Daniel Hannan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daniel John Hannan (born 1 September 1971, in Lima, Peru)[1] is a British politician, and Member of the European Parliament (MEP), representing South East England for the Conservative Party. In the Parliament, he currently sits as an independent, having previously been a member of EPP-ED, the group of the European People's Party.
Hannan presently serves on the Committee on Fisheries and the Delegation for Relations with Afghanistan.[1] Hannan was ejected from the EPP-ED in 2008 for using parliamentary procedure to obstruct the passage of the Lisbon Treaty, of which he is an outspoken critic.
Hannan is also a journalist, writing leaders and a blog for the The Daily Telegraph.
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[edit] Biography
Hannan was born into a British Peruvian family in Lima. He was educated at Marlborough College and Oriel College, Oxford where he took a First Class degree in Modern History, and was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He also became involved in the Bruges Group.
Afterwards, he became director of the European Research Group, a study group at Oxford University. He also worked as a speechwriter for Michael Howard and William Hague before moving to The Daily Telegraph.
Daniel Hannan was first elected as the youngest British member of the European Parliament in 1999, and was re-elected at the top of his party's list for the South East England constituency in 2004. In April 2008, Daniel Hannan was put on the top of the Tory list for the 2009 European elections in the constituency of South East England, guaranteeing him to be re-elected without any problem in 2009.
[edit] Publications
Daniel Hannan has been a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph since 1996.[2] He has also written for various other newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, the German daily Die Welt, the Swiss weekly Weltwoche, The Sunday Telegraph, The Catholic Herald, Freedom Today, the Brussels Journal and The Spectator.
He is the author of Time for a Fresh Start in Europe (1993) A Guide to the Amsterdam Treaty (1997), The Euro: Bad for Business (1998), The Challenge of the East (1999), What if Britain Votes No? (2002) and The Case for EFTA (2004), and contributed to Treason at Maastricht (1994) by Rodney Atkinson and Norris McWhirter.[3]
He was the co-founder of Direct Democracy and co-author, along with 27 Conservative MPs elected in 2005, of Direct Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party, which proposes the wholesale devolution of power and the direct election of decision-makers. These ideas were developed further in a series of six pamphlets, The Localist Papers, serialised in The Daily Telegraph in 2007.
[edit] Campaign against the Lisbon Treaty and explusion from the EPP-ED
He opposed ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in the European Parliament, being involved in organising a filibuster by MEPs from various countries who favoured a referendum. In mimicry of Cato the Elder's Carthago delenda est, he ended every speech, whatever its subject, with a call for the Lisbon Treaty to be put to the vote: "Pactio Olisipiensis Censenda Est".[4]
This was meant to display Hannan's and some other UK MEPs opposition to the Treaty, but also led to significant irritation with the leadership of the European Parliament, which introduced measures to deal with the "filibustering" UK MEPs by amending the procedural rules of the Parliament to give its president more freedom in procedural matters. In the parliamentary session just before the new rules were to be presented by the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering in response to the filibustering tactics by Hannan and other MEPs, Hannan stated:
| “ | Yesterday, the President announced an interpretation of rule 19 which puts this house in plain violation of its own regulations. We have now departed from the rule of law and given arbitrary power to the chair to tear up our rule book and proceed as he sees fit. I would almost be tempted to compare it to the Ermächtigungsgesetz of 1933, but I think that would be disproportionate and perhaps a little rude to our President, who is a committed democrat and a decent man. | ” |
He continued by quoting Edmund Burke, but was interrupted mid-quote and cut off by Luigi Cocilovo, one of the 14 Vice-Presidents.[5]
President Pöttering is a German national and a member of the same political group (EPP-ED) as Hannan. The head of EPP-ED, Joseph Daul, initiated proceedings to expel Hannan immediately. Daniel Hannan left the EPP-ED on 19 February 2008. He now sits as a Conservative without pan-European affiliation.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Daniel Hannan. European Parliament. Retrieved on 2008-03-03.
- ^ (2007) Who's Who. London: A & C Black. ISBN 978-0-7136-7527-6.
- ^ (1994) Treason at Maastricht: Destruction of the Nation State. Compuprint Publishing. ISBN 0 9509353 9 5.
- ^ Hannan, Daniel. "EU treaty censored by Euro-federalists", The Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-03.
- ^ Debates - 31 January 2008. European Parliament (8 February 2008). Retrieved on 2008-03-07.
