forward to Londoners from where ever they are originally (USA, Germany, Portugal, South Africa, Italy, France, Brazil, Ghana,….) to support their teams, wave their flags and sing their songs and so should the English where ever they are in the world during the world cup. Let’s be proud of exceptional players which ever country they are from. Let’s celebrate teams that work well together. Celebrate excellence in the game. But let’s promise us one thing: Don’t let the racists, the xenophobes and the bigots of this world divide us and pitch us against each other. Don’t let them spoil our World Cup!

This facebook group links to the website of the FA (http://www.thefa.com/england)

The FA should distance itself immediately from this website.

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On Saturday April 24th the Labour Movement for Europe together with the UK Branches of PES sister parties (German SPD, French & Portuguese Socialists, to name but a few) & Labour Friends of Italy are going to Poplar & Limehouse to campaign and help re-elect Jim Fitzpartick MP.

With so many undecided voters that close to the elections, every door knocked, every letter delivered, every hand shook and every conversation had can make all the difference especially in three-way marginals.

Jim faces a double euro-sceptic threat in his constituency. George Galloway’s Respect Party seems to think of Europe as an irrelevance. They didn’t even field candidates in the European Elections last year. The real threat, however, is that the euro-ignorant Respect party wins enough Read the rest of this entry »

Please forward this message to all progressive non-British EU-citizens you know who live in the UK.

Non-British EU-citizens living in the UK can not vote in General Elections yet their outcome will have an impact on their lives. Take a long hard look at the Tories and be afraid, be very afraid , or do something about it. Support Labour in any way you can – it matters!

If you live in London you can register to vote in the upcoming Council Elections. The registration deadline is April 20. http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/

Lord Ashcroft, who until recently kept his tax status secret, has put millions of pounds (some of the money he avoided paying in tax in the UK) into key marginal seats to support Conservative Candidates. This new group of Tories is particularly euro-sceptic (according to polling by Conservative Home, the conservative’s own online community website).

Help Labour level the playing field in some of the key marginals – we need your support!

And please continue reading to see why this matters so much.

In the European Parliament the Tories have left the mainstream centre-right parties which form the EPP (European People’s Party). After the 2009 European elections they formed a new group, called the European Conservatives and Reformists ECR. Their new allies are now parties on the extreme right. As Leader of this ECR group, the Tories helped to elect Michael Kaminski, who has ben accused of homophobia and anti-semitism and of having been a member of a neo-Nazi skinhead group in Poland in the past. Their Latvian partner party supports annual marches for SS veterans. The kind of partners they have chosen to ally themselves with in Europe, tells us what kind of party the Conservatives still are.

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

Tory MEPs consistently vote against equality and anti-discrimination legislation and motions :

• On 10 February 2010 most Tory MEPs voted against or abstained on 7 measures in an report on equality for women, including measures for equal pay for women.
• On the same day not a single Tory MEP voted to support a motion calling on Croatia to crack down on homophobic attacks in the country. 16 abstained and one even voted against.
• On 25 February 2010 the European Parliament debated a resolution about signing the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. 22 Tory MEPs voted against, and the other 3 abstained.
• In 2006 Tory MEPs voted against a report on combating violence against women, including provisions criminalising rape in marriage and female genital mutilation. Even last year they abstained on a call for EU member states to increase protection for women against violence

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

The Tories haven’t supported family friendly policies either. Tory MEPs did not back EU employment guidelines that included targets for flexible working and access to childcare. They opposed calls for EU-wide rights to paternity leave and have twice opposed proposals to link maternity and paternity leave so that fathers can also take time off.

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

And we all know about the mad comments of Daniel Hannan, although he is not alone in his outrageous views:

• Daniel Hannan on the NHS – “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.” “We have lived through this mistake for 60 years.” “It’s made people iller.”
• Roger Helmer, Tory MEP, on the NHS – “If the Americans came to me and said, ‘Would you recommend us taking up a system just like the British NHS?’, I think I would have to say ‘No’.”

• Roger Helmer MEP on climate change – “This whole issue has got completely out of hand. It has become a new religion. You have to believe it. If you do not believe it, you are a heretic. They would like to burn us at the stake – using recycled faggots!” “It is not the planet that is in danger. It is freedom… Don’t worry about global warming – it’s a myth.”

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

George Osborne called for a crackdown on tax-dodging, but Tory MEPs voted this year against proposals supporting the automatic exchange of information to crack down on those seeking to dodge taxes by hiding their money across borders.

