John Stuart Agnew, on behalf of the EFD Group. – Mr President, here we go again, another attempt to distort democracy in Britain! If you really want to put the logos of these pan-European groups on the ballot papers next year, by all means do so, but you will simply confuse our voters. Virtually nobody in the UK has heard of the AECR, which is apparently the euro name of choice for what used to be called the ‘Conservative Party’. However, by using these strange names it is possible to use UK taxpayers’ cash to finance their campaigns. Say no more!

By all means nominate a has-been politician for the post of President of the Commission, but the average British voter will never have heard of him unless he is called Tony Blair. By all means try to get the UK to permit political broadcasts by these euro parties, but no genuinely British political party would want to be associated with this undermining of our political system by the EU. You are just trying to create the concept of a European demos and hoping that British taxpayers’ money will do the job for you. It will not.