Have Paul Nuttall or other UKIP politicians lied to you about trade deals?

By: Kevin Smith
Date: 22 February 2017
Campaigns: Trade

UKIP have been making all sorts of headlines for lies recently, mainly around leader Paul Nuttall’s fabrications about being part of the Hillsborough disaster. It’s pretty despicable that anyone would try to use such a huge personal tragedy for their own gain, let alone lie about it. But there’s another series of UKIP lies that took place recently that you might not have heard about.

Last week the European Parliament voted on the Europe-Canada trade deal known as CETA. It’s a hugely controversial deal because it involves giving corporations a terrifying raft of new powers that would enable them to sue governments for making laws that could harm their own profits. And it also presents a threat to public services, consumer protections and workers’ rights.

In the run up to the vote, thousands of people across Europe emailed their MEPs and asked them to vote against the deal using an online tool called the CETA check.

Seven UKIP MEPs all pledged to vote against  this trade deal, but then either didn’t bother to turn up at all for the debate and vote, and an additional one (James Carver) turned up to the debate and for some reason didn’t seem to manage to get his head around the voting buttons.

The irony is that this trade deal could lock us into some of the worst aspects of the EU-Canada deal for up to twenty years EVEN AFTER brexit has happened. So even when the European Parliament is offering UKIP MEPs the chance to disentangle themselves from the worst bits of EU infrastructure, they can’t be bothered to turn up.

So if you are privileged under to have a UKIP politician representing you, bear in mind that there are some pretty big doubts about they tell you they’re going to do, versus what actually happens.

These are the seven UKIP MEPs who pledged to vote against CETA and then just didn’t bother. We’ve linked through to their twitter accounts or webpages in case you wanted to contact them directly about anything.

 

Paul Nuttall, (UKIP Leader and MEP for North West England) (twitter account)

Margot Parker, UKIP MEP for Eats Midlands (twitter account)

Mike Hookem, UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire (twitter account)

Gerard Batten, UKIP MEP for London (twitter account)

Jill Seymour UKIP MEP for West Midlands (twitter account)

Louise Bours, (UKIP MEP for North West England) (webpage

John Stuart Agnew, UKIP MEP for the East of England (webpage)