Declan Ganley, founder of the Libertas pan-European party will be interviewed on Newsnight tomorrow (Monday, 10.30pm BBC2).
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Eurosceptics accuse us of being europhiles. Europhiles accuse us of being eurosceptics. The truth is that we are neither.
The problem is that politicians and pundits simply don't understand where Libertas sits in the political spectrum. There is a very simple reason for this: Libertas isn't in the existing political spectrum.
The EU debate, especially in Britain, is one dimensional. At one end, we have the extreme UKIP view of total withdrawal from the EU. At the other end, the Lib Dems favour total integration into a European superstate. The Tories and Labour sit somewhere in between, arguing over how many powers to give away.
The common theme is that all four parties are simply talking about the EU in terms of "more or less".
But Libertas isn't talking about "more or less"; we are talking about "better".
We want a different system of European cooperation. And so do most of the citizens of Europe. There is no reason at all why we have to accept the future for Europe set out in the abysmal Constitution/Lisbon Treaty. Nor should we have to put up with the awful anti-democratic system we have now.
What we want is a system of willing cooperation between sovereign nations, founded upon real democracy. We are pioneers forging a new kind of Europe.
That's pro-European.
There is a tradition in the European Union that if at first your scheme fails miserably and makes you look stupid, the best plan is to try exactly the same thing again. You might recall from way back earlier today that Igor Grazin, assisted by British Lib Dem MEP Andrew Duff, tried to claim that he had not signed the Libertas application to be recognised as a pan-European political party, after immense pressure was applied to him by his Liberal group. It didn't take long for this unusual claim to be disproved via the publication of a photo of the document that he really did sign.
It takes a special kind of thinking to attempt a stunt like this. Presumably Andrew Duff, an MEP for the Eastern region of the UK, was trying to claim that Libertas had put Igor Grazin's name on the form, forged his signature and then hoped that no one would notice. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?
Not quite as ridiculous as trying the same stunt again. EU traditionalist MP, Mincho Kuminev from Bulgaria, another signatory on the application, today claimed that he hasn't signed it either:
Bulgarian MP Mincho Kuminev, who is one of seven signatories to Libertas’s application to the European Parliament for some €200,000 in funds, said he never signed an application for Libertas to receive funds and was surprised his name was on the list of Libertas supporters.Perhaps what adds even more of a comedy value to this nonsense is that the story appeared after Libertas had already published a photo of the document showing his signature on it....
“I have no intention of leaving the Bulgarian party system to join a foreign party. My only contact with Libertas was when I met Jens Peter Bonde at a conference in Bulgaria . . . I never signed any application or document in relation to Libertas,”
[UPDATE]It appears that Mr Hristov even gave an interview, and is pushing this charade so far that he claimed:
"if somebody has falsified my signature, I will ask for an inquiry. The whole thing is a lie."
Judging by the photo of the documentation someone must have forged his passport as well. We look forward to the investigation.
[UPDATE 2]
It now looks like the EU is going to investigate, and if these two politicians (both of whom provided their passports to Libertas!) have in fact just suffered from SWA (Spontaneous Willful Amnesia, common amongst politicians placed in stressful positions), they will grant the application anyway.
Now that the establishment has realised that Libertas is a serious threat to their cosy existence in their ivory towers things are starting to turn nasty. A few days ago Libertas submitted its formal application to the European Parliament asking for recognition as a party in the parliament. A requirement of this application is the signature of politicians from a quarter of the member states (seven).
Oddly, once the names on the list were revealed, one of the representatives, an Estonian politician called Igor Grazin, claimed that he had never signed the agreement, assisted by Andrew Duff, a British Lib Dem MEP for the Eastern region. According to the Irish Times:
“I have never signed any papers asking for recognition of Libertas as a political party in the EU and all corresponding claims are utterly untrue,” wrote Mr Grazin in a signed affidavit presented to parliament president Hans-Gert Pottering by the Liberal group.Well it didn't look too good for Libertas at that point did it? Except that they were lying.
Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, who uncovered the affidavit signed by Mr Grazin, asked Mr Pottering to “urgently review” the decision to recognise Libertas and give it EU funds.
