Disgraced MEP told to sell his Euro bus

[chikrodah]

Disgraced MEP told to sell his Euro bus - Portsmouth Today

Published Date:
17 November 2008

By Alex Forsyth
Political editor


A disgraced Euro MP has been banned from using a bus to visit his constituents.

South-East MEP Ashley Mote has been told he will face legal action unless he sells the single-decker bus he has converted into an office and hands the cash back to the European Parliament.

The Danish secretary-general, Harald Romer, says buying the bus was 'an inappropriate use of parliamentary allowances'.

But Mr Mote, who was jailed last year for benefit fraud, says he needs the bus – which he has converted into a mobile office – to travel across the eight counties he covers.

He said: 'My constituency is from east Kent to west Hampshire, around London to north Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

'The bus is a mobile office that is an ideal way of solving the very real problem of how to make contact with my constituents.

'The response has been fantastic. It has enabled me to make contact with hundreds of constituents in some 30 towns and cities, many of whom had serious problems in their business and private lives caused directly by the European Union.

'Without the bus, they might never have found help.'

Mr Mote, an independent MEP, said he struck a deal with previous secretary-general Julian Priestly to spend about £9,000 on buying the bus and converting it into an office in 2005.

The bus remains the property of the European Parliament.

Part of the deal was that he would give the bus back before the elections next year and would not use it for campaigning.

But the new secretary-general says Mr Mote should never have bought it.

Mr Mote, of Binsted, near Alton, said: 'I had the permission of Mr Priestly.

'The European Parliament administration's decision to ban my bus is more about who I am and what I say than about the need to recover parliamentary funds. This ban is petty.'

Mr Romer said: 'This is not considered as an appropriate use of parliamentary allowances.'

The matter is currently being considered by the parliament's questors – members elected to manage parliament.

[mkpdavies]

I have no time for Mote, who I consider a traitor for the damage he has done to the anti-EU cause.

However, given what the EU spends on propaganda, I can't see how they can question this expense for an MEP to get out there and engage with the people.

[gc]

The use of a bus as a mobile office would seem to fall within the rules governing either of two budgets: 'Information and Communications' (known as the '4000 budget'), or the MEP's office allowance.

I think the wording on the paperwork would have to be very carefully considered, but that shouldn't present too much of a problem. There would also be restrictions on the use of the bus, but as long as it could be proven that the bus was not used for campaigning that should be ok.

[Charlemagne]

I have no time for Mote, who I consider a traitor for the damage he has done to the anti-EU cause.

However, given what the EU spends on propaganda, I can't see how they can question this expense for an MEP to get out there and engage with the people.

Wrong. The evil empire is quite within it's rights to clamp down on Eurosceptic crooks like Mote.

The sooner we start electing honest Europhiles to Brussels the sooner we will get a better government.

[chikrodah]

It's unlikely that the Secretary General or his staff contacted the Portsmouth press with this story. It's more likely that Mote did, which means the story is almost certainly based on Mote's version of events.

The Secretary General's office is unlikely to be eloquent regarding the reasons behind their actions. The quote from Romer is as close to a "No further comment" statement as the journalist was likely to get.

Bearing in mind that Mote's own Defence Counsel described him during the fraud trial as a "Walter Mitty character" (i.e. somebody living in their own fantasy world), perhaps the real question is, "What else are the EU investigating Mote for?"

After all, he won't be an MEP in 7 months time. To accord with the "No campaigning" rule, the bus will have to be returned in 5 months time. This can't be the real reason they've started to investigate Mote's financial submissions or his paperwork trail. Even a bureaucracy the size of the EU hasn't got the time to pick on a minor non-affiliated MEP for no good reason.