Luke ming flanagan · @lukeming
21st Mar 2014 from TweetCaster
I have made the decision to contest the European Election Constituency of Midlands North West. I am doing so because I believe Ireland needs to elect people to the European Parliament that carry with them the message that we have gone too far with this 'European project'. I also, if elected, plan to build on that potential voter base and to create a political environment whereby we could see another 10 independents elected from this region to Dáil Éireann in the spring of 2016.
I am in favour of Ireland being part of a European Community. This is what we joined in 1973. A block of nations looking to enhance their ability to trade with each other. However we are now no longer a member of a community, we are a member of a Union. A Union which kicked us when we were down. A Union that took the side of the bond holders and left us with a bill of €70billion. We need the EU to go back to being a community. It must be a community which puts people before bankers. A Community which foots the bill for the calamitous mistake that the project of monetary union has been. A community which treats small nations equally. Certainly not a community led by the leaders of Germany and France as is currently happening.
We need to build a coalition of peoples from across Europe who see through the Eurozone project for what it is. It is a project,if taken to its logical conclusion, which will wipe out any meaningful capacity for individual countries to exercise sovereignty over their affairs. Full fiscal Union is the only way for the Euro to work and we are already well down that road with the European semester, two pack and six pack. We heard rejoicing from this government on supposedly regaining our sovereignty. The truth is we are now on a road to giving it up for ever. I believe the future of Ireland and Europe is best served without the Euro currency. The only country that it currently serves is Germany and one country is not Europe.
We constantly hear how the EU has been of financial benefit to Ireland. The evidence does not exist to back this up. Europhiles tell us how we have gained massively through cohesion funds aswell as farmers gaining from the Common Agricultural Policy. In total we have received €72 billion & we have given €31billion. We have however contributed fish stocks with an estimated commercial value of €201 Billion while only receiving €17 billion in return. When one includes the massive debt imposed on us by the Eurozone banking system we are actually at a loss of €213 billion or in other words €46,000 for every man woman a child in this country.
The funding we have actually received has come with many strings attached. Farmers have now as a result of various directives from Europe been severely restricted in how they can use their land. Even to the point of digging a drain or putting up a fence. If they resist these rules they are threatened with having their grants cut off. Since Ireland joined up with Europe in 1973 the numbers of farmers under 35 has gone from 29% down to 6%. There are now more farmers over 80 than under 35. Anyone who thinks this is a success should think again.
The European project was meant to benefit people when it came to dealing with unemployment. We were told during the debate on the Lisbon treaty that a yes vote would create jobs. Well the opposite is the case. Youth unemployment is now at an all time high across Europe. People are leaving this country in their droves. The promise of a more integrated Europe bringing more jobs has proven to be a fallacy.
The mess that EU beurocracy has made of our lives is finally dawning on people. Opinion polls show that trust in the Union is spiralling downwards. In an attempt to reverse this trend the public are now being treated to an EU re-education programme funded by the public! Last year we had the then European Minister Lucinda Creighton on tour around the country telling us all that we would be paupers but for the wonderful EU. We also have the 'blue star' programme running in some schools with plans for expansion. Here schools are rewarded for taking part in the European Movement education programme. In fact in the European People's Parties election manifesto, of which Fine Gael are a member, it says we need “EU education in schools across Europe in order to prepare the next generation for future challenges and to nurture a European approach”. Such education would be used to counteract "ignorance" and growing public Euro-scepticism. If the European Union was of such benefit to ordinary people then it would not need to waste resources on brain washing them into believing it.
Over the next eight weeks I look forward to debating the issue of our relationship with Europe. I hope to convince people that Ireland is capable of standing on its own two feet and to get the message out there that we are the givers rather than the takers.