Tuesday 3 November 2009

No Lisbon Referendum After All

Jump for joy. No month of the BBC telling everyone to vote Yes. No Yes vote as the last word on the EU for a generation or even for ever, so that all future treaties must be agreed to by Government and Parliament. In other words, no situation desired by David Cameron and his Svengali, Michael Heseltine. Jump for joy. Go on. I am doing so as I type.

Then get on with finding parliamentarians whom no government would dare present with this sort of thing in the first place, so that any question of a referendum would simply never arise.

11 comments:

  1. Jumping as you type? Nice image.

    If you honestly think that the British public would have voted Yes to Lisbon, why do you think the Labour government, which supported Lisbon, didn't call one?

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  2. It didn't see the cosntitutional need.

    Why do you think that the rabidly pro-EU Cameron wanted one? Until today, when the wretched thing as good as came into effect anyway.

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  3. It put a commitment to a referendum in its manifesto, and got an enormous amount of media grief for not holding one. If it thought it was going to win anyway, why not just avoid the political cost of being seen to break a manifesto commitment?

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  4. There was no such commitment. No matter how similar Lisbon and the Constitreaty may be, they are not identical down to the last punctuation mark, so Brown is home and dry on that one.

    "Media grief" from whom? No one to bother a Labour Government.

    Rejecting things like this, or being known to be prepared to if ever presented with them, is what Parliament is for. We need proper parliamentarians, not a rigged referendum with the BBC and all the money on one side.

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  5. "Europe" is a touchstone issue not unfortunately a real one. Only Bloggers like you and me really care. And perhaps "Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells" will fire off a nasty letter to the Daily Express.