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

What’s really worrying is that the Conservatives are so blinkered by their ideological euro-scepticism that they would veto, vote against and opt out of measures that would actually be of benefit to British people. One example: There is a whole host of Justice and Home Affairs measures designed to combat organised cross border crime and to make everybody in Europe safer. These measures will require the opt-in of the next UK Government. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the party of law and order would refuse to opt in because their euro-sceptic ideology dictates that Justice and Home Affairs are matters for member-states only?

Don’t let the Tories get away with it.

Given the recent Chris Grayling faux-pas one must wonder how gay friendly the Tories have become and how far they still have to go on this. Be that as it may, let’s take Cameron by his own word. Challenged in a recent interview by the Gay Times why no Tory MEP supported a motion in the European Parliament criticising Lithuania’s ‘Section 28′, Cameron let the cat out of the bag. As long as parties agree with the Tories on their Euro-scepticism all other considerations seem to become secondary.

Don’t let Cameron get away with it. Help level the playing field in some of the key marginals.

This is a transcript of part of Cameron’s answer. “…Uh, and generally, just looking at the the whole issue of European alliances which all this is, is getting to, you know the reason for having alliances, and of leaving the EEP and joining and forming this new party, is not because we, ah, approve of every dot and comma of the social policies of these parties. It’s about Europe, this alliance, not about social policy. It’s an alliance about parties that want a more flexible, more open Europe uh rather than Europe as a super state. And of course we would never ally, um, with parties who we thought, you know, who, who’s views stepped, um, beyond the pale. …”

And you can find a full transcript as well as a link to the video on

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/03/david_cameron_o

Please forward this message to all progressive non-British EU-citizens you know who live in the UK.

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Link up with us on facebook http://tinyurl.com/yake2nh (group) & http://tinyurl.com/ya9vgkx (fan page)

The Labour Movement for Europe, Labour Friends of Italy and PES Sister Party UK branches invite you for a European day of campaigning in Tooting, for the re-election of the local MP Sadiq Khan, on Saturday the 10th of April.

In his invitation letter, Sadiq writes:
“I have always been a firm believer in an open, more progressive Europe.
Only through working together can we advance to a more fair and just Europe for all.

Unfortunately, the Conservative Party does not – they believe in isolating themselves from the rest of Europe, and, to add insult to injury, they have aligned themselves with the European Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament.

Mark Clarke, my Conservative opponent, is the Director of Outreach at the Young Britons’ Foundation – the right-wing training ground for Tory activists.

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When David Miliband gave the keynote speech to the Fabian Conference “The Global Change we Need” in London on 7 November 2009 he mentioned two things in the Q&A session. Firstly he said that the nation state remained the repository of democratic legitimacy. Secondly, he said that the EU institutions need to become more transparent in order for more people to connect with it better and easier.

While Miliband did not connect those two statements I asked myself whether their combination might not form the core of an interesting argument.

After all, the Council of the European Union, which is the place where government minister from all EU member states come together to (co-)determine EU policy, is the least transparent of the EU institutions. Their negotiations determine at least as much, if not more, of European policy and regulation than the work of the European Parliament or the Commission, which is where most of the public expect the power to lie.

Member state governments like to underplay their work in the forum of the Council of the EU in their national discourse at home. If something the public and media will see as positive arises from the Council’s work, most governments will sell this as their individual success at home. If something the public and media at home will be critical about comes out of the Council’s negotiation, most governments downplay their involvement in negotiations and blame an anonymous EU.

It is unrealistic to think any country can effectively retreat from global or trans-national governance structures, especially in the light of the increasing global nature of many of the challenges we face such as environmental, financial, economic and social issues.

Global or macro regional governance structures derive their democratic legitimacy via directly elected national parliaments and governments. These are again influenced by the media and civil society, which come together in a nation’s overall public discourse. Why it should not be possible to make better use of a pan-European public discourse, and engage the public more on a European level is beyond me. Especially now as the EU’s democratic legitimacy has been improved through the strengthening of the role of the directly elected European Parliament in the Treaty of Lisbon. However, there would be some mileage in improving the quality of the 27 national conversations about the EU by opening up Council deliberations and votes and with it member state governments as actors within to better scrutiny by their domestic media, civil society and electorates.

We will have to seriously think about how we can increase the democratic legitimacy of global policy making. To start with, we should look at how our own national governments’ work in the Council of the EU can become more transparent, so governments have to take more responsibility for their very direct input into the shaping of European policy and regulation. The EU is not as anonymous a body as the media, some politicians and europhobes want to make us think. The EU is shaped by member-state governments from within, which have to become transparent about their input, just as much as they have to take more responsibility for explaining compromise decisions within the Council to their national ‘home constituencies’, something they have been shying away from so far.

Maybe a citizens initiative for greater transparency of the Council would not be such a bad idea.