On a visit to the EU Parliament by Kanye West

You would think apparitions of an attention-hoarding rapper would be non-existent in Benelux. But sure enough, some version of Kanye West made an appearance, whether he liked it or not, on Wednesday when former UKIP leader Nigel Farage went on a lengthy tirade against the president of the EU, former Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy. (The full tirade on YouTube, courtesy of UKIP.)

While evoking Kanye's crass, stage-crashing abilities, Farage compared the first president of the EU to a low-grade bank clerk and called him a quiet assassin of European nation-states. Included in his tirade was a slam on Belgium as a whole, saying that it was a non-country aimed to make all of Europe a place where nation-states ceased to exist. It is widely expected that Farage will be reprimanded for this speech, at most a 10-day suspension.

The Eurosceptic icon is no stranger to controversy in Belgium. Most notably in February 2008, when Prince Charles addressed the EU Parliament on Climate Change, Farage drew attention for refusing to applaud his future head of state at the end of his speech.

However, Farage's barrage on the 62-year-old Belgian wasn't just for the sake of getting free publicity in his campaign to unseat Commons Speaker John Bercow in his Buckinghamshire constituency this spring. Officials in France and Germany, the continent's two major economic engines, have complained about Van Rompuy over-stepping his authority in dealing with the economic crisis in Greece and declaring himself the point man for all European nations in discussions involving G20 nations.

Such a trampling, if accurate, coincides with Britain's Baroness Ashton, the EU's new number two role as High Representative, essentially letting the current president of the European Commission, Spain's José Manuel Barroso, impose himself as the EU's ambassador to the United States. All the while, Ashton, Barroso and Von Rompuy are suppose to represent the collective foreign interests of 27 nations, not just the establishments that not only meet in Brussels but also in Strasbourg once a year for the sake of appeasing the French.

This huge mess might make for an interesting rap by Kanye, if "Golddigger" isn't sufficient for Eurosceptics' tastes.

On Fairy Tales

This past week, I've been reading one newspaper non-stop: the Labour-leaning Guardian, and they've been telling fairy tales. Included in each issue the past week were booklets containing some of the most well-known fairy tales, which I've been accumulating for use a few years down the road in the event the Mrs. and I beget little Missouri expats (although in most likelihood, they'll be Kentish expats in Missouri). To get the most of the £8 we've paid to collect the booklets, I've subjected myself to the Guardian's telling of the ongoing fairy tale of how little Gordy will rise back to the top, even as his Commons leader defiantly challenges the retroactive application of new reimbursement limits.

(Sidenote of great importance: one ongoing tale where the valiant hero is the Guardian just hit the denoument, as they have achieved victory over the nefarious villain Trafigura over the oil firm's attempts to squelch Parliament debate, coverage of such debate, and court rulings squelching coverage of such debate, over Trafigura's alleged dumping of oil waste off the Ivory Coast. A much-needed victory for free press that even resulted in Gordon Brown applauding a motion from a Tory backbencher.)

Chief among the Guardian's fairy tales was spelled out on Sunday, when they told about the story of David the Etonian going to Brussels to tag up with Polish apologists, Latvian SS-lovers, and Czech global warning sceptics. Among the articles telling this story, foreign secretary David Miliband penned a column criticising the Conservatives for aligning with such parties instead of sticking with the mainstream conservatives parties fronted by Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi. The tale spelled out over the course of seven pages, including an extensive piece on the leader of Poland's Law and Justice Party, Michal Kaminski, who stymied Poland's attempts to apologise for atrocities committed on its Jewish residents during Nazi occupation in World War II. What makes this heavy coverage a fairy tale is this:

There isn't as much concern about the European Parliament in Middle England as there should be. I noted four months ago that the big winner of the night when the UK counted its European Parliament voters was Yasmina from The Apprentice, as that aired on BBC One while the two BNP members elected to Parliament made their victory speeches on BBC Two. To further the apparent contempt shown for those elections, BBC dumped The Apprentice finale from its regular slot on Wednesday as to avoid conflicting with a World Cup qualifier game on ITV, where England demolished Andorra 6-0.

So what impact is a Conservative side shying away from its natural connections to the continent's centre-right and Christian Democrat parties in favour of parties with global warming sceptics and questionable stances on same-sex rights? Frankly, I doubt that's going to weigh on the mind of British voters when the next election rolls around. As much as UKIP would like the debate to be focused on the growing control of the European Parliament in Brussels/Strasbourg on UK affairs, parliamentary expenses, the economy and government spending will be front and centre in the next election, which again will be no later than 3 June.

Please note that I'm not in defence of this grouping. While the Tories formed this group of anti-Federalists to hammer a Jeffersonesque approach to running the EU, this new group only accounts for ten percent of MEPs. And given the far-right stance of some of these parties (including Latvia's TB/LNNK, which has only one MEP), they might be more suited for the BNP than the party set to form the next government no later than June.

EU '09 Elections: And the big winner of the night is…

…Yasmina.

No, that's not the name of some random party in the EU. She happens to be the winner of the season of The Apprentice, hosted by entrepreneur (and newest member of Gordon Brown's dwindling Cabinet ranks as the "enterprise czar" and peerage) Sir Alan Sugar. The show's finale, which was moved up from this Wednesday as to avoid conflict with a World Cup qualifier for England, was aired on BBC1, as European Parliament election results were relegated to BBC2. Whether this is a cause or effect as to the lack of understanding and/or relevance for the European Parliament is for debate, but BBC's programming decision reflects the latter at the least.

