Looks like Dave has told Dan Hannan, MEP for Iceland, to keep as far away from the next election as possible.

Awr, how much damage can he do from way over in Belgium? Unless they’re debating new healthcare reforms, and need to be warned off a few alternatives…

So he’s moving to Brussels? He’s an MEP. 75% of the EuroParl’s session time is spent here.

Surely it’s no different to MPs moving to London (even SNP / Plaid Cymru ones)?

Oh, but it’s the evil baby-eating Dan Hannan. OK then, fire away.

For what feels like the millionth time, you do realise that there’s a difference between the European Union and the Continent of Europe?

And what’s with skeptic? Isn’t it unpatriotic to prefer American ways of doing things?

A very juvenile post even by youy standards. By definition “up to” 84% of laws must come from Europe. But, over and above your usual inexactitude, it is simply foolish to deny the central point of where economic and political control is headed.

Furthermore, whether or not Hannan is moving for business or pleasure, there is a clear difference between being a Euro-phile and a EU-phile. I for one am the former and most definitely not the latter. It might be an enlightening experience for you to turn your brain on for once and stop portraying anyone who disagrees with you as some extremist or hypocrite…

it is simply foolish to deny the central point of where economic and political control is headed.

No actually it’s a matter for the record. I could declare ‘up to a 100% of our laws come from the United States President’ and by your logic that would still be correct.

you do realise that there’s a difference between the European Union and the Continent of Europe?

Yes. But one would think Hannan would not want to live in a place where even more of the laws were dictated by the EU. No?

By definition “up to” 84% of laws must come from Europe.

By definition, up to 100% of the things you say are mindless right-wing bullshit. .

That isn’t making any particular claim about the actual proportion of the things that you say that are mindless rightwing bullshit. However, the only reason anyone would make that claim would be to plant the idea in their audience’s heads that the *actual* figure is 100% too.

But, over and above your usual inexactitude, it is simply foolish to deny the central point of where economic and political control is headed.

Which is Westminster, not Brussels; the claim otherwise actually is mindless right-wing bullshit. Nosemonkey, who knows more about the EU than you, has the actual data on percentages.

That Hannan has taken his family to Brussels, while working hard to deny that freedom of movement to me and my family highlights just what a nasty hypocritical scumbag he is. You’re right to point it out, it tells us something very important about the man.

I could declare ‘up to a 100% of our laws come from the United States President’ and by your logic that would still be correct.

‘A 100%’ can never be correct…

I don’t agree with the whole basis of this argument though. I’d love to go and live in Italy, but I certainly don’t approve of Italian governance. Even for MEPs there are more important things in life than politics.

while working hard to deny that freedom of movement to me and my family

Can you back that up at all? I seriously doubt that he is against freedom of movement within the EU.

Has a memo gone round saying ‘defend Dan Hannan on LibCon and win free icecream’ or what?

Isn’t healthcare part-private in Belgium, I suppose he’ll be campaigning for it to go the whole hog while he’s there?

Difficult one to call, the fact Hannan’s representing the UK in some capacity is terrible. The fact that he’s moved further away from me is great.

Can you back that up at all? I seriously doubt that he is against freedom of movement within the EU.

He is, however, opposed to UK membership of the EU. Outside magic-pony-Europhobia-land, that would mean that UK nationals were denied freedom of movement within the EU.

13 – Damn those pesky voters eh?

14 – What, like the Swiss? And the Norwegians? And Iceland? And Liechtenstein?

Has a memo gone round saying ‘defend Dan Hannan on LibCon and win free icecream’ or what?

He’s the poster-boy. Without him they’re stuck with Cameron. So it’s obligatory, see?

@15 – or like Belarus?

He is, however, opposed to UK membership of the EU. Outside magic-pony-Europhobia-land, that would mean that UK nationals were denied freedom of movement within the EU.

I guess citizens of Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland are inhabitants of this magic place too, seeing as their countries are not in the EU despite their having freedom of movement within it.

MEP Nirj Deva did an in-depth study on the number of laws made in Brussels – of which this table forms a small part.

What’s more, the number of laws originating in Britain will decline each year. Lisbon Treaty ratification will accelerate this process. Something Liberals don’t seem to mind or conveniently forget.

Dan has stated on many occasions that he loves Brussels. Since he spends so much time there, it makes sense to move there!

