Out-of-work Peter slams council over EU funding

A SHAW pest-control expert who lost a contract with Rochdale Council because of his high-profile anti-EU views is furious that the authority is funding jobs for others with EU cash.

Peter Brown (58) said: “This vindicates my belief that they would not let me use my van with anti-EU slogans on it because they get funding from Brussels.”

“It has now been announced that they, with Oldham Council, are setting up the Intensive Start-Up Support project supporting people considering starting up a business and targeting women, ethnic groups, people facing redundancy, those over 50 years old and ex-offenders.

“This is a three-year European Regional Development Fund project.

“But what about me? What help do I get, when I have worked hard all my life to earn an honest living,” he said. “The answer is obvious — none.

“Some people will be thrilled to hear about this new scheme but they shouldn’t be fooled into thinking it is manna from heaven.

“There is no such thing as EU money, it’s our money. It costs this country £45 million a day to be a member of this undemocratic, power-grabbing monster.”

He lost his work as a self-employed mole catcher when the EU banned the use of strychnine under the Biocide Directive. He has been helping out at farms in Lancashire and Yorkshire to make ends meet.

His contract with Rochdale Council came to an end after he refused to remove the anti-EU slogans from his van. He staged a protest demonstration, supported by local UK Independence Party MEP Paul Nuttall, near Rochdale Town Hall last month.

He added: “I was told the signs on my van were ‘inappropriate’. The signs were not illegal and I refused to remove them.

“The poison I used, now banned by the EU, has been in legal use backed by three UK government bodies for over 60 years.

“It failed because a fee of five million euros was required to make a case for its safety. So why should the manufacturers have to pay five million euros to say how safe it is?

“And how hypocritical of the local authority that they can strike to save their jobs and I have been finished because I refuse to cover up signs that are not illegal. My business has collapsed.”

Mr Nuttall said: “Peter has worked hard all his life and now it seems everywhere he turns the EU is thwarting his attempts to make a living. He is spot on to say that EU cash is a myth. They are just giving back some of the money we hand over to them.”