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16-06-2019, 03:50 PM
1

Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Just read this article in the Sun by Richard Tice, newly appointed MEP for the Brexit Party. It really is an eye-opener for those of us who always assumed this went on, but never could get to see how things operated in that bearpit. Please read below and it will open your eyes why we need to leave - Sharpish!

QUOTE

Eurostar carriages were rammed with politicians enroute to Brussels, as the EU rolled out the red carpet for newly elected MEPs last week.

I was there for just 24 hours, but that was quite enough to get a taste of the extraordinary perks and privileges that go with the job.
I left feeling sick - and more determined than ever to ensure that my time as an MEP for the Brexit Party is short.

The EU is rotten to the core. We HAVE to get out.

After more than 30 years in business, running companies large and small, domestic and multinational, I know what a lean, well-run operation looks like.
I have also seen plenty of waste and extravagance.

This week when I was in the belly of the beast at the EU, none of what I have seen in the corporate world prepared me for the nauseating displays of largesse.
I have read plenty about the EU’s disregard for taxpayers’ money. The armies of mediocre bureaucrats, PR people, lawyers and lobbyists, all getting fat off the oily machine.

I know about the millions squandered on vanity projects, cocktail parties and grants for everything from dog rehabilitation centres to inspiring people to learn languages through “virtual swimming”, I’m not making this up!
It is no secret that the EU is a gravy train, but I assumed whoever runs the place would be smart enough not to make it too obvious.
I was wrong!

Pitching up with my fellow Brexit Party MEPs for our induction day, we were greeted by a posse of butlers in white tie and tails. The ridiculous costumes say it all.
If you look after the pennies, the pounds looks after themselves. The opposite is also true. Multiple small extravagances indicate an organisation in which waste is out of control.
Only last week it was revealed that outgoing leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker will receive a £432,000 golden handshake between them.

Some 30,000 EU staff work at the European Parliament, along with 15,000 lobbyists. That is 40 staff and 20 lobbyists for every MEP. You can only imagine the scale of wining and dining as armies of smooth corporate spinners do what it takes to protect the interests of multinationals.

It is hard to imagine that the needs of British voters are remotely on their radar as they hustle for whatever suits their shareholders. As we continued our tour, there were piles of free chocolates on every surface. Desks that seemed to magically raise or lower themselves at the touch of a button, clean well-painted walls being unnecessarily repainted. To me, all this stinks.

My induction pack included information about the EU’s own travel agency. I was told they could handle all my transportation. Sadly, they only ever book full-price business class seats.

The next surprise was being issued with a free IPad. There is a laptop to follow and two desktop computers - one for me in Brussels and one for Strasbourg. There was also lots of information about the salary - which I will giving to charity - and allowances, as well as a daily signing-on fee of over 300 euros.

An introductory session in a very grand committee chamber was useful but equally depressing. We were told how the place works, as well as who proposes, makes and finalises rules and laws.
The bottom line is that MEPs are just window dressing. Nothing more, nothing less. An inconvenient but necessary doff of the cap towards fig-leaf democracy.
We cannot propose or repeal any laws. We have little, if any, power to change what is proposed by the EU Commission.

As I wandered out of the session, feeling a bit dazed, the icing on the cake was an entire section of the parking lot devoted to chauffeur-driven cars.
Why bother hailing a taxi or calling a Uber when you can hop in a sleek Mercedes and be ferried pretty much where you like?

So, my plan remains the same. I am asking the next Tory leader, whoever it is, to make me redundant as fast as they can. The sooner we leave this grotesque temple of excess, the better.

UNQUOTE.

Oh, how the other half live! I would like to read what Remain supporters think of the above as well as Leavers, I appreciate that many Remainers certainly don’t support excess greed such as the above account, but wonder how you can even support staying with such a vile cesspit of greed, all paid for by the poor EU citizens taxes, while they themselves have known nothing but austerity for the last decade

It reminds me of the sheer avarice that the Romans bestowed upon themselves. An absolute disgrace.
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16-06-2019, 04:05 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Nothing changes on the EU gravy train then
I was reading an account by two new MEP's yesterday of their first taste of Brussels Ben Habib and John Longworth and they said pretty much the same thing....
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16-06-2019, 04:12 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

and another new MEP talking about the excesses in spending....

We were issued with a mind-boggling 110-page booklet “on Members’ financial and social entitlements.” I had to get the finance staff to repeat exactly what the “daily subsistence” meant. Apparently, on top of a hefty salary, you are paid just to turn up to work. Actually, you automatically collect £300 plus if you sign in to the building, which MEPs do regardless of the fact that the Parliament is infrequently in session.

Then there is a general expenditure allowance paid as a lump sum into MEPs’ personal bank accounts on top of our salary, without having to provide any receipts or proof of expenditure. It’s a lavish anti-transparency measure only recently upheld by Eurocrats. The allowances – i.e. extras, bits and bobs – costs £35 million-a-year for 751 MEPs. Do the maths.

Unsurprisingly, the website for UK MEPs seldom mentions these perks. Rather, we read grandiose claims for the importance of the number of committees they sit on, the foreign delegations they join and boasts that “MEPs, as individuals and working in their political groups” are having “a real impact on the drafting and amendment of European legislation.” I suspect that the financial rewards reinforce the sense of one’s own inflated importance.