“Mr Ganley appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. Apparently his claim to have recruited enough supporters was untrue. What Europe really needs is a bit more Veritas and a lot less Libertas,” said Mr Duff, who is a strong supporter of the Lisbon Treaty.
Libertas published photos of documents signed by Estonian Igor Grazin supporting the application of Libertas for EU Parliamentary recognition.
Mr Ganley accused the Liberal group in the parliament of "bullying and dishonesty".
A Libertas spokesman said the group was not concerned at the row, and described the development as "just a bit of political game-playing" by the Liberals in the parliament.
The Estonian politician had signed the document supporting Libertas in the presence of Declan Ganley and two or three others, he said.
So journalists were lied to, the public mislead and hours of time wasted for... "just a bit of political game-playing". Don't you just love the European Union?
I attended another weekly start up meeting yesterday where we were given a look at the draft policies for reforming the EU. The aim is to get feedback from each of the Libertas national parties before the core policies are finalised.
Obviously this was a slightly tense moment; would they fulfil the promised rebirth of the EU, or would they just be tinkering with the Lisbon Treaty? Well, I am glad to say that they ticked my boxes.
Democracy and national sovereignty were at the core of the policies, while encouraging more willing cooperation between nations, to replace an increasingly centralised system that imposes unnecessary legislation on unwilling member states. Spot on.
Obviously there is still more to do on them, but I am greatly encouraged by what I have seen so far. The next step for us in the UK is to look at how these policies would affect us in practice, and how we can ensure that British interests are looked after.
There are many things I expected of Libertas but recruiting a Lord before it has even launched wasn't one of them. Such is the draw of a positive, fresh force for change.
Lord Alton of Liverpool was today confirmed as a founding member of the Libertas group in the European Parliament.
From his website:"For 18 years David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and today is an Independent crossbench life Peer. He began his career as a teacher but, in 1972, he was elected to Liverpool City Council as Britain's youngest City Councillor. Twenty five years later, in 1997, David was made a Life Peer of the House of Lords"
The Irish Times today released an article headed "Decisive shift in favour of treaty", apparently citing a poll that shows that opinion is shifting in Ireland in favour of the Lisbon Treaty in preparation for their second vote.What the poll actually asked was whether Irish voters thought that Ireland would vote in favour of the treaty, not how they would vote themselves. So what the poll really shows is that 58% of Irish think that there might be enough of a swing in the next vote to ratify the treaty, not that 58% support the Lisbon Treaty. Presenting this as a shift in support is misleading at best.It is hardly surprising that people might expect the Irish to vote 'no' in the next referendum. This is what happened after the Nice referendum in 2001; they voted 'no' the first time and when they were made to vote again (as outrageous as that is) with sufficient bribes/concessions, they voted 'yes'. The EU has already begun negotiations to bribe the Irish into voting Yes this time too.Whether the Irish voters will feel that such 'guarantees' are worth the paper they are written on is another matter, especially once the campaigning on the Treaty begins again. Bearing in mind that the Treaty has already been ratified by most EU governments, the EU can't actually make any changes to the treaty itself without causing every other government to vote on it again. So what are the Irish really getting? Nothing but a generous helping of fudge. Will they fall for it? I hope not.However, things are different this time, and this is no Nice Treaty. The Constitution/Lisbon Treaty has faced two other referendums already, in France and Holland, where the public there rejected it too. There is a growing feeling across Europe that the EU has lost its way, and no amount of bodging to get the constitution through is going to change that. 
This is where Libertas comes in. Libertas is offering a whole new future for Europe, not a bedraggled, "post-democratic", unreadable Constitution/Lisbon Treaty bringing about a European superstate that no one other than the unaccountable elites in Brussels wants.We believe that democracy has to be the fundamental foundation of all cooperation. If they still don't understand after three 'no' votes that this means that their vision is unwanted by the people of Europe then they have no place being in Government at all.So when the Irish are forced to vote on exactly the same Treaty once again in a few months time, they will really have two options; vote for an anti-democratic, corrupt, nanny super-state or a positive Libertas future offering democracy, national sovereignty and improved cooperation between nations. Which way do you think they will vote?
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