They could get themselves out of their worsening split on a referendum by saying that they were against the Treaty simply because it extends the legislative power of a body which meets in secret and publishes no Official Report (hardly liberal or democratic), and because it fails to abolish the Common Fisheries Policy (a very serious problem in the Lib Dem heartlands of the West Country and rural Scotland). So they are just going to oppose it in itself, without any need for a referendum, as the Tories refuse to do.
This would be no more (or less) of a change for them than when they abandoned Paddy Ashdown's interventionist foreign policy. Doing that did them an enormous amount of electoral good. So could this. And, as over Iraq, they'd be right.
Meanwhile, did you know that the Tories in the European Parliament, as good members of the European People's Party, voted in favour of the Lisbon Treaty? No, I bet you didn't. But they did.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment