Faced with the Eurozone crisis, EU leaders and our government are not only calling for fiscal centralisation, but are also trying to impose a regulatory regime on our financial institutions that will undermine the City of London's position as the world's leading international financial centre.
David Cameron, his MPs and MEPs cannot stop this.
The dangers
•The Financial Transaction Tax would add €60bn to EU coffers, mostly from UK firms
•The EU Commission estimates that around 80% of derivatives trading will leave the UK if this tax is implemented
•The EU Commission estimates that its own regulations will destroy 50,000 City jobs
•The Alternative Investment Fund Management Directive, which we did not need, has already forced firms overseas
•The newly-created Paris based European and Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), will effectively operate an exchange control mechanism has already driven American and Asian investors to invest outside of UK private equity and hedge funds resulting in job losses
•With 80% of all European hedge fund business conducted in the City of London the ESMA Directive's impact on the UK is grotesquely disproportionate
•The UK has very little power to stop these directives.
Conservative MEPs vote to push this legislation through and David Cameron is powerless to stop the onslaught of directives.
Michael Barnier, EU's Commissioner for the internal market and services warned in July 2011: "We are moving towards a single European rulebook, with more directly applicable legislation. Rules which will be imposed on everyone will have to be interpreted in the same way across Europe, unlike what is happening now."
And yet, astonishingly, Conservative MEPs voted to support this regime.
On the November 11, 2010, Conservative MEPs voted to support a proposal for a directive on alternative investment fund managers (A7-0171/2010). This directive saw the regulatory control of the UK financial sector pass to the newly created European Security and Markets Authority (ESMA). Previously, control of the UK financial sector was the responsibility of the UK government.
Dr Kay Swinburne, Conservative MEP for Wales and spokesperson on economic and monetary affairs, supported the proposal. She was recently reported as saying that there was an urgent need for or "constructive communications" over financial regulation. Her voting record shows otherwise.
Prior to this in September 2010, all but three Conservative MEPs voted in favour of a proposal for establishing the ESMA (A7-0169/2010).
Help us to save the City before it is too late. UKIP is the only political party devoted to the recovery and preservation of our national independence, our financial services industry and our City's jobs.
