Time to get serious?

[whipitup]

There is a long thread on UKV about what we need to do now with regard to the EU E-cig Medical regs.

It's 12 pages, I read it all then posted my current view:



"Time to get serious...true!

I've written to all my MEP's and my MP, not received replies from the labour lot but I will chase that up, however, as labour MEP's are under the whip, badgering them will probably not make any difference (unless someone knows better), we are also very short of time before the pleminary (or whatever the fuck it's called) and I very much doubt we have time to change enough minds. Also a lot of "against" MEP's were voted in in other countries, I doubt writing to them will make any difference....especially if the Email is in English.

So what to do........I suspect (and trust me when I say I am no expert) we need to prepare for a court case and all funds should be collected for that very purpose. Now, as I understand it what the ENVI committee is proposing is illegal, and they know it because JURI have told them so. Now if the MEP's from ENVI know we are well prepared for a court case they KNOW they will loose wouldn't we be better spending our time preparing for that event?

If that course of action was undertaken we could still spend our time telling ENVI MEP's what we are going to do, and telling them they will loose, it might eventually sink in and they change direction??

I'm trying not to be defeatist, just pragmatic."


What do you lot think?......am I wrong in my views?.....what do you think we should do now?

 

[KulrMeStoopid]

Honestly? What do you think any of us can do that will get us the results we went that comes without deep pockets and connections?


I am sitting at a standstill.I have what I need to get by and that's that.

As for what we need? A shit load of money and a team to attack it which would include an excellent team of lawyers and researchers....


The sad truth of the matter is...most of the people us adults elected to run our lives and our children's lives....do not have our best interests in mind nor do they care about the lil guy business.


The people who can do this have the big industry players in mind with us vapers as collateral damage

 

[whipitup]

Reply to an Email to Dave Dorn:

"It's not just ENVI MEPs any more. We now have to target EVERY MEP - and I'm some way through analysing how each MEP has voted in the other committees to get an idea of what the balance is - it'll take a little more time to complete, but the JURI vote was very highly in our favour, for instance.
All four MEPs I spoke to on Weds said the same thing - once it hits plenary, then the brown sticky stuff hits the whirry whirry thing - that's where some of the big hitters with a lot of clout get heard. We know, for instance, that the ECR group (the tories, basically, and like minded EU parties), the ALDE group (liberals etc), and others will be stacked up against Labour and the Greens, with EPP (Christian democrats and such) split pretty much down the middle. That puts the whole thing roughly 50/50. There's a lot of work to do, but there's time to do it. The thing is, it has to be done on a constituency basis - our own MEPs (and MPs) as I said on Thursday. ENVI is no longer the target.

I'm also told that the JURI opinion (ignored by ENVI to a large degree) carries much more weight in Plenary, and while committees will routinely ignore it, Plenary takes a lot more notice, and often the JURI opinion wins the day.

With all of that said, from what I'm hearing in the UK and Brussels, there may well be a difference of opinion between the EU Parliament (MEPs) and the Council of Ministers (MPs and ministers from member states). If that's the case, then it will all go to a second reading, and could be timed out of the current parliamentary term and into the next one - so it has to start all over again. If we don't win outright, that's the second best option, as we know now what we need to do and on which bases to argue - and we start with 25 supporters in ENVI, 24 more than we had when this whole charade kicked off.

In terms of winning hearts and minds, it may not be the uphill task it seems. Once the whole thing is done and dusted, if we lose, we have until 2017 to prepare for the court cases, as confirmed by J Mean yesterday in the HoL - goalposts are moving every day, but it's unlikely they'll come forward. That's because the AM 57 gave a three year "grace period" rather than the two the commission proposed.

I'm going to try to set up an international group which can keep track of MEPs in each member state and give us some idea of exactly how each one will vote on Article 18, such that we know what needs to be done at any given point in time. I also know that the ALDE and ECR groups are pushing for Plenary to be moved back to October to give more time for lobbying - and Groote (EPP) supports that.

Hope this all helps.

Dave"

 

[SouthernVaper]

a show of people and I mean a load of people 5000 at least demonstating it will get in the medias and also give them a kick that we are serious.

I agree what is needed is a shed load of money to fight it as it will end up that way ie courts involvements

 

[KulrMeStoopid]

Right now only two organisations in the uk have the funds to fight it...totally wicked and ecita. ..choose your flavour.

 

[Mark]

If it gets to a court battle it will get VERY EXPENSIVE. I don't yet see any rich benefactors coming forward so Meg is right about that.
I don't think we need give up the campaign to change minds in the EU. Nothing is lost and at least will raise the profile of Vaping which at the moment despite all the coverage is considered pretty niche and irrelevant by most voters. The current round of insinuated threats via Twitter etc to political parties that they would lose 1.3 million votes if they support the un amended proposals will be a bit vacuous if Vapers arent mobilised. There may be over a million of us but how many even KNOW what is going on? A few thousand on the forums? The writing of letters and all the other campaigns, twitterbombs, SWOF etc seems at least to have alerted MPs and MEPs to the issue. From 0-25 MEPs supporting the failed Amendment 58 is a measure of some success. It could all come down to party blocks but from my reading so far the Christian Democrats grouping is split on the issue and could hold the balance

 

[robteifi]

Claiming they would lose 1.3 million votes is probably understating the threat - don't forget the families and friends of vapers. If they can be mobilised we'd probably be talking something in the region of 4-5 million votes at a conservative estimate. Given that only 15 million people voted in the EU election in 2009 that's around 1/3 of the vote. Easily enough to make a difference.

As you say the hard part is mobilising that vote - this needs media attention. Shame that Question Time isn't on the air at the moment, not sure when it's due back on.

 

[whipitup]

QT......September I believe.

 

[daleson]

Was gonna comment on this thread but whats the point .....Its not gonna change a thing .To be honest there minds are made up simple as that

 

[shane_uk]

Fluck me we gotta keep the fight up fellas. Why not make the shit which is coming right on the front of potv website. As no doubt 75% of your visitors don't no what the fluck is coming