Jonathan Tells Us Just How Depressing It All Is In Strasbourg.

Welcome the latest edition of your MEP newsletter, bringing you updates from the European Parliament and beyond.

The European Parliament is a depressing place. It's not so much the buildings themselves, or this week the city of Strasbourg, which is lovely.  But it is the feeling of inevitability. The European Union has a core principle of 'ever closer union'. Once power has been given from a nation state to the European Union, that power is never returned. And so we vote, hundreds of times each Strasbourg week, on reports, regulations, directives and amendments to them. This week I'm pretty sure the whole number topped a thousand; we voted over 600 times on Wednesday alone. The picture shows all of the pages of our voting lists for three days in Strasbourg. Each page will have a number of votes, and we go through them voting line by line.  We had resubmitted all of our amendments to the EU budget; they were once again voted down just like they had been in Committee before. We watched, helpless, voting against every proposed increase to the budget - and by the time Wednesday was over, the Parliament had requested another €4 billion of taxpayers' money for next year. Almost all of the budget increases were supported by Labour.
To be able to remember all of the votes would require a phenomenal feat of memory. I find the whole thing somewhat disturbing: if we're voting so many times, how can each decision receive the proper scrutiny that it deserves? The answer is that it can't. One debate covers many votes, and it's impossible to give more than the most cursory of overviews in a 1 or 2 minute speech.
Amidst this chaos, there was an allegation against Marine Le Pen (Front National, France).  Apparently one of her colleagues was voting on her behalf whilst she was out of the room.  I can only summarise the chaos in the chamber.  The MEP who called for an investigation stood up the next day to announce its results, another MEP walked across the chamber to raise a mobile phone to take a picture of Marine Le Pen. The leader of one of the political groups, who will be amongst those to decide what further action should be taken, launched into a tirade. I believe that everyone - even Marine Le Pen - deserves a right to a 'fair trial'.  Whoever did wrong should face the appropriate consequences.  As a democrat I'm appalled at the idea that this kind of 'ghost voting' was going on. I'm also appalled at the European Parliament's utter disregard for due process.
A vote took place - which I assume will be the final vote - on mobile phone roaming charges. Amazingly the media seem to have allowed the pro-EU line that abolishing these will 'save us money when we go abroad' to go unchallenged. It's self-evident nonsense, and my Journal article this week dissects that argument carefully. If you only look at one thing from this newsletter, please make sure it's this. Also, If you're wondering why I've only asked 5 Parliamentary questions in October, that's because we now have a monthly limit.  We're not allowed to ask more than 5 questions a month.  I tried to make up for it with speeches!