Member of The European Parliament
Hannan was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999.
A year after his first election, Hannan courted controversy when he appeared to be using the Conservative Party's central office as headquarters for a campaign to persuade Danish voters to block the introduction of the European Single Currency; however, he was able to show that the campaign was actually being run from his Westminster flat.
In his first term, he served on the Committee on Fisheries and the Delegation for Relations with Afghanistan.
He was re-elected at the top of his party's list for the South East England constituency in 2004.
Hannan led the campaign to withdraw the Conservatives from the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP–ED) group in the European Parliament and form a new anti-federalist group. Hannan welcomed David Cameron's promise during Cameron's successful 2005 leadership campaign to withdraw: even promising to leave the EPP–ED unilaterally if the party didn't.
In April 2009, he criticised an EC Directive that would end the exemption in British law for religious groups to discriminate on grounds on conscience.
In April 2008, Daniel Hannan was elected to the top position of the Conservative list for the 2009 European elections in the constituency of South East England, and in June 2009 he was re-elected to the European Parliament.
Read more about this topic: Daniel Hannan
Famous quotes containing the words member of the, member of, member, european and/or parliament:
“I declare Billy. I like you so much personally I wish I could vote for you. But bein’ a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, I just as leave cut my throat as to vote for a Democrat.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“The very existence of society depends on the fact that every member of it tacitly admits he is not the exclusive possessor of himself, and that he admits the claim of the polity of which he forms a part, to act, to some extent, as his master.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“While waiting to get married, several forms of employment were acceptable. Teaching kindergarten was for those girls who stayed in school four years. The rest were secretaries, typists, file clerks, or receptionists in insurance firms or banks, preferably those owned or run by the family, but respectable enough if the boss was an upstanding Christian member of the community.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“Americans want action for their money. They are fascinated by its self-reproducing qualities if it’s put to work.... Gold-hoarding goes against the American grain; it fits in better with European pessimism than with America’s traditional optimism.”
—Paula Nelson (b. 1945)
“He felt that it would be dull times in Dublin, when they should have no usurping government to abuse, no Saxon Parliament to upbraid, no English laws to ridicule, and no Established Church to curse.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)