Roger Helmer is Conservative MEP for the East Midlands. On May 3rd, it was announced that the EU had achieved an enhanced status at the UN. It had enjoyed observer status since 1974, but as a result of this new resolution, it obtains, for the first time, speaking rights in the General Assembly. And the […]
Roger Helmer is Conservative MEP for the East Midlands. I rarely get angry these days – it's not advisable at my age. But I am practically apoplectic over the Coalition's ill-judged attacks on our universities. As a Cambridge man, I am happy when Oxford loses the Boat Race. But I shall not be happy if […]
Roger Helmer is a member of the European Parliament Last week, the European parliament voted in favour of the Financial Transaction Tax, also known as the Tobin Tax, after the economist who promoted it, and now, in a stroke of presentational genius — and extraordinary mendacity — dubbed the “Robin Hood Tax”. Yesterday I did a […]
Roger Helmer is a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands. Last weekend I posted a Tweet prompted by the news story about Lesley Pilkington, the psychotherapist entrapped by an undercover homosexual reporter. My Tweet was intended as a light-hearted dig at the absurdity of modern social mores, and I certainly did not intend, nor expect, […]
Roger Helmer is a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands and Honorary Chairman of the Freedom Association. “If the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” Forgive me for starting off with a quote from the Good Book. Please just regard it as paying respect to the 400th Anniversary of the King […]
Roger Helmer, who blogs here, is a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands Region. We all understand the reasons for the Con/Lib-Dem Coalition. Virtually no Conservative wanted it, but most of us recognised that it was the best we could do, given the electoral arithmetic. We understood the sacrifices and the compromises, but we admitted […]
Roger Helmer MEP has been a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands since 1999. During my first term as an MEP, I was working on a complex piece of environmental legislation – I think it was the use of phthalates as plasticisers in polythene products (pardon the alliteration). I remember a journalist asking me about […]
Roger Helmer MEP has been a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands since 1999 and explains here why he is resigning with immediate effect as the party's spokesman on employment in the European Parliament. Yesterday I joined a phone-in programme on the Lisbon Treaty on BBC Radio Northampton. I am well aware of public attitudes […]
East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer has commented in light of another failed attempt to scrap the Working Time Directive opt-out. Talks took place between the Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers with the aim of hammering out a deal. But they collapsed on Tuesday morning and the issue now looks to have been put to bed until after […]
I have previously reported that the European Union was threatening recreational anglers with absorption into the Common Fisheries Policy. A vote in the European Parliament this week has got them off the hook. Article 47 of the proposed regulation would have forced recreational fishermen to register their boats. Their catch would have been counted against the fisheries quota for their country. […]
Chris Heaton-Harris and Roger Helmer are both MEPs for the East Midlands. Together they have put out a press release urging the scrapping of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This would have to be done by national governments, and last week Timothy Kirkhope wrote to Gordon Brown (who was in Strasbourg this week) on the […]
East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer has commented in light of reports that the European Commission is plotting an "information campaign" – intended to sway the outcome of the second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty. In 2007 former Green MEP Patricia McKenna complained to the Irish Broadcasting Complaints Commission that Commission's campaign in Ireland was clearly intended to influence the outcome […]
Here's something you'll like. The European Parliament (which I visited with my colleage Jonathan Isaby this week; more later) has announced its intention to use gender-neutral language. Harald Romer, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, writes: "The European Parliament is committed to using gender-neutral language in its publications and communications and is now the first of the […]
South East England MEP Daniel Hannan had made another speech, this time on the financial crisis, and invoked the Bard. It seems most readers will be pleased to note that Mr Hannan was dressed in a suit and tie! (Although his colleague Roger Helmer went tieless.) And I promise that this is the last sartorial […]
Roger Helmer is a Conservative MEP. He blogs here and recently published "Sceptic At Large". Yesterday I Tweeted, "As a Conservative, I am unable to support the Coalition on Europe, climate, tax, defence, university admissions, Bombardier". There wasn't room in the Tweet, but I could have included foreign aid as well. So what's a Conservative […]