Which easily coincides with the vote swinging away from Labour and not to the Conservatives and LibDems, but parties outside the Westminster Three, namely the ubiquitous Greens, Eurosceptic UKIP and the far-right British National Party. Yesterday as the Labour vote total fell dramatically, further degrading the longevity of Gordon Brown's stay at 10 Downing, the swing and lower voter turnout was dramatic enough to where in the North West and Yorkshire, two BNP candidates emerged victorious as the final recipient of seats to the European Parliament from each region. Naturally, established and centre-catering parties are alarmed over the success of the BNP, who actually had a lower vote total than in 2004.

What does this mean for the next general election? For one, it means the prime minister's resolve winds up hardening as to toughing it out for all 361 days until the latest date possible for a Parliamentary election, provided he doesn't get trampled by enough backbenchers during a party caucus meeting tonight in the Palace of Westminster. UKIP's resounding third-place finish in 2004 was squandered when in-fighting between the party leadership and eccentric talk show host Robert Kilroy-Silk, who defected to start Veritas, but with an increase vote total last weekend, UKIP could give entrenched pro-EU candidates, particularly Conservatives, a challenge. As for BNP, the fact that four candidates succeeded to earn seemingly substantial posts (two county councillors and now two MEPs) will put a larger bullseye on them. Will that in turn increase their desire to get their message out and/or put more wool on the wolf? Will enough of Middle England, upset with the excesses of Parliament, realise the risk of doing nothing and instead find a completely different, more sensible option?

We shall see in the coming weeks. Or days if Labour's implosion is fulfilled this week.

Potential benefactors of the MP Expenses Row

Yesterday, three members of the House of Commons (Christopher Fraser, Julie Kirkbride and Margaret Moran) announced that they will not stand for re-election (to be no later than June 2010 under current law.) Today, two more MPs are under fire for their expenses: Bill Cash, a Conservative MP whose £15k claims to rent his daughter's flat when he owns a house closer to Westminster came under fire in today's Telegraph, and Elliot Morley, a Labour MP and one-time minister who is now the 13th casualty of the past month's reports.

These scandals, concerning excesses of a Parliament that can serve anywhere from a few months to five years, then get a severance check for not running for re-election, are taking the forefront of next week's local and European elections. Instead of questions regarding the Lisbon treaty (and Gordon Brown's decision to enact it through Parliament without a public referendum promised by his predecessor Tony Blair) and other pan-European issues, much attention are focused on the public disgust of MP expense excesses. With this albatross potentially weighing down the Labour and Conservative parties, the Liberal Democrats are best able to capitalize, given their current status in the House of Commons as Party #3 and leader Nick Clegg being a vocal proponent of sweeping reforms that others have pitched in the past century. But with the LibDems an established Westminster party (created as a result of the merger of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties in 1988), parties who haven't had much success in Parliamentary elections are vying to gain traction in the UK hope to make a gain next week and make a statement.

(Speaking of statements, all party election broadcasts aired on the BBC are on their Web site. No barrage of sugar-coated 30-second ads here.)

First off is the party that has third-highest representation in the UK's delegation to Strasbourg, the UK Independence Party. Their main goal: keep Strasbourg & Brussels' policy-making out of the UK. They currently have 12 MEPs, and are looking to gain more to establish clout for an entrance into Westminster's elected ranks by next year. While they are third overall, several of their members are former Conservative supporters who turned from the Tories when the UK under John Major signed onto the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, thus establishing the European Union. UKIP put the blame on the EU when it comes to the general decline of UK's economic power, citing reasons nearly identical to what immigration critics and workers unions in the US use for similar problems: porous borders, foreign influence on domestic law & economic policy, among others.

Second is a "party" that sees the expenses row as icing on the cake: Jury Team. Jury Team is set up as a common brand name for independent candidates, and their candidates were selected by use of text messages and other new-age technologies. Jury Team seek to play off the general malaise of the electorate toward the established parties. They have no manifesto outside of fundamental changes to the operation of both Westminster & Strasbourg: term limits, fixed election dates, elimination of party whips, and petition-sparked recall votes and referenda.

Third is a party both UKIP and mainstream parties have sought to keep at bay, the British National Party. Their party rules forbid the admission of non-whites to their party, and their ultra-nationalist policies run akin to the Fascist parties that gained traction in the 1920s and 1930s. In spite of this, they received five percent of the vote in the 2004 European elections, but no seats, and they have been picking up seats on several local councils. Their member base can show greater growth should economic conditions worsen and "Middle Britain" (which is positioned relatively similar to the fabled Missouri bellwether) stay away from the polls, displeased with the three major parties and not interested or aware of the minor parties. This fear during the Great Depression, heightened by the collapse of a Labour minority government in the summer of 1931, resulted in the creation of a series of national coalition governments that lasted until the end of World War II.

Fourth is another Euro-centred party aiming to increase citizen participation in European affairs, Libertas.eu. While they have several branches in other countries that aim to counter the Lisbon Treaty, in the UK its incarnation is Euro-sceptic.

Fifth is a party currently with two MEPs who are a global fixture: the Greens. Their agenda is similar to Green parties across the globe: pro-environment, responsible labelling, pro-civil liberties, etc. etc.

And then you have your really small parties that hope to heck to get at least one percent of the vote: Christian Party, Socialists, Animals Count, etc. etc. It's usually when things go haywire and the wheels come off of the establishment that minor, fringe, and newer parties make their way into the system. A few of these names might find themselves on the world's news tickers six nights from now.