Biography of our supporter, Roger Helmer MEP

Roger Helmer (born 25 January 1944 in London) is a British politician and a Conservative Party Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region. He has described himself as a eurosceptic and is a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign.

He was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as a Conservative Party MEP, and re-elected in 2004. He was subsequently suspended from the party Whip on 26 May 2005 after voting against party instructions on a motion to censure the European Commission and openly criticising his delegation leader, Timothy Kirkhope, in a parliamentary debate. As of 13 September 2006, he has had the Conservative party whip restored. However, he still sits as a Non-attached Member, and not in the EPP-ED Group to which most other Conservative MEPs belong. He supports EUDemocrats, an european political party.

Mr Helmer currently sits on two European Parliamentary committees (Employment and Petitions), and is a member of the delegation to South East Asian countries and a substitute member of the delegation to Korea.

Biography

Born in 1944, Helmer attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Southampton (1955-62), and then won a State Scholarship to Churchill College, Cambridge, where he read mathematics, graduating in 1965.

He started his business career in 1965 with Procter & Gamble in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, going on to hold senior marketing and general management appointments in a range of companies, including Readers Digest, National Semiconductor, Coats Viyella and the whisky firm United Distillers, now part of the drinks conglomerate Diageo. During the course of his business career he lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea, and ran businesses in the Philippines, Vietnam, Guam and Saipan.

Helmer has developed close relationships with conservative political groups in the USA, and has been a regular speaker at American conferences. He was recently appointed Adam Smith Scholar by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

As a eurosceptic, he has earned a reputation for his forthright approach to the question of the UK's relationship with the European Union. He has for many years been adamantly opposed to further UK-EU integration. Having initially advocated the Conservative policy of renegotiating the EU treaties, since 2006 he has been a supporter of the Better Off Out campaign, calling for the UK to leave the EU.

In April 2004, Helmer was named by Friends of the Earth as one of the worst voting MEPs on environmental issues, voting in an environmentally friendly manner in only one out of ten possible "eco-friendly" votes.

In December 2005, on the close of negotiations between Member States heads of government for the European Union's budget, which led to a sizeable reduction in the British rebate won by Margaret Thatcher, Helmer was involved in heated exchanges with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the European Parliament chamber. He said that the deal was "treachery" and that the Prime Minister was "giving away a huge sum of money simply as a fig leaf for your failure."

Helmer has published two books on European issues, "Straight Talking on Europe" in 2000, and "A Declaration of Independence" in 2002. In April 2006 he contributed an article on "Austria and the EU Constitution" to the blog Make Socialism History.

He became Chairman of The Freedom Association in April 2007.

Volkan Ertit's introduction to The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich A. Von Hayek is regarded the most influential liberal philosopher of the 20th century. The Road the Serfdom that was published in 1944 has caused rising of Hayek’s reputation all over the academician world. This is not surprising because the Road the Serfdom, although, does not include very much original ideas it is so influential due to its content. The book is assumed one of the most important sign for freedom.

The Road to Serfdom was published because Hayek felt that he is responsible of his society where he has been living and realized that Britain is in the way in which Germany lived 20 years ago.What make that book such an interesting and striking are its basic questions: What is relation between socialism and fascism? Should we give up our life styles because of security? What does collectivism mean and why does it cause unethical society etc…

He started his book by the history of Europe. In his opinion Europe has heritage which can be called liberalism but it has been abolished gradually last 50 years. European could not manage to protect Liberal values. Hayek pointed out two main reasons for this process: Firstly the assumption that the progress which was consequences of liberalism relatively slow and secondly the things which are not convenient for society is defended on behalf of liberalism by some people.

Because socialism was rising trend in Europe Hayek continues his book with criticism of socialism. It is clear that socialists use freedom as a motto. However for Hayek this is trick. Socialism which took breath after French Revolution takes his nutrition from hostility of liberalism that is based on freedom. Hayek thinks that socialism and fascism are the branches of same tree. Though they fought against each other, we shouldn’t interpret this as if they are two completely different groups rather than they are like two denominations of same religion.

Social justice, equality and more powerful security are aims of socialism at the first glance. However the main problem is not these aims rather than how do we success these aims? Instead of defining socialism by using these aims as a target, Hayek regards socialism as an obstacle in front of property rights and individual initiative. Planned economy, which is goal of socialism, will create wall against individual who wants to make profit.

For collectivism it can be said that it is a system in which income is divided or shared consciously. This requires planned economy and Hayek strictly against it due to its authoritarianism. However this does not mean that Hayek defends Laissez Faire liberalism. Unlike some liberals, Hayek says that for very appropriate Liberalism, we need somehow plan but it should not be same amount that used by collectivists. For the conditions which are the basic characteristics of liberalism we need successful competing regime. And of course for competing regime what we need is powerful juridical system or civil law.

Having powerful civil law gives us opportunity to live in a world where there will be no any classes which are superior to other people and no one will has power to grant rights to someone that cause abolish of competition regime.

Lots of people assert that because of technological progress competition regime should be abolished. What lie behind this view are that technological progress changed production dynamics and big corporations, because of their cost decreased, started to produce less expensive and sell more. This causes vanishing small corporations and creates monopoly.

Hayek does not agree with such ideas. He claims that, if we have powerful competition regime then being afraid of monopoly is not logical. However, Hayek says that for competition regime system need “price system” that is leitmotif of competition regime. It gives opportunity to entrepreneurships to make observations and by using data which are hold by observations to decide what to do. The more powerful competition regime means the more successful price system.

Main target of collectivist is to plan social affairs according to conscious aim. By comparing liberalism, that is the main difference of collectivism because collectivist do not permit individual to move for their individual targets.

The idea “power can not be illegitimate if election was convenient according to democracy is not acceptable for Hayek because he knows that Hitler won elections by democratic way. What makes government legitimate is not the way how is elected rather than its border.

What show us the freedom of a country is the existence and application of law. If civil law is applicable then society can observe the governmental activities before they act. Hayek explains in two ways why state should not make plan. Economically and ethically.

Economically, state should put only some concrete and definable rules for powerful price system regulation. Ethically, Hayek claims that states should not have ethical position. State should not keep society under its thumb. The politics neutrality is what is desirable for state.

The law of rule means freedom for human beings. It is clear that, if planned economy is created by government then it is unavoidable that government will create some classes in society which are superior to other people. This is contradiction when thinking rule of law. In competition regime, people are free unless they do not pay for what they want. However in planned economy everything is controlled by state and we can not talk about freedom of individual.

This is reality that in competition regime poor has fewer chances than riches have. However we know that poor people in competition regime are free than rich people who live in planned economy because in competition regime individual has right to choose his work, his residence and to decide how to evaluate his leisure time, his desire and to struggle for them. But riches of Soviet Union and Germany had no such rights.

He thinks that fascism and Nazism borrow their ideological background from socialist.

Another important subject of The Road to Serfdom is that the relation or conflict between security and freedom. This should be noted that it is impossible to give all people a stable income in the system where people choose their job according to their desires. If stable income is granted it means that some people’s individual rights must be violated.

What is more a society should not give up its freedom because of security. If this security is given some groups, day by day, lack of tranquility will increase in that society since if we supply a group security for their incomes, it increases the security demands of other groups.

At the tenth part of the book, the founding process of military party, which is an obligatory for planned economy, is examined. Nation goes towards someone or a party that can solve problem quickly and seem to have enough power because of clumsy structure of democracy. So after having national base, party become too powerful that it can do whatever it wants. For militarily organizing it become powerful enough.

At this point of process Hayek believes that this group, I mean who has power for ruling society; can not be people who have good intention. There are 3 reasons for this: Firstly it is hard to find common values for people if their education is not in the low level. If their perception capacity is good enough then it will not be easy to make them to believe same things. If their cognitive systems are same it means that simple and inferior tastes are popular in that society. After this homogeneity, negative discrimination is going to start.

What all of these explain that collectivism can not be successful without racism or nationalism. The other reason, why people who support planned economy do not be internationalist, is that they do not want society make contact with outside.

Hayek gives an interesting example to state which behavior is acceptable in collectivist society and which one seems like an evil. We should look at Britain and Germany to understand this. Germans make their duties in incredible discipline even sometimes they challenge insecure conditions. However individual tolerance, respects for others, independently cognitive capacity are very far from them. Politeness, sense of humor, humility and such virtues can be observable in England but not any collectivist societies.

In collectivist society, there are intellectual crisis. Lots of concepts have been lost their real meanings. All tools which are used for public communications are hold by collectivists. In totalitarian country the life is not different from a country that is being in war. All doctrines are imposed on society by collectivists. Hayek thinks that this is very dangerous way because to restricted reason or organize it, can not help human furthermore it causes dullness of mind.

Some collectivist thinks that monopoly is unavoidable so it must be state that has monopoly on behalf of whole society. Hayek challenges this idea and recommends America’s system in where state has not monopoly but has noteworthy power on monopoly for control them in the boundary of civil law.

Hayek through the last parts of the book expresses his views about ethics. According to him, ethics should be based on the behaviors which are conducted independently. A movement can not be ethical if its main aim is to rescue human beings from taking responsibility. Hayek says that independency, self confidence, courage of taking risk to defend for true are the guarantee of our individuality.

To give up liberalism at the international arena, this causes very serious problems all over the world. It should not be forget that, the battle between poor and rich in the internationally planned economy will be more violent than it occurs in free market.

Poor countries may be helped to improve their economic conditions and to rise their life standards. If there will be an international authority that protect international system and make nations more eager to fulfill themselves then it will assist to capture economical wealth.

We need international political authority that will not impose a nation what to do and to prevent any evil action of a nation on another nation. Then federalism seems the best way to solve this problem. Federalism is defined by Hayek like that: States are free in their internal affairs however they transfer theirs some defined and restricted sovereignty.

In conclusion, the freedom of individual seems the only progressive program in 20th century like it was in 19th century.


Volkan Ertit is a Turkish liberal activist.
He sits on the board of the Mises Youth Club.

The Road to Serfdom: recommended reading

The book's Wikipedia entry
An easy-to-read summary of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom
An illustrated version of Hayek's book
The full electronic version of The Road to Serfdom

Invitation Mises Circle of March 17th, 2009

Dear Colleague,

I have set up, in cooperation with the Ludwig von Mises Institute Europe and the Mises Youth Club, a small, informal regular group for Members and Assistants to discuss economics from an Austrian School perspective. We will be working through a major economics book, and the first one we have chosen is Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom, which will be introduced for us by Turkish liberal activist Volkan Ertit.

The first meeting of the Mises Circle will be held in room A5E3 on Tuesday 17th March between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Afterwards, we have an opportunity to join the Taxpayers' Alliance, for their Champagne Reception to mark the launch of the new book "The Great European Rip-Off".

If you think you can can come, please send an email to Benjamin Harnwell (harnwell@hotmail.com).

As ever,
Nirj.

**********

NIRJ JOSEPH DEVA DL FRSA MEP
Joint EEP-ED Co-coordinator Development Committee
Chairman Working Group A Development Committee
Member Foreign Affairs Committee

Biography of our host, Nirj Deva MEP

Niranjan Joseph "Nirj" Deva-Aditya FRSA DL (born 11 May 1948) is a Sri Lankan-British politician. He is currently a Conservative Member of the European Parliament for South East England.

Family life

Deva was born in Sri Lanka to a leading family of Rajasthani (Indian) descent and is a Roman Catholic. He speaks Sinhalese and English, and is married to Indra—a French-speaking Mauritian—and has one son. He holds Sri Lankan and British citizenship.

Early career

He holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering of Loughborough University, and was a Postgraduate Research Fellow in Economics at that university. He became Chairman in 1981 of the Bow Group (a leading British political think-tank), and initiated the Transatlantic Conferences between the Conservative Party (Bow Group) and the Republican Party/Heritage Foundation in Washington in 1981. He was a Member of the Council of the Royal Commonwealth Society 1976-80. He was appointed Chairman of the Department of Transport/National Consumer Council Committee on De-regulation of Air-Transport, whose Report was published by the UK Government in March 1986. This resulted in the low-fare airlines in Europe, which have brought affordable travel to millions.

In 1985 Nirj Deva became the first Asian-born person to be appointed by Queen Elizabeth II to the office of Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Greater London – a position which he holds for life. He is a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Arts, President of the EU-India Chamber of Commerce and a Patron of the International Monarchist League. Deva has backed many important education and health issues - he is a staunch supporter of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK and in Sri Lanka.

British Parliament

In 1992 Deva became only the second Asian-born person to be elected a Member of the House of Commons and serve in the British Government. He was the Member of Parliament for the London constituency of Brentford and Isleworth, and was Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Scottish Office.

He was made political adviser to the Secretary of State for Transport, and a member of key Parliamentary Committees such as the Education Committee and the Parliamentary Ombudsman's Committee. He was defeated in the 1997 general election, losing to Labour candidate Ann Keen.

European Parliament

In 1999, Deva became the first Asian-born person to be elected as a Conservative member of the European Parliament where he represents South East England. He serves as coordinator on the Committee on Overseas Development and Cooperation and is a bureau member of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. He is also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

In April 2005 he was chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York, and delivered a paper on the future of the United Nations at the US Council on Foreign Relations. A few months later, he headed the European Parliament's delegation to the UN High-Level Conference on global financing of aid. Also in 2005 he was Co-Chairman (with Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France) of the European Parliaments' Delegation to the World Summit at the United Nations 60th General Assembly.

He has established an online campaign calling for a referendum on the European Constitution (www.giveusareferendum.eu) and has recently launched an online survey asking the views of his constituents on the future of the EU (http://www.southeastsurvey.eu/).