Paul Nuttall MEP (UK Independence Party)

Date published: 03 March 2010

As this is my first contribution to Ask Bury, please allow me to be blunt and tell you some home truths. What I tell you might shock you, it will probably anger many, and some of you might not like it, but I am going to do it any way.

I will start by saying that being an MEP is quite different than an MP. Many people get confused and think they are similar roles, or even that they are one and the same. Whereas MPs sit in Westminster, the ‘Mother of Parliament’s’, we have to make do with two modern, grey and soulless buildings: one the outskirts of Brussels and the other in the suburbs of Strasbourg. The cost of having two parliaments is estimated to be around £300 million per annum, which I am sure you will agree, is nonsensical.

Unlike an MP, who represents a parliamentary constituency of around forty thousand people, an MEP represents a ‘region.’ I represent the North West region, which is huge. It consists of over three million people, seventy-five parliamentary constituencies and stretches from as far north as the Scottish border to as far south as Crewe. Of course the North West is an artificial construct and the problems in somewhere like Liverpool have nothing in common with issues in Windermere, but like the late, great Tony Wilson, I like to refer to it as ‘Granadaland.’

The sheer size of the region is one of the reasons why nobody has a clue who their MEPs are or what they do. Therefore, rather than sitting on my backside in Brussels on useless ‘committees’, eating croissants and claiming the ‘healthy’ daily allowance, I have decided to get around the region and hold a surgery in each of the seventy-five parliamentary constituencies that I represent. It will be a tough task, but it is one that I am determined to complete.

Moreover, unlike MPs, who have real power, MEPs do not, regardless of what my colleagues from the other political parties tell you. It’s all bluff. For example, MEPs cannot initiate legislation like MPs and our speaking time in the sham European Parliament is usually confined to one minute. If ‘the powers that be’ like what you are saying they may allow you to speak for another thirty seconds, but if they do not, which is usually the case when I speak, they turn off the microphone so I cannot be heard. Democracy is truly wonderful in the European Parliament.

The MEPs also go on junkets all over the world and hob-nob with dignitaries far and wide, but it means nothing. It’s all ‘smoke and mirrors’, designed to give the pretence that they are important when they are not, and all done at the taxpayers expense. I do not go on these ‘fact-finding’ missions for I do not have delusions of grandeur and nor would I milk you, the taxpayer, like a golden cow. It is my small contribution to reduce the £45 million per day the British taxpayer gives the European Union.

If I had power to influence and change things, then I would consider going about my work differently, but the real decisions in the European Union are not taken in the European Parliament, they are taken about one mile up the road at the European Commission. In the imposing Berlaymont building, where the European Commission reside, twenty-seven unelected commissioners meet in secret, take advice from unelected ‘working groups’ and hand down legislation to the European Parliament to ratify. Think about it: around 80% of the laws of our country are initiated in a foreign country by people you never elected. Now ask yourself: how can this be right?

I work night and day in the North West ‘region’ attempting to drive public opinion against the European Union, and judging by the turnouts at our public meetings, it seems to be working. I am also working everyday for my P.45, for I do not want to be an MEP, I want Britain out of the European Union, and I want to save you, the taxpayer, a shed-load of money in the meantime.