Sunday 8 November 2009

THINK AGAIN, DAVE!

Tory Eurosceptics threaten 'all-out war' over Brussels

David Cameron's promise of a referendum in 2015 would come too late to placate his MPs and MEPs




David Cameron has been given an 18-month deadline by a powerful band of Eurosceptic Tory MPs to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Brussels or face an "all-out war" for a referendum, it emerged yesterday. The Conservative leader last week tried to buy more time from the Eurosceptic wing of his party by promising that the Tories' 2015 election manifesto would contain a promise for a referendum should the EU "move in the wrong direction".

Mr Cameron unveiled a list of proposals to assert Britain's sovereignty over Brussels and repatriate certain powers during the next Parliament, if the Tories win the 2010 election. The shopping list was an attempt to placate his MPs and MEPs after he dropped a pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. 

But a senior Tory MP said yesterday that Mr Cameron would have to move quickly in the first year and a half of his premiership – and had to show "real progress" on his promises. The MP said: "I don't think a promise of a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU in more than five years will sit very well. He [Cameron] needs to make progress, within the first 18 months of his premiership. If he does, it will be his crowning glory, but if he doesn't, it will be a thorn in his side."

Another Eurosceptic backbencher said: "We have agreed to keep quiet on this before the election, but if things do not start happening in the first year or so, there will be all-out war for a referendum."

The warning from the band of Conservative MPs steps up the pressure on the Tory leader after the resignation of two Tory MEPs, Daniel Hannan and Roger Helmer, from the party's frontbench in the European Parliament. The issue threatens to spoil Mr Cameron's honeymoon as Prime Minister if he wins next spring. Some 47 Tory MPs, including a handful of shadow ministers, signed a Commons motion last month that "insists that the Prime Minister rejects the [Lisbon] Reform Treaty ... and holds a referendum before or after ratification". Mr Helmer and Mr Hannan are both members of the Better Off Out group which wants the UK to withdraw from the EU. There are also five Tory MPs and eight Conservative peers who are members of the group.

The early-day motion was signed before the Czech government finally signed the treaty last week, triggering EU-wide ratification. The next day, Mr Cameron announced he could not hold a referendum on a treaty that had become enshrined in law. He won over many MPs who signed the motion by pledging a UK Sovereignty Bill and a "referendum lock" on a future treaty that ceded further powers to Brussels. But many Eurosceptic Tories have made it clear that the issue will not go away early in the next Parliament.

In a fresh development yesterday, Mr Helmer renewed his attack on the Tory leader's EU policy. He wrote that Mr Cameron's EU policy was "confused", adding: "We have said that now that the Lisbon Treaty is EU law, we are not in a position to repudiate it. Yet we have made a series of proposals which repudiate significant parts of it, and run counter to EU law. But as we all know, the supremacy of EU law is explicit in the Lisbon Treaty. If we accept Lisbon, we accept the supremacy of EU law." He added: "A 'referendum lock' will not work, because we have already thrown away the key. Our policy fails to recognise the self-amending nature of Lisbon." Mr Helmer said he would campaign for a Tory victory in 2010, but added: "I can neither justify nor support our new EU policy. You can only defy the will of the people for so long."

STORY FROM THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

If David Cameron was not so out of touch with the population of Britain he would have realised that his speech on the Lisbon Treaty was the last thing that the vast majority of people wanted to hear. 

People are quite rightly going to assume, and some have done for a while, now, that Cameron never wanted to hold a referendum in the first place and no-one could blame them for thinking this way under the present circumstances. His words merely sounded like they were designed to give people some future hope for a solution to get us out of the worst parts of a treaty that is self-amending and no longer requires any consultation before the EU does whatever it wants!


It also transpires that a few weeks ago, Margaret Thatcher wrote a letter to Vaclav Klaus, a great admirer of hers, urging him to hold firm and not to sign the treaty. This letter was to be delivered to President Klaus by William Hague - he never delivered the letter and left it sitting on his desk instead!  

Exactly what the fuck is going on here?

The above article from the Independent is the most encouraging that I have read in some time - perhaps we're not dead in the water just yet! Please get your act together, Dave, or the election could leave us facing another five years of Labour and then..........

we can kiss democracy goodbye forever!


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15 comments:

Barking Spider said...

<span>While I'm sure that life will be infinitely better under Tory rule than under Labour (even if they have the same goals), I still don't like Cameron's intended direction of Travel. 
 
He seems to support many of the same things we wish to ditch, climate change, swine flu jabs for kids, the EU and many others. 
 
If Dan and Roger are not behind the revolt, it is almost certain that this sort of thing has been brewing for some time, and that they resolved to join in, should Dave go soft on us. 
 
Heros!</span>

Barking Spider said...

Time to find yourself a new party BS.  Over here in Canada conservatives went through a process of rediscovery and change. The old Progressive Conservative Party was the party of old money and rural values.  Their stronghold was Ontario farm country and Bay Street money men.  In the eighties the western fringe of the party started to get restless.  Centered around Alberta a new fundamentalism more akin to US republicanism than Canadian conservatism sprang up among Calgary's oil and gas men.

