Theresa Villiers, MP for Chipping Barnet and long time friend of Cyprus addressed the annual dinner of Democratic Rally UK at the weekend. The event was hosted by Andreas Papaevripedes in his 20th year as chairman of the Democratic Rally UK and the guest of honour was Cyprus Finance Minister, Harris Georgiades. Over 200 people attended, including Nick de Bois, the MP for Enfield North. The event took place at the Penridge Banqueting suite, N11.
Andreas Papaevripedes gave a speech covering a range of issues which included expressing strong support for the Conservatives in the forthcoming general election and urging the Cypriot community to get involved in helping with their campaign.
In her speech, Theresa Villiers said: “It’s a great honour to be able to address you at the annual dinner of Democratic Rally, the sister party of the British Conservatives.
I have been attending Democratic Rally annual dinners for around 15 years now. I very much welcome the work done by Andreas Papaevripedes and his team at Democratic Rally UK and congratulate Andreas on his 20 years as chairman. I would like to thank him for his strong support for me and for the Conservative cause for many years which he repeated so strongly this evening.
This has been a difficult time for Cyprus. President Nicos Anastasiades was left with a crisis situation when he took office. William Hague was the first Foreign Secretary to pick up the phone and offer help and support. A team of the best experts the UK Treasury could offer was on a plane within days. Their experience of the UK banking crisis meant they could provide invaluable expertise and advice to Cyprus in its hour of need.
The Treasury stepped in again to aid the customers of Laiki Bank’s UK branches to ease a transition of their accounts to Bank of Cyprus and out of immediate danger from the banking crisis. And our radical free schools programme has seen the establishment of the first ever Greek Orthodox secondary school in this country.
So the UK remains a strong friend of Cyprus and the British Cypriot community and a strong supporter of UN sponsored efforts to deliver a political settlement.
I am gravely concerned about Turkey’s incursion into the EEZ. This is on the agenda of the European Parliament. A resolution has been drafted giving strong support to the Cyprus Government. My Conservative colleague, Charles Tannock, has been at the forefront of drafting that resolution. He has been a very loyal friend of Cyprus over many years, speaking out for your cause and for his British Cypriot constituents, week in week out, in the corridors of power in Brussels.
I am delighted that Charles was re-elected earlier this year but very sad that Marina Yannakoudakis was not. So I would appeal to you all to think ahead to the general election in May. We have less than 200 days to go. I would urge you all to come out to support the MPs that have proved themselves to be good friends of Cyprus: Mike Freer, Matthew Offord, David Burrowes, Nick de Bois and me.
I’ve seen figures which indicated that only 8% of Greek Cypriots voted in the local elections in the spring. If you want to have a strong voice in our democracy, it’s essential that you get involved in politics and turn out to vote in elections. By doing so, you can support your friends in Parliament and together we can keep working to support the British Cypriot community in North London and together we can keep fighting for the Cyprus cause.”