Better Off Out may have my sentimental heart but this article by Melanchthon on CentreRight has my head.
I did not expect to be either satisfied or impressed by David Cameron's Europe speech yesterday but I was wrong on both counts.
Cameron’s masterly statement shone with the realistic, proper and un-fanatical patriotism of thoughtful, authentic Conservatism. It was an object lesson in skilful and effective politics founded on integrity and realism. This man is a very considerable political strategist.
Amusingly, Cameron's speech has already elicited precisely the desired reaction from the French minister for Europe. Dave could hardly dare hope for such an accolade, and so quickly, too.
Not a moment too soon, Cameron has shot the favourite fox of the BBC and its fellow travellers. Their cry of “U-turn” is already dying away as the BBC (amazingly) concedes his chief point: the change of Lisbon's legal status has rendered talk of a Tory referendum on Lisbon redundant.
Just when the media thought he was dead in the water, Cameron has silenced them with a single shot. For now. They will re-group when they figure out what the hell to do. Immigration, probably. They lack imagination and always return to their own comfort zone and still have not twigged that Cameron operates best outside his comfort zone, if indeed he has one. He may yet prove to be a big enough political man not to need one. If so, it will be interesting to see how the media like them onions.
Funny old world. Just when Brown thought he was dead in the water Cameron has elicited a grudging 'oh, all right then,' from both Tebbit (well, sort of ) and the BBC. That has to be a unique achievement.
As for Hannan and Helmer, both of whom I salute for their principles and their stand today, they are members of the European Parliament with their own agenda. The result of the UK GE will not affect them, other than enhancing their standing a little because they will be members of the UK’s governing party. As MEPs they can both afford luxuries which Cameron must deny himself if he is to lead a Tory government. Most of the Hannan/Helmer devotees were always going to vote UKIP anyway. One per cent of the British electorate cast their GE ballot with the EU in mind. Nett electoral value of the Hannan/Helmer resignations = 0.
It may seem counter-intuitive at first glance but Cameron has probably also neutered UKIP as a ginger group threatening Tory policy-making. They are now no more than a refuge for the angry. With Farage departing, I suspect UKIP is finished for all practical purposes. Its following may scatter in various directions, to the LPUK, the BNP... somewhere over the rainbow.
I think we may find, over the next weeks and months, that Cameron has both lanced the Tories' Europe boil and vindicated the party’s essentially Eurosceptic instincts.
He is behaving like a long-view statesman and a patriot who, eschewing populist gestures, is prepared to put in the necessarily serious painstaking work required to attain real-world objectives and thereby to rectify the damage done to Britain by the internationalist/socialist/anti-patriot Brown ─ on whom he has skilfully laid the blame beyond a shadow of doubt.
Every time a Labour mouth opens to accuse him of a U-turn, David Cameron needs only to refer them to images of Brown, lacking the courage to sign the Lisbon Treaty alongside other national leaders because he could not face the opprobrium of the British people whose will he scorns, and then to his own proposed Sovereignty Act which must by its very nature amend the 1972 Single European European Communities Act, the source of all our woes.
Mr. P,
ReplyDeleteThe views expressed in this post are an insult to the intelligence of most folk.
I have yet to read a greater collection of ridiculous thoughts - and that includes the Labour 2005 manifesto!
To be fair though we have yet to see the Tory manifesto 2010
I agree with you. I would go so far to say that this is the best day Euroscepticism has ever had in this country. What you didn't mention is how Cameron has tied the EU in knots too. They will now be dealing with a democratically elected government with democratically validated demands, after that government's people were denied a vote on a treaty they don't want. They simply cannot deny him what he wants without serious adverse consequences to their remaining tiny sliver of legitimacy in this country.
ReplyDeletePosters like the above seem to want a war rather than a policy announcement, they want some cathartic moment of political violence. I suggest they take up Judo.
Prodicus - are you on drugs, old son? The only way the Tories can get to power now is for the Eurosceptics to back Hannan and Helmer. Then there will be an alliance with the UKIP and LPUK in a hung parliament.
ReplyDeleteI very much doubt that this will affect the GE result at all, James.
ReplyDeleteIt may ease your distress to remember that only one per cent of the British people regard the EU issue as important at all.
Given that only a slightly larger fraction has heard of Nick Clegg, for example, what proportion of the vote do you think has heard of Dan Hannan, Roger Helmer or LPUK?
If you put the In Or Out question to a national referendum, then I think the answer would be Out by a narrow majority. A narrow majority, more's the pity. But that is not where we are.
Eagerly awaiting to my copy of the TPA book about 'Britain after the EU'. Well, I can dream, can't I?
And no, I'm stone cold sober but thanks for worrying about my sanity ;-).