EURIM - IBM fascist lobby at Westminster

[TonyGosling]

Just as with the Byers revelations about Mandelson changing the law to suit Tescos - it seems the Dark (and slimy) Prince has an unnerving ability to change laws willy nilly. Just more evidence that Mandelson is the key Rothschild agent in the Labour Party.
He's also now o the TV and radio all the time 'selling' the Labour line. If Labour want votes they should stick him in a deep dark hol and only let him out after the election to de-frock him.

MPs and Peers run private company selling 'influence over Government policy' as multinationals pay to join parliamentary IT lobby group

By Glen Owen
Last updated at 11:55 PM on 27th March 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1261282/MPs-Peers-run-private- company-selling-influence-Government-policy-multinationals-pay-join-pa rliamentary-IT-lobby-group.html

A disgraced Labour MP has boasted she used a private company based at the Commons to change immigration policy to allow cheap workers to be brought in from India.

Luton MP Margaret Moran said her chairmanship of the company helped her to ‘influence’ Cabinet Minister Liam Byrne – whom she described as ‘one of those people that makes things happen’ – and Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz, who she said ‘owes me one’.

And she admitted she felt under pressure to deliver ‘results’ to please the multinational firms behind the company.

She even said she helped delay the introduction of a ‘terrorist-detector’ passport system to help a holiday firm which paid for her to fly to Spain – where she has a home.

The claims, made during an unbroadcast section of a Channel 4 sting operation, centre on EURIM, an all-party Parliamentary group on the ‘information society’, chaired by Ms Moran, which – highly unusually – is registered as a company.

Its corporate members, including BT, IBM and Vodafone, pay a total of more than £120,000 a year into the group, which has funded all-expenses paid junkets for Ms Moran to Washington and Rio de Janeiro.

Her comments were recorded by the same Dispatches team which caught three ex-Cabinet Ministers offering to help private firms access government in return for thousands of pounds a day.

Ms Moran described EURIM as ‘a company that influences Government policies’. She told the reporter, who was posing as lobbyist for a fake company which pretended to be interested in hiring her, that she ‘wanted to be able to say to IT partners who pay to be part of EURIM – look, here’s our results this year’, adding: ‘not just financial results [but] this is what we achieved’.

Ms Moran, who is standing down at the next Election following a furore over her expenses, made a series of boasts about her lobbying activities.
graphic


She claimed she had used EURIM to reform the new points-based migration system announced two years ago, under which workers could be fast-tracked into the UK if they possessed certain labour skills. Big computer firms were angry that IT staff were not included on the list.

Describing EURIM as being ‘a company that influences government policies in the same way as your people are trying to do’, she said: ‘Its members are paying members who want to influence the agenda. We

produce some reports, but mostly it’s lobbying Ministers...the last one I think was on the immigration rules ...because a lot of IT companies had used short-term workers from India.’

She added: ‘The immigration points system was going to throw that. I actually went and saw Tata who are the big Indian IT company...so we got that points system changed. So they still are able to bring workers in for big projects.’

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne was dragged embarrassingly into Ms Moran’s job pitch. She said: ‘We did a Select Committee-style inquiry which was very influential with Liam Byrne. You’ve got to get the right person.

And Liam is one of those people that makes things happen. IBM wanted to see Peter Mandelson and I said, look, you can report back to your board that you’ve seen Peter Mandelson so we’ll get you an invite to see Peter Mandelson...but if you’re determined about making change this is the person you’ve got to see.

‘Liam is in the Treasury, but at that point he was somebody relatively minor in the Cabinet Office. He was the best person for them to see.’

EURIM currently lists nine politicians as directors, including deputy chairman, Tory MP Ian Taylor, and four peers and an MEP.

The Mail on Sunday has been told Mr Taylor also accepted an invitation for interview by Channel 4’s fake lobbyists – but cancelled before filming started when he was tipped off by Tory Whips.

Ms Moran also claims to have delayed the introduction of the Government’s e-Borders scheme, an anti-terrorist computer linked to airline ticketing networks to assess if travellers are a security risk.