@18 – but what about the citizens of Ukraine or Moldova or Albania or…

20 – And do you consider Britain to be closer, economically and politically, to Switzerland and Norway or to Moldova and Belarus? The fact that there are countries in Europe that do not have a bi-lateral right to freedom of movement in the European Union does not affect the fact that there are other countries that do.

@15,18 what Neil said. Hannan claims we can pull out of the EU and suddenly be treated as well as the Swiss. But he’s based this on, erm, nothing.

@19 unfortunately he’s an idiot talking lies, as Nosemonkey’s *actual data* linked above makes clear.

22 – but Neil’s saying that if Britain pulls out of the EU we’d be treated like the former members of the USSR (one of which currently has freedom of movement within Russia incidentally, just to shopw that, hey! bi-lateral treaties do exist) rather than like Western European nations. And he’s basing that on nothing as well.

“Do you consider Britain to be closer, economically and politically, to Switzerland and Norway or to Moldova and Belarus?”

Well if I were to believe half the bullshit and trash-talk you Tories have come out with recently, I’d have to answer ‘Moldova and Belarus’ – so bang goes our right to free movement within the EU.

The thing about the 84% (or 75%, or 9%) claims is that they don’t take into account the context of the laws that are passed in terms of how they affect daily life. As Hannan pointed out on that newsnight segment, three examples of laws with an EU base are weekly v fortnightly bin collection (to which Caroline Flint pulled a smug “you’re wrong” grin and was about to speak out until Dan pointed out this was part of EU land-fill directive, at which point she eased back into her seat), HIPs and compulsory child seats in cars.

It’s all about the quality of the laws that are brought in and the general feeling seems to be that the the majority of EU laws are petty, bureaucratic and invade too much on people’s freedoms. Thus it doesn’t actually matter whether the EU gives us 9%, 50% or 84% of laws, it FEELS as though we get too many laws from them that we don’t want. The conclusion then becomes we have too many EU laws, regardless of what the actual number is.

Shorter #25: It’s okay to fabricate figures as long as it FEELS right.

“Shorter #25: It’s okay to fabricate figures as long as it FEELS right.”

No, the point is we should be focussing on the impact of those laws on “ordinary people” rather than arguing how many there are,

Up to 84% of “ordinary people” don’t mind them a bit.

See what I did there?

@25, fortnightly collections have absolutely nothing to do with the EU Landfill Directive. Anyone who says that they do is lying: it would be entirely consistent with the Landfill Directive to have daily, or even hourly, rubbish collections.

The “HIPS=EU” thing is also largely made up, although that one was at least partly by the government. The EU legislation said that if you’re selling a house that hasn’t had an energy efficiency assessment in the last 10 years, you need to get one done before the transaction is complete. This isn’t a terrible thing.

The requirement to do the whole HIP process (rather than just the energy certificate, which doesn’t cost more than £100 elsewhere), pre-sale, every time you put a house on the market, was all HMG.

So in some ways, 25 and 27 are right, just not in the way they believe they are: the negative impact of EU laws on ‘ordinary people’ is negligible, just like the number of laws – but due to the lies of politicians on both sides, ‘ordinary people’ believe both that the EU mandates a lots of laws, and that they do a lot of harm.

(and opposing child car seats? WTF? OMG evil EU stopping me from killing my kids, I demand the right to drive at 140mph without them wearing a seatbelt.)

You mention the Hannan twat and his bitches descend on the thread like hairy harpies to protect his honour.

FACT CHECK:

He has none.

EPIC DALE!

And privatizing the post office, for what its worth.

@25, fortnightly collections have absolutely nothing to do with the EU Landfill Directive. Anyone who says that they do is lying: it would be entirely consistent with the Landfill Directive to have daily, or even hourly, rubbish collections.

Up to a point. The Landfill Directive sets extemely stringent requirements on cutting biodegradable municpal waste (targeted at 35% of 1995 levels by 2020). It is recognised that one of the primary sources of this is household waste. One strategy to minimise this is to reduce rubbish collections to fortnightly to persuade residents to recycle their biodegradable rubbish rather than throw it away.

In other words, the driving force behind fortnightly waste collections is the Landfill Directive, even though there is nothing in the Directive that mandates them.

