My Personal Story : In and Out of Europe

This book tells the story of Andrew Pearce MEP (Member of the European Parliament), who represented half a million people living in Merseyside and Cheshire at Strasbourg for ten years.

It's a human story, a down to earth account of what the daily job of an MEP is like.

When Andrew applied to be a candidate in the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979, he could not have foreseen the places he would visit, the people he would meet and the actions he would be part of. Andrew had no knowledge that he'd be arrested 'at gunpoint' on a ferry on the Zambezi, bitten by a monkey in Sierra Leone and spend a night in a former Portuguese Army brothel in Angola.

He expected to be debating with some of the big figures in European politics but could not know that they would include Barbara Castle, Ian Paisley, Pierre Pflimlin, Otto von Habsburg, French right wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and British European Commissioners including Leon Britain and Roy Jenkins. He could not have imagined the depths to which the British media would sink to when reporting on the EU and the damage this would do to the British people's understanding of its activities.

He was similarly unprepared for the absence of effective means of co-operation between MEPs and Conservative colleagues in the House of Commons. My Personal Story - In and Out of Europe is the entertaining, informative and personal recollections on the daily life of one MEP.

It is a fascinating read for anyone curious about the EU and Britain's role within it.