Tag Archives: ACTA

Opinion: How my life changed forever – 100 days in!

At the start of this year I was a Lib Dem from Yorkshire working and studying in London who according to some journalists was an “unknown” – although I was quite well known in certain Lib Dem circles, especially for my quiches! The resignation of Diana Wallis, as Lib Dem MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber changed all that.

In 2009 I was third on the Lib Dem list for Yorkshire and the Humber. When you are third on a regional list and the …

Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 13 Comments

European Parliament overwhelmingly rejects ACTA

The culmination of weeks of campaigning and lobbying against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) came this morning, as the European Parliament voted 478 to 39 to reject it, despite the fact that twenty-two member states, including the United Kingdom, had already signed it. As a result, the Agreement is now likely to become irrelevant without the support of European Union nations.

The Agreement had already been rejected by five Committees of the European Parliament, and despite attempts by Conservative MEPs to defer the vote, as urged by UNI MEI, a “global union for the Media, Entertainment and Art Industries”, …

Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged and | 9 Comments

Lib Dem MEPs help expose draft ACTA text

The secrecy surrounding Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has concerned me and many of my constituents as it has many MEPs. As a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, I met the European Commission in early March to discuss the unacceptable level of secrecy in which these negotiations are shrouded, and demanded that we in the European Parliament, as the only directly elected representatives of the public at European level, be given immediate access to the final draft of the consolidated negotiating text. You can view my question here.

Following severe criticism from myself and a number of my …

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    I think a key question is the capability of Local Government, in its starved-for-20-years state, to deliver. It is currently well on the way to being a gutted c...
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    @David Raw I don't agree with the draconian laws introduced by the Thatcher government that allow union funds to be seized and campaigned vigorously against ...
  • Roland
    @Peter Martin - " but it does raise the question of why there is so little UK involvement in the sector." ...
  • David Raw
    @ David Warren You write approvingly, "we also need to highlight reforms that are needed to make unions truly democratic. The Tories passed legislation in the ...
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    I have been a trade union member since 1980 and for 20 years was a full time representative of the postal workers union CWU. Yes Liberals do need to relate m...