In 1999 the European Union forced Britain to adopt a form of proportional representation for the European parliamentary elections. Since the European Commission is now the real government of Britain, perhaps it could do us a favour and force Britain to adopt a form of proportional representation for parliamentary elections. Under a fair voting system, the UK Independence Party could gain representation in the British Parliament and use it eventually to bring about our desired goal: Britain's unconditional withdrawal from the European Union.

(Applause)

I understand that the central objective of the EU is for each Member State to bring to the table its experience and skills, its best practice and ideas, share with the rest and strengthen all. So, allow this UK representative to bring to the table today some UK experience and practice: that less regulation equals more employment. Even Mr Špidla agreed with me on that to some degree a short while ago.

Denmark and Sweden apart, the United Kingdom has the lowest unemployment rate in the whole EU, way below the average EU rate. These countries have not taken the euro and the UK has not indulged in the more restrictive employment practices. The 48-hour week, rigidly enforced, will cause small firms to close or drive people into the black economy, where they are outside of all protection and where they will become avoiders of income tax and VAT. Flexibility can be provided by the opt-outs from the working week, which are due to be phased out in spite of a vote in this House on 24 February. Organisations like the United Kingdom Government, the chambers of commerce, EuroCommerce and Sky TV all want the opt outs to continue, but these bodies do not work in the pseudo-EU world of fancy plans and dead-hand regulation – they work in the real world of profit margins and of full employment as produced by the 48-hour opt out.

However, it is regulations that Mrs Herranz García wants, even on pot herbs and parsley! Rhubarb gets a mention as well, but I shall resist the obvious joke, except to say that unlike the EU, the industry does not want to talk rhubarb, it only wants to grow it!

I urge Members to reject this report or, at the very least, require it to be translated from the original bureaucracy into plain language, so that we can all understand.

I will not comment on Mr Wolfowitz's suitability to lead the World Bank, but the European Union's initial hostility to him has softened. The EU needs support for Pascal Leumi to head up the World Trade Organization and for its candidate – perhaps Baroness Amos? – to lead the United Nations Development Programme. Hence the comment of Action Aid that EU support for Mr Wolfowitz is a stitch-up, and similar remarks from other NGOs.

Whilst I will not diminish the value to poor nations of assistance from the World Bank and the European Union, fair trading conditions would be of far greater value to them than any amount of aid or debt relief. Trade, rather than hand-outs, allows poor nations to help themselves, as the Indonesians were pleading after the tsunami.

Unfortunately, the EU seems to excel in poverty creation in pursuit of its own agenda: for example, paying cash to Mauritania, Angola and Mozambique for the right to fish out their coastal waters and impoverish their fishermen; or economic partnership agreements under which the European Union tries to buy poor nations' acquiescence to its protectionist policies.

No doubt the rhetoric will continue. The reality is that self-interest rather than philanthropy drives the EU's actions, and this self-interest is best served by the EU having its own people in the top jobs.

However, if there were one argument for the European Union that would make me change my mind, it would be the argument that the European Union would give us, and would guarantee, peace. However, all of this is based on a series of false assumptions. It was not democratic nation-states that caused the First and Second World Wars. If you look back through history, you find that mature democracies do not go to war with each other.

It is also wrong and quite false to claim that the EU has kept the peace in Europe for the last 50 years. What war has it stopped? Was Portugal going to fight Italy in the mid-1970s? What possible war could it have stopped? If there has been a guarantor of peace over the last 50 years, surely it must be NATO, an example of intergovernmental cooperation.

President Borrell goes on about the reunification of Europe. I wonder sometimes what he is even talking about. The important thing is: will the EU guarantee peace? Does federation guarantee peace? It did not in Yugoslavia or in the USSR and it did not in the United States of America, which, you remember, had one of the bitterest and bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind. If we go on selling this project to the peoples of Europe on a lie, we are more likely than not to stoke up and cause bitter resentments and extreme nationalism. What we must do is tell the peoples of Europe the truth about our ambitions and give them free and fair referendums, otherwise we are heading for disaster.

But the Commission wants them to care, so it decides to spend millions of euros on propaganda – for that is exactly what this is. Paragraph 40 summarises the EU strategy of deception and propaganda. In one breath it is declared that the Union's institutions have a duty to inform citizens clearly and objectively about the proposed Constitution, yet in the same paragraph it is decreed that these same institutions have a political responsibility to support ratification.

How, then, can objectivity figure when the final objective has already been decided? And you wonder why the EU is held in such contempt! My colleagues in UKIP and I will not be supporting the ratification of the Constitution or this shameful report, which admits the true problem but is designed to overcome it by propaganda and lies. I have said before, if the EU is the answer it must have been a silly question: that much you can communicate!

(Applause from the IND/DEM Group)

Much more sinister, in my opinion, is the obligation on professional advisers not to inform their clients when they report suspicious transactions to the authorities. Turning professionals into secret informers erodes trust within society and marks the beginning of a police state. A better way to address terrorism is to know who is entering and leaving our countries. Alas, with the ongoing disagreements about how to police our borders and the drive for indefinite expansion of the Union, the prospect of reliable border controls is becoming ever more remote.