I officially start as an MEP when the parliament meets in Strasbourg on 2 July. I am still gob-smacked that every month the Brussels machine moves its 751 members and its (our!) 7,500 staff to France at a monthly cost of €114 million. This is an obscene, modern-day Versailles. While I’m going to try and enjoy every moment of what I hope will be a short stay, I will be documenting its real inner workings.

If the EU insist on business class Eurostar, the very least I can do is repay them by writing a regular exposé of its excesses as I travel home. Watch this space.

By Claire Fox, Brexit Party MEP-elect for the North West Region.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/gravy-train-a-...ife-as-an-mep/
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16-06-2019, 04:14 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Thanks Meg, read Ben Habib account but unfortunately not John Longworth,
as he wrote his account of the EU for the Guardian and I would have to subscribe to read the whole article. No thanks, no support for the Guardian from me!
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16-06-2019, 04:17 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

...and after all that the EU parliament does very little and has few powers, they rests with the unelected commissioners....


But in view of the seriousness of the inherently undemocratic structures which govern the EU – and, therefore, the UK – I think it important to focus on a few things about which even eurosceptics may not be fully aware.

First and foremost, the European Parliament is not able to initiate, block or repeal legislation. It may suggest amendments to legislation, but it has no authority to act like a true legislator and its suggested amendments may be ignored. Laws are proposed by the EU Commission, comprising 28 unelected representatives, one from each member state – typically retired politicians or civil servants. The ultimate approval of legislation lies with the Council of the European Union – again, an unelected body of ministers whose voting rights are based on the size and population of the countries they represent.

The Council may block legislation but, since the requirement for unanimity to pass laws has been steadily replaced by qualified majority voting, even this chamber has great difficulty in acting as a check on the Commissioners. Given the power concentrated in the hands of the Commission, it may not surprise you to know that its building in Brussels is by far the largest – out of a series of very large buildings. I used to regard the EU Parliament as merely a talking shop: potentially a voice box for dissenters but with their having no ability to perform any real function. In fact, it is not even a voice box. The Parliament is structured in various groupings and unless a given group can muster a large enough membership its members/leaders get very little airtime.
It is not sufficient that the system is toothless; dissenting voices are, in effect, also muzzled. So what does the Parliament and its members actually do? From what I could assess, as a new boy, close to nothing of substance. It does not even meet on a daily basis as you might expect of a national assembly. It only meets in what it calls “plenary sessions” for a few days a month, mostly in Strasbourg, not Brussels. These sessions create the trappings and appearance of a Parliament in action but the EU Parliament is functionless. This does not stop the parliamentarians from being treated with the greatest of respect by the bureaucrats who support their non-function and provided with generous packages to enable them to “fully” discharge their non-existent duties: offices in their home countries, Brussels and Strasbourg (three offices, in case you lost count); staff in their home countries and Brussels, first-class travel to and from their home countries; a fleet of diplomatic cars to ferry them between the Parliament and the station/airport; and a special travel document which signifies the MEPs’ terrific importance.

It’s a gravy train so well drilled that any mediocre career politician fearful of getting a real job – and for the record I already have a job, having been in business most of my adult life – would fight tooth and nail to retain the EU Parliament. With such largesse, it is not unknown for eurosceptic MEPs to go native. You can, however, rest assured that I shall be doing no such thing!
https://brexitcentral.com/joining-a-...p-to-brussels/
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16-06-2019, 04:18 PM
6

Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Good Lord Meg, what a cesspit. They, along with others such as they, namely the BBC, spending taxpayers money as if it grows on trees, should be closed down as soon as possible. They really are a disgrace.
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16-06-2019, 04:25 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Originally Posted by shropshiregirl ->
Good Lord Meg, what a cesspit. They, along with others such as they, namely the BBC, spending taxpayers money as if it grows on trees, should be closed down as soon as possible. They really are a disgrace.
SG I think a lot of Remain voters must be ill informed or just turn a blind eye to that which really goes on in the EU .

I think sparks will fly from some of the new MEPs when the EU parliament sits for the first time.
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16-06-2019, 04:31 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

Originally Posted by shropshiregirl ->

Some 30,000 EU staff work at the European Parliament, along with 15,000 lobbyists. That is 40 staff and 20 lobbyists for every MEP. You can only imagine the scale of wining and dining as armies of smooth corporate spinners do what it takes to protect the interests of multinationals.
Wow! 30.000 staf on 750 parliamentarians representing 500 milion inhabitants.

Then take the lean machine of the UK. 440.000 civil servants working for 650 parliamentarians representing 50 milion inhabitants.
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16-06-2019, 04:58 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

All this excessive bureaucracy and spending we tolerate just to belong to a club in order to share similar trading tariffs and standards.

The EU has got way out of hand in size and aspirations, many Eurocrats don't want it to change because it is a golden meal ticket for them. The EU is going to get larger too, more excessive spending more madness....
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16-06-2019, 05:05 PM
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Re: Welcome to the Temple of Excess.

What we are hearing from our new MEPs only confirms
what we have always suspected only more so!
But l would like to see a comparision between the costs
of our also over large House of Lords and the costs of
the Eu Commission itself not including the costs of all the
elected MEPs?
But on the face of it what we are hearing is a disgusting
display of self indulgence and disregard of the people of
Europe!

Regards Donkeyman!
 
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