"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
Friedrich Nietzsche
With all the political commentators, Conservative Home and Jacob Reese Mogg maintaining that the Conservative Party are by nature eurosceptics and that 81 of their number voted accordingly, a small paragraph at the end of an article by James Kirkup in today's Daily Telegraph caught my eye (unfortunately it does not appear to be on line). In this article he quotes Conservative MPs who say they are worried about reselection come the new boundary changes and at the end of the article comes this:
"One rebel confessed: "I'm actually not particularly anti-European. If there was a referendum tomorrow, I'd vote to stay in. Supporting the motion was partly about keeping faith with the people who sent me here and partly about taking a swing at No10."
This unnamed rebel will not be the only one from the 81 holding similar beliefs and reasons for rebelling, hence the electorate has every reason to be doubtful when a Conservative MP declares himself a eurosceptic. The fact that this rebel is prepared to disregard his/her constituent's faith speaks volumes about polititians principle's and their sense of honour.
10 comments:
I was going through Monday night's votes earlier and I noticed that, all too often, the 'rebels' hjad been people who had previously registered negatively with TTC for having voted the wrong way on issues of sovereignty and regarding bailouts.
It was something that I found myself thinking: "If they hadn't have voted to surrender sovereignty in the first place, they wouldn't need to 'rebel' now."
So, our conclusions are not too far apart.
Hope you're doing dandy, TTC :)
I want to know why no Tory MPs have defected to UKIP yet. Just three or four would have quite an effect.
This is all stage managed bollocks. There is more choreography in parliament than on strictly come dancing!! I dont believe any of them. Vote UKIP
It's certainly a valid point, and I tend to agree. Indeed some may have voted yes to a referendum on the basis they expect it to result in staying in.
But even if they voted for the motion just because they were scared of their local party or electorate then that's a step in the right direction.
I agree with Woodsy42 WfW, I've said as much in reply to your comment at my place.
It is becoming obvious to the most disinterested that all three parties are keeping the public away from the EU issue.
There were many good speeches made in Parliament during the referendum discussion - none reported by the MSM - and we can remind the speakers at a later date of their statements.
To Michael Fowke I would make a point.
Most voters are tribal - if a MP switches to UKIP he gives up his/her career - his/her constituents will switch their vote to the next Con/Lab candidate.
Principled and glorious his/her actions may be but it may be better to have him/her in the tent but peeing inside.
There is also an attempt to portray a three-party consensus on the EU - when the awkward squad speaks up it shows that there are dissenting voices within all three parties.
This is how it should be - 650 people can not possibly agree on one subject with such unanimity.
Sorry to WfW for the length of this comment.
In the Derby area, four MPs voted for the referendum motion - two Conservative - Nigel Mills and my own MP Heather Wheeler.Heather has also joined the Better Off Out group. The two Labour MPs were the redoubtable Dennis Skinner who has always been pro independence and Natascha Engel whose speech I heard. She was rather impressive.
On the BBC reports, there has been hardly a mention of the Labour rebels. It is normal for the BBC to ignore Northern Ireland Unionists but they rarely ignore Labour. The Labour rebels are apparently unpersons. It is nothing but "Tory splits" and "Embarrassment for Cameron".
Of course, there will be mixed motives amongst the rebel MPs. There always are in any human enterprise. The vote has brought the issue into the open and, if we kick up enough fuss, it won't go away.
The first debate was on a motion with one too many options. IN or OUT has got to be the name of the game.
We should take a leaf out of the EU book and keep asking until we get the correct result!
Excellent post David and one that has comes timely as other seemingly unrelated thoughts go through my head.
I recall reading Hitchens call for a rebellion against today's Conservatives before the election and wondered what the hell he was going on about. Retrospectively it all becomes too clear.
The current Conservatives are not what people expect them to be and I'd agree the time is right for some form of breakaway. However, given where we are with the state of Europe, it is time for other things as well such as those you pointed out in your constitution posts.
We need a whole new set of thoughts across the board, especially how we survive and thrive post any EU collapse. In or out of Europe, we need to change. Their uber leftist ideals are failing time and time again and we see those ideals failing here and making us ill equipped to have a nation which could thrive post EU. Currently, the British thinking around these problems is rusty and as The Slog points out some radical realism is called for.
Such a notion of British drive and excellence in which people stand on their own two feet with minimal inteference form the state should have been the rallying cry of conservatism and probably is in many aspects of small c conservatism, but what we have from these now is a marriage of flawed statism and corporate cronyism.
Any new conservative spin up should really comprise of new thinkers. Ones who can make simplify the message that your freedom lies not in more from the state but less. It should make sure that it tells the working class, that there so called benefactors on the left have done nothing but conned them.
Take for example, public sector pensions. The unions could have explained to their members the flaw in the model in that they were never sustainable and led them to take charge of their own retirement. But they didn't. They kept the myth alive because they know that if the working man and woman ever "gets" it, there's no need for the unions and the revenue stream dries up. You can see this across all manner of things.
The time for new thinking has come, from people who are willing to shoot a big hole in big state logic and well below its waterline.
Apologies, posted my above comment in the wrong thread - woops
TTC: Fine thanks.....
MF: As explained by BJ, it wont happen, they all have 'careers' to think about and BJ's comments are correct re the tribalism of voters. I note today that Farage says there may be some defections - believe that when it happens
W42: If.........
BJ: Agree with defections (see above) - oh and no need to apologise.....
ES: Lets hope we can keep the 'fuss' going........
Anon: Unfortunately I don't believe it will make any difference.
RB: No problem.................
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