It would seem that I am not alone in believing our Prime Minister to be an utter idiot, one whose only strategy is self-preservation of office, one who is unable to see beyond the end of his nose, one who has blindly followed, with no defences to hand, an all-devouring beast that will most certainly turn round and swallow him. Cameron may have his 'victory' but the cost will be great - pyrrhic indeed.
Richard North, EU Referendum, together with Helen, Your Freedom and Ours, most expertly state the obvious, an 'obvious' that those of Cameron's party who are fawning over him would do well to read. Mary Ellen Synon, to whom Richard North links, confirms my opinion that Cameron did indeed have two aims; namely the avoidance of a referendum and the preservation of his own skin.
Raedwald posts on the potential for the 26 to 1 scenario to eventually diminish to a figure more in the region of 18 to 1 and in so doing highlights the 'spin' being applied by Cameron and his ilk to proceedings, coupled with the 'filtering' of news to which Richard North referred in one of his earlier posts.
That this is no 'victory' by Cameron is illustrated by the fact that this country will still be liable for any further directives that may come from Brussels, of a financial nature, which begs the question as to what Cameron does then. Having gone out of his way to avoid a referendum, having based his case on the damage to the City of London that future directives (or regulations) will do and how such would amount to a loss of power, all his efforts will have been in vain, surely - unless of course he insists on yet another 'U' turn and wriggles out of conforming to the requirements of his own Parliamentary Act. That really would cement his 'dictator' mantle.
In yet another example of the stupidity of his party and the supposed 'eurosceptics' within, the radio reports this morning that Cameron is under pressure to start the process of renegotiation (presumably of 'certain powers') once again. Just what is it these people do not understand about EU membership and perhaps they can point us to the section of the Lisbon Treaty that covers such a process? There is only one 'renegotiation' that needs to be undertaken and that is this country's exit from the EU - Simples.
3 comments:
I agree that all the applause Cameron seems to be getting from his Europlastics is undeserved. However, in my view faced with the choice of agreeing to everything or saying "no", he chose the lesser of two evils. His reasons for doing so are debatable. I can only hope that he has started something that floats us further and further away from the EU mainland and sooner rather than later.
Under the circumstances he did the right thing, although possibly not for the right reasons. Avoiding a referendum in this context was probably sensible - it would only have been a referendum on a new treaty and we'd almost certainly have said no at that point, so he's saved months of wasted effort.
His next big test on this is if there is a financial diktat from Brussels which was agreed in our absence - at that point he ought to demonstrate he's still got his bow fingers and give us our referendum on the whole membership thing.
SO'H & DH: Leaving aside his motives, which I believe contain a large element of personal preservation, you are both correct in that (a) he has started what will hopefully result in our exit and (b) he will be forced to give that referendum (and it will have to be in or out) the minute the first financial directive/regulation hits the doormat at Westminster.
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