@31, yup, privatising the Post Office is another one that has nothing to do with the EU, but people lie that it is.

@32, if the EU mandated reductions in density of housing occupation, and British local politicians decided to implement these reductions primarily through a strategy of killing all firstborn children, then under your logic the driving force behind the slaughter of the firstborn would be the EU. I don’t think that’s especially fair.

33 – I think that’s a pretty ludicrous analogy really. The Landfill Directive requires cuts in municipal waste that can only be achieved by very large reductions in household biodegradable waste. The most obvious way of doing this is through reducing the frequency of waste collection.

The Directive requires the end, the Councils are forced to work out the means. Saying that there is a causal relationship between the two is little more than a statement of the obvious.

None of this, incidentally, is about whether the Directive (or fortnightly collections) are a good or bad thing. Only why they are related.

johnb, you say

fortnightly collections have absolutely nothing to do with the EU Landfill Directive.

You are talking utter bollocks. And I say that as the person who, as executive councillor for environmental services, was responsible for introducing fortnightly (or rather alternate weekly) collections in Cambridge.

It works like this:

The EU Landfill Directive says we have to put a lot less waste into landfill. With very heavy fines if we don’t.

This led the government to impose various (increasing) targets for recycling on local authorities, as well as charges for disposing of waste at landfill sites.

Therefore local authorities have to recycle as much as they can, and to generate as little landfill waste as possible.

One crucial element of this is reducing the capacity of households to put waste into landfill. This encourages them to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste.

A proven, cost-effective way of doing this – in fact, the only proven, cost-effective way of doing this – is to collect general refuse bins less frequently.

Hence, fortnightly collections.

The Landfill Directive may not say “thou shalt collect fortnightly”, but there is a direct causal chain between one and the other.

As it happens, the ruling Liberal Democrat group in Cambridge was, and remains, very keen on increasing recycling, is proud of its achievements in that regard, and certainly didn’t need an EU directive to make recycling a political priority. But even if this had not been the case, we would still have had to introduce fortnightly collections.

“See what I did there?”

Yes you completely missed the point.

Well I apologise, oh Master of The Point.

@35 Iain Coleman Thanks for that explanation of your local policy (I am not taking the mickey). A few questions.

What provision is made for dwellings of multiple occupation and high density buildings? What about people who don’t have a garden that requires a compost bin? Are there problems (eg rats) associated with people attempting to compost inappropriate waste? Do you actively collect collect compostable waste from those who have no use for it?

Further, what are your requirements for household sorting of waste? Do you have discrete collections for each recyclable waste, or do you sift some recyclables from the landfill? Does the same waste collection policy apply to commercial organisations and householders?

“And I say that as the person who, as executive councillor for environmental services, was responsible for introducing fortnightly (or rather alternate weekly) collections in Cambridge.” Sorry, Iain, but the expression “alternate weekly” is just doublespeak. If you mean collection every 14 or so days, say it in plain speak as you did in later paragraphs.

The point being that if Hannan thinks that the EU makes up most of British laws, then presumably they make most of the laws of Brussels too. No doubt, the Belgians are forced to comply with the European laws that he has an absolute loathing of in this Country. They must adhere to the Working time directive, the landfill regulations and are part of the Euro too. Things that he opposes for this Country.

A quick glance tells me that the railways are owned by the state, not only that, Belgium has one of the highest income taxes in the Europe! Pretty odd choice for a Liberation Tory to live in, I would have thought

I bumped into a very well read chap at the weekend who described himself as Con/UKIP and was particularly peeved about the way that the left conflates dislike for the EU with dislike for Europe or Europeans. Well done, you’ve ticked off another stereotype.

The only thing that surprises me about this story is that he doesn’t live there already. I should have thought that most MEPs who wish to be effective would live in Brussels.

1. He did tell his readers, yonks ago. Do keep up.

2. He doesn’t hate Europe. He dislikes the encroaching European supra-state. So do a lot of Europeans in many countries.

That is all.

Coming up tomorrow – Sunny Hundal publishes a piece that claims Dan Hannan eats babies for breakfast.

‘@32, if the EU mandated reductions in density of housing occupation, and British local politicians decided to implement these reductions primarily through a strategy of killing all firstborn children, then under your logic the driving force behind the slaughter of the firstborn would be the EU. I don’t think that’s especially fair.’