Unwilling to accommodate the schism the western radicals started their own party - Reform - under the leadership of Preston Manning.  It didn't take long for conservatives of all stripes to realize that they had split their core vote and would spend eternity in the wilderness if they couldn't reach an agreement.  And so Reform and the Progressive Conservatives reunited to form a new party simply called the Conservative Party.

They now form the government of Canada under the premiership of Stephen Harper.  Harper, although from Toronto, is a Calgary oil man and former leader of the Canadian Alliance Party (formerly the Reform Party).

Barking Spider said...

UKIP.  BNP.  Greens.  Independents.  Lib Dems(?).  English Democrats.  Anarchy following Labour win. 

Counting.  Chickens.  Hatched.

Barking Spider said...

It's definitely brewing, OB.

Barking Spider said...

Wow, it never ends, Spidey!  I hope you are having a nice weekend.  I'm feeling more hopeful, I have some great advocates on my side, although the war has just started.. hee hee. I don't want to bore you with the tales of woe,  Tomorrow should be interesting, Pray for me.

Barking Spider said...

Go for it, Bunni, let loose the ninja squirrels!! :-D

Barking Spider said...

You're absolutely right, Scunnert, that's exactly what needs to happen here - If UKIP, disenfranchised Conservatives and all the other like-minded politicians were to merge and form a Conservative Alliance Party, or whatever you want to call it, then "Call me Dave" wouldn't stand a chance - but Britain would....finally!
                               ;)

Barking Spider said...

<span>It certainly looks that way, Fausty, I've never had a really good feeling about Cameron since the day and hour he got the job. I always hoped that he would be more of a conservative than he appeared to be, but he finally proved last week that he is nothing of the sort. Like Bliar, he is trying to be all things to all men purely to get votes and assure his future, (as if he needed to), and, like many of the political class, the EU suits him just fine!  
 
All Cameron has succeeded in doing is to split the conservative vote and he will only have himself to blame when the BNP win seats and, God forbid, Labour get back into power.  
 
Dan Hannan would make a better PM than Cameron will ever be, because Hannan cares about the Country while Cameron, like Blair, only cares about himself!  
                                                                 >:o </span>

Barking Spider said...

There really is, now, only one way to concentrate the minds of the Tories.

No referendum = I will vote for Labour.

I fucking mean it. If enough others would do so and say so, maybe the message will get through to the stubborn bastards.

Barking Spider said...

You're a man after my own heart, Edgar, but I think I would even threaten to vote BNP before I'd ever vote for the fucking Labour communist party!!

Joking aside, I do know exactly what you're getting at - voting Labour would absolutely scare the shit out of them!
                                                                         ;)

Barking Spider said...

And there was me telling you I couldn't recall where I'd read that Cameron faced a revolt - right here!

You're right - Cameron has split the Conservatives. For now, they'll remain in the party, but there might be some defections within the next parliamentary session.

The parties have been getting away with fobbing us off for so long, they probably don't realise that the game is up!

Meanwhle, the government will be further intruding into our private lives - this time, under the pretext of health and safety. It will be sending its snoopers into our homes to check that our smoke alarms are working.

Yeah, right!

It's just another excuse to put the state in the family home and hollow it out. They don't like parents being in control of their families and homes. Communist b@stards.

Barking Spider said...

"<span>And there was me telling you I couldn't recall where I'd read that Cameron faced a revolt - right here!" </span>
<span>LMAO </span> :-D <span>  </span>

I think James Higham has absolutely the right idea, Fausty, and if he can manage to pull it off and get something moving on that front, it will end up filling the current vacuum for many disenchanted, like-minded voters and give us the chance of a completely fresh start having swept clean all the corruption and dross at the polls!

I wonder how long it will take before one of these fucking snoopers gets their head kicked in? O:-)

Barking Spider said...

I won't vote labour and I won't vote BNP but I will vote for whichever independent candidate appears strongest locally, even a Greenie ! What chance of the various Libertarian groups and indies at least not opposing each other in individual constituencies thus splitting our vote ?

Barking Spider said...

That is the biggest problem created by Cameron's stance on the EU, Banned. Watch out for those Greenies, though, they'll soon be taxing us for farting - climate crisis, dontcha<span style="color: #000000;"><span style=""> </span></span>know!                                                                       
;)

Sheriff said...

G'Day Bark . . . American politics are driving the citizens here crazy. Reading about Great Britain's trials and tribulations with the EU is disturbing as well. What is going on? Clearly Big Government with dictatorial power is growing both in America and in Europe. Communism is half way out the door and Socialism is half way in. I wonder if we are all losing our ambition, independence, freedoms, representative governments, and so on. Where are ethics, responsibility, self improvement, virtues, honesty and etc. going? Yuk. An ostrich with his head in the sand may have the right idea. . .