WHENEVER you hear a European MP talking, they always say they are fighting against corruption, that they are trying to stop fraud, that they personally have stood up to the scams and freebies.

A new set of rules governing MEPs' wages and allowances has just been rubber stamped in Brussels. Ostensibly it is a package to clear up the travel expenses scam.

Although it is excellent news that this regime - by which we are paid a generous set rate rather than by production of a receipt - will end, other aspects of these so called "reforms" are far more questionable.

I will give you two examples, one venal and one far more important.

Firstly, MEPs voted overwhelmingly to allow themselves to plug a £26 million hole in their private pension fund.

The money that they can now use is a mysterious £26 million underspend on last year's Parliament budget - money that UKIP has requested to be returned from whence it came, to the nation states.

The other point is that we are now employees of the European Union. In the past we have been paid equally with Westminster MPs, and suffered from the same financial regulations as our electorate.

From now on we will be employed by the EU, and receive benefits equal to those enjoyed by Eurocrats.

As we all know he who pays the piper calls the tune. We will now become representatives of Europe in Britain, rather than representatives of Britain in Brussels.

It is a disgrace.

So beware when you hear one of my colleagues telling you that he or she has cleared up the chicanery in the European Parliament. No they haven't.

Godfrey Bloom,

UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire,

Main Street,

Wressle,

Selby.

Updated: 10:04 Tuesday, July 05, 2005