Luckily, the Die Welt newspaper has produced a series of revelations. It informed us that Mr Barroso had enjoyed a cruise aboard a luxury yacht owned by Spiro Latsis, who has done business with the EU institutions for many years, and whose Lamda shipyards, just one month after this holiday, received the green light from the European Commission for a ten–million– euro grant. Just last week a Latsis company – the Aegean Motorways Group – was put on a shortlist of two for the lucrative Athens to Thessaloniki motorway project. I now see that even within the European Commission itself, the head of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers, Mr Sidjanski, also speaks for the Latsis Foundation. Thank goodness for Die Welt!

We also learned that Mr Mandelson enjoyed a holiday with the lobbyist Peter Brown, and that he also went on a luxury yacht owned by the Microsoft co–founder, Paul Allen.

Last November, at President Barroso's inauguration, I asked of this Commission: 'Would you buy a used car from them?'. I suppose I should have said 'a luxury yacht'! What fair–minded person could think that the Commission should police itself in this regard? I have not accused Mr Barroso or any of the Commissioners of any wrongdoing, but it is a case of Caesars wife; it is a case that you have to be seen to be above suspicion.

However, Mr Barroso's reaction was one of denial. He stated in his letter – when it finally arrived – that 'hospitality is a normal fact of private life'. He obviously has a better circle of friends than me, but no matter. Was the relationship with Mr Latsis really purely personal? Was there really no conflict of interests? If that is the case, perhaps Mr Barroso could tell me why he resigned the maritime portfolio shortly thereafter? I suggest that he did possibly feel compromised.

I hope that Mr Barroso will make some concessions today. We all hope that he will. However, he should remember that what we are asking for is full disclosure. As long ago as 1961, President Kennedy introduced a code of this type into the White House. It can be done and it should be done! By ignoring my simple request and by maintaining that these free holidays do not constitute a conflict of interests, Mr Barroso has put himself in an unenviable position. When in a hole, one should stop digging, and I therefore ask him to give us full disclosure.

However, none of this would have happened if it had not been for the bravery of 77 Members of this House. These independently minded people have been subject to very unpleasant threats and bullying. Mr President, with your permission and pursuant to Rule 141(4), I give way to my colleague, Mr Helmer, to put a question to me.

(Mixed reactions)

A recent example in the United Kingdom involved a female pilot, Mrs Starmer, who has one child and, I think, has another on the way. She took British Airways to an industrial tribunal because it did not allow her to have part– time flying responsibility. British Airways suggested that she did not have enough hours or experience to take on that role.

I think – and I have never heard anybody suggest otherwise – that British airmanship is the best in the world, even the Americans concede that. British Airways, as I think you will agree, is a benchmark across the globe for high standards of airmanship. Mrs Starmer won at a tribunal on the basis of legislation, and nobody knows when they get on a plane whether the pilot is actually competent to fly that aeroplane, or somebody who is a young mum just having fun. I think that is a great shame.

Governments are urged to maintain sound fiscal policies, increase flexibility, hold down wage rises, improve competition, promote research and development and develop a strong industrial base, all worthy things that governments would like to achieve anyway, but do they need the European Union to tell them so?

Rather than giving this advice, I have a better plan. Get off the backs of individuals and businesses, scrap regulations instead of inventing new ones or tightening existing ones like the bureaucratic controls on financial transactions that we were discussing in this House last night. Most of them do not work properly and all of them add costs to business and destroy jobs.

Unfortunately, making more rules is the only thing that these institutions are good at. If we could just leave business alone to generate wealth, the EU's many programmes, such as caring for the environment and providing a high level of social security, might actually be affordable.

Recently, I questioned the fact that the ECB had decided to double its printing of EUR 500 banknotes this year – the highest value banknotes in the world and the Russian mafia's currency of choice, each one worth seven times a USD 100 bill. Last year, counterfeit EUR 500 notes rose by over 160%, and that is only the ones we know about. The Commission's reply to my questions would have stunned even a simpleton. It said, 'a strong demand for high-value notes could be met only by lower denominations and increasing printing costs'. Can you imagine that as a serious answer from a central bank? The reply went on, 'EUR 500 banknotes are widely used for hoarding purposes' – surprise, surprise! And finally, 'there are no indications that high-denomination banknotes encourage illegal transactions'. Which planet do they live on? The ECB must be out of its tiny collective mind to encourage the wider circulation of such banknotes, and I believe Mr Smaghi has much work to do.

The proposed Constitution has done us a great service: it has crystallised the threat. We are beyond discussing legislation, and it is time you recognised that you are seeking to become masters in someone else's house, and that is intolerable.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights was included in the new Constitution as one of the most misconceived documents of recent years. A passing parade of political non– entities have given themselves the power to grant rights and freedoms to other people. Far worse, they have given themselves the power to remove those rights and freedoms when it suits them or their successors. These are not the actions of democrats.

My rights and freedoms, Mr President, are not in your gift and they are not at your discretion, they are my birthright. This Charter and this proposal profoundly misunderstand the nature of human rights and they reflect this House's obsession with social engineering.