She said she was acting on behalf of the travel firm Thomson TUI – which in March 2003 paid her ‘air fares and other transport’ for a trip to Madrid with the British-Spanish Parliamentary group. ‘Thomson have got a lot of angst over the new entry system, the new technology and how all that’s working,’ she said.

‘So I just went off – I’m on the Home Affairs Select Committee – I went off and sort of slightly, gently, well I didn’t have to harass Keith Vaz [the committee chairman] I was just, he owes me one...so he did a fairly quick report, but we interrogated all the people that needed to be interrogated and it proved what Thomson TUI were saying...so they’re changing the system now so they are giving more lead-in time and they’re changing some of the technologies.’

Last year backbencher Ms Moran was embroiled in the expenses scandal when it was revealed that she had claimed £22,500 from the taxpayer to treat dry rot in a house in Southampton – 100 miles from her Luton South constituency.

A Home Office spokeswoman did not address Ms Moran’s claims directly: ‘Intra-Company Transfers are controlled under the points-based system. We are committed to providing the most effective system possible to strengthen our border controls.’

Mr Vaz said: ‘Her claims are ridiculous. Ms Moran had nothing to do with the commissioning of the report and did not sit on any of the Committee meetings.’

A Thomson spokesman said the company had taken part in ‘various discussions in 2009 with Margaret Moran in the lead-up to the Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on e-Borders, which took place in July’, adding: ‘The Committee concluded

in October 2009, broadly accepting the concerns raised by TUI Travel plc. Since this time, TUI Travel plc has had no further discussions with Margaret Moran.’

Ms Moran did not return calls yesterday. In a letter sent before the broadcast to Channel 4, her lawyer wrote: ‘My client did not gain in any personal way from this or from any other instance in which she acted on behalf of her constituents’ concerns.’

A spokesman for Liam Byrne said: ‘There is no record of any meeting between Liam Byrne and IBM or EURIM when he was a Minister in the Home Office or Cabinet Office, and he cannot recall any such meeting.’

It is understood that Mr Byrne has held discussions with Ms Moran in the Commons, but only in her capacity as an MP ‘representing her constituents’ interests’.

Ian Taylor said: ‘I took a phone call from the ‘‘company’’ around February 24. I indicated that political lobbying was not of interest to me. My outside activities are declared and focused on business development. They made no further contact or follow-up with me.’
Byers’ ‘well-paid’ lobbying reward

Former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers was offered a ‘remarkably well-paid’ job by the man he helped to save ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ by lobbying the Government over a rail franchise.

In a secretly recorded interview, Mr Byers said he had been approached to work for Union Railway, a £20billion rail project in the United Arab Emirates.

It is run by Richard Bowker, the former chief executive of National Express, which was at the centre of the most damaging allegations to arise from the Channel 4 investigation.

During the programme, which was broadcast last week, Mr Byers boasted that he had persuaded Transport Minister Lord Adonis to avoid hitting National Express with huge penalties after it pulled out of its franchise to operate the East Coast main line last summer.

He was also seen describing himself as a ‘cab for hire’ on £5,000 a day.

But in the unbroadcast footage seen by The Mail on Sunday, Mr Byers suggests that Mr Bowker planned to reward him with a job at Union Railway.

‘I’ve got other opportunities... there’s a big railway about to be built in the United Arab Emirates, called Union Railway,’ he said. ‘They’ve approached me to go on their sort of international advisory board, which would be very interesting, and is remarkably well paid. So I’ll do that.’

Lord Adonis said Mr Byers had lobbied him in the Commons in June, but insisted it was ‘pure fantasy’ this had led to National Express being spared the penalties.

In other footage, Mr Byers is also seen boasting about his links to Tony Blair, whom he claims to see ‘every month’, raising questions about whether he has business dealings with the former Prime Minister.

A spokesman for Mr Byers said: ‘The comments made by Stephen were exaggerated and he withdrew them the morning after he met with the fictitious consultancy. Stephen has no job with Union Railway.’