You don’t need to slaughter the first born, just reduce the refuse collections to fortnightly, encourage people to recycle their organic waste in their own back gardens, and let the ensuing plague of rats thin out the infant population for you.

@38 Charlieman

I’ll answer your points in a somewhat sketchy fashion – if you want the full details I’ll have to refer you to the Cambridge City Council website. Also, please note that for me this is all past tense: I am no longer in that office, or indeed that city.

Large households were provided with a second bin, doubling their waste disposal capacity. These second bins had a different coloured lid, which allowed bin collectors to distinguish households who had been supplied with a second bin due to genuine need from any that had obtained a spare standard bin and were just taking the piss. High density housing (i.e. flats) was dealt with on a case-by-case basis: where they had communal waste disposal facilities, of course alternate weekly collections were not a realistic option due to the free-rider problem, but other measures were taken to encourage recycling and reduce landfill.

Households had a choice of a green bin for compostable waste, or a supply of brown paper sacks for compostable waste. Many households with small or non-existent gardens preferred the bags.

There were no rat problems associated with people trying to compost inappropriate waste.

Do you actively collect collect compostable waste from those who have no use for it? We collected compostable waste in green bins or brown sacks from all households. We also offered compost bins to residents who wanted them.

On household sorting: there were four waste streams – a green bin (or brown sack) for compostable waste, a blue box for plastics, a black box for dry recylates (paper, cans, tin foil and so on) and a black bin for landfill.

The system for commercial premises is quite separate from that for domestic householders. This is government policy.

“Alternate weekly” is not doublespeak. Our system was to collect the black bin (landfill) and the black box (dry recyclate) on one week, and the green bin (compostable waste) and blue box (plastics) on the following week. Hence, alternate weekly. An important point is that the waste that residents were most concerned about leaving in a bin for a fortnight (kitchen waste, especially meat, fish and bones) could be taken in either the black bin or the green bin, and could therefore be collected on a weekly basis. So the distinction between “alternate weekly” and “fortnightly” is meaningful.

@29 johnb

Note that at no point am I saying that the rules are necessarily wrong or right (although I do feel that I should be allowed to decide for myself whether to put my child in a child seat rather than have the ruling come from the EU, but that’s a libertarian point for a another day).

But why must these laws be decided by people that nobody voted for? The European Commissioners are not democratically accountable. Why are people who we have no say over allowed to dictate laws to us, regardless of whether they are a good law or not?

My god, they’re all here. The last time I saw such a huge number of devoted fans queueing up to defend their idol was when that rumour went round about Lady GaGa having a cock.

Also amusing how, directly after Jim pointed out Belgium is a “pretty odd choice for a Liberation Tory”, someone called ‘praguetory’ rocks up…

Britain could leave the EU and retain free trade and free movement with EU countries, if we joined the European Economic Area and EFTA.

That would involve a commitment to adopt laws and regulations made by the EU with regard to the single market, (first pillar issues – which include consumer protection, social policy, company law and environmental protection) and making financial contributions to the EU.
http://www.efta.int/content/eea/eu-programmes/application-finance/contributions

We would have less voice in shaping those laws by which we would have to choose to be bound to maintain market accesss, a lower financial contribution overall, and no access to EU programme funds.

This is the real world Eurosceptic project. it is difficult to see that it deals enormously with the laws made in Brussels issue – fewer issues are covered, but we lose influence in those that are. But only the most fringe of Eurosceptics want to trade off the market access.

I think it is important for the political project of Euroscepticism that we stay in – giving them an emotive issue to rail against, and so a significant voice and representation in our debates about the EU. How they would be disappointed were they ever to be actually negotiating our exit.

The Brussels food and wine is good, some say it is better than Paris: all those expenses accounts.The countrysode of Wallonia is beautiful.

Just a quick note on the free movement of people issue, @15.

The reason people from Norway, Iceland and Switzerland have free movement within the EU is because they have signed up to the Schengen Agreement (Switzerland doing so following a referendum last year or so). Liechetenstein is currently a partial member, having signed an agreement with the other members (via the EU, effectively acting as broker) back in 2008, and will only become a full member later this year.

Britain, despite being a member of the EU, has not signed up to the Schengen Agreement – in the process also preventing Ireland from joining due to the pre-existing Common Travel Area that allows passport-free travel between Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

The reason Britain hasn’t signed up? Because successive British governments have, since Schengen came into force in the mid-80s, felt that the idea of passport-free immigration from the rest of Europe would be an electoral liability. On which matter they’re probably entirely correct.

I somehow doubt that, were the British people to vote to leave the EU, joining Schengen and allowing unlimited passport-free migration within the Schengen Zone would be any more popular than EU membership.

Both moves would no doubt necessitate holding referenda – voting to leave the EU (and thus losing any say in how EU regulations are drafted, even though – like Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein plus all the rest – we’d have to abide by those regulations if we want to continue to trade with EU countries) while simultaneously voting to join Schengen (thus losing control of our borders) strikes me both as very silly and highly unlikely.

and thus losing any say in how EU regulations are drafted, even though – like Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein plus all the rest – we’d have to abide by those regulations if we want to continue to trade with EU countries

Just like we have to abide by US regulations if we want to continue to trade with them. Or indeed any other country with which we trade.

Tim @50 – well obviously. But whereas over 50% of our exports go to EU countries, just 14% go to the US.

I doubt there’d be many people in many governments who wouldn’t mind to have a bit of say in how their trading partners do business, if only they had the option. In fact, I know there aren’t – hence the existence of the World Trade Organisation.

We’re in the lucky position of having the ability to directly influence the trade policies of a significant proportion of our trading partners – surely that’d be a bit silly to give up?

@50: And that’s supposed to *support* the assertion that freedom of movement wouldn’t be affected, is it?

whereas over 50% of our exports go to EU countries,

Where does this figure come from incidentally? It’s notoriously hard to calculate the proportion of our trade with the EU, largely because of the Rotterdam – Antwerp effect. Does it, for example, include export of services – which is by far the largest section of the British economy – or is it restricted to goods?

Tim @53 – Well, I’m using the CIA World Factbook, where it gives the following as the UK’s main export partners:

US 14.2%, Germany 11.1%, France 8.1%, Ireland 8%, Netherlands 6.8%, Belgium 5.3%, Spain 4.5%, Italy 4.1%

Add the figures for Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy together, that comes to 47.9%. I’m fairly certain that the other 19 EU member states can account for more than 2.1% between them.

(Trust me – I do know my stuff on this one…)

@35, several other European countries meet the requirements of the Directive without going down the fortnightly-collections-of-general-waste route. I’m not a waste expert, so I’m not sure how they do this – my guess would be ‘by making recycling easier and educating people more about it, rather than just making non-recycling harder’, but that is just a guess.

@50, but you’re not proposing entering a trading bloc with the US where one of the conditions for membership is that *all UK technical standards and regulations are identical to US technical standards and regulations*. Whereas that is a condition of EFTA membership, even for goods & services that aren’t traded internationally.

We can *either* have freedom of movement within EFTA countries, whether as a EU member or an EFTA member (*if* we’re even allowed to join EFTA), or we can make our own rules and regulations. The suggestion that EFTA would solve the alleged problem of being subject to EU regulation is complete nonsense.

john b, are you sure that’s true? Your link doesn’t seem to spell that out. That would certainly be an annoyance, but one that might be acceptable in the meantime, if it meant avoiding all the other EU pillars.

Brooker slays Hannan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS-tyOQjFVA

It is fascinating how Hannan has become the poster boy for the rank and file of the Conservative movement. The idea that he is a marginal figure is crap. You only have to watch all the trolls come on here to defend him. Dale and Montgomerie were wetting their knickers in admiration when he said how much he hated the NHS.

I wish the Guardian would understand this when they write another puff piece for Call me Dave and his green wash fantasy.

@44 Iain Coleman: Thanks for your response. Without using your services weekly, I can’t comment on the efficacy, but it sounds like it should work. I have more questions but I’ll resist temptation.

Up to 84% of all crime in the UK is committed by Tim J.

Nosemonkey:

You may be interested to know that the reason Paul Krugman (who all liberals should know if they don’t already) won his Nobel Prize in Economics, was for formulating a new trade theory, which, amongst other things, explained why trade seems to be a lot more between neighbours now than before.

Here is his Nobel lecture explaining the subject to the layman:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008/krugman-lecture.html

He uses the example of British trade, now and in the past, in particular to explain the problems with the old theory.