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Candidlist started in October 1999, as a plain listing of Conservative candidates and Members of Parliament according to their known or presumed opinions on European integration. Since then, it has gradually expanded to cover three main areas: 1. There is the main Candidlist, which is a listing of parliamentary candidates from all the main parties, together with all relevant correspondence. This has proved a very popular resource over the last 18 months, with nearly a hundred thousand visitors (March 2001). It has been used to select some candidates and to reject others. It is being used in the approach to the next general election to decide which candidates to support. It has been extensively discussed in the media, and will continue to be useful long after this coming general election has been held. 2. There is the Candidlist Nice initiative. In December 2000, we sent letters to every Member of Parliament, asking for a pledge to oppose incorporation of the Treaty of Nice unless a referendum were called on it. This was not a successful initiative, as it allowed Conservatives to make a show of Eurosceptic sentiment while promising what had in the meantime become official party policy. Because some of the responses to our questions gave further first-hand evidence about the opinions and characters of several Members of Parliament, the initiative was not a failure. But it was not our greatest success. 3. There is the Candidlist "Roll of Shame" - this being a listing of those companies that give money to pro-Euro organisations, or have in other ways supported the abolition of the pound and the loss of domestic accountability for our economic and monetary policies. As with the main Candidlist, what begins as a plain listing will soon expand into something like a complete directory of pro-Euro companies, together with details of support for the Euro, names and corporate addresses of directors, and with details of products sold by those companies. Our intention is to build a unique and comprehensive database of British business support for the Euro. We want activists to use this to run boycotts of the listed companies, to write letters of protests to the relevant company officers, and to mount protests at shareholder meetings. Our ambition here is to help ensure that all corporate funding is cut off for the pro-Euro campaigns - so that when the referendum finally comes on British entry, the Government and European Commission will have to choose between having only a shambolic, semi-bankrupt yes campaign, and openly funding it themselves. Candidlist is independent of all political parties and organisations, and is therefore free to provide facts without fear or favour for the debate on Europe. If the information that we provide is used, we shall have succeeded. Sean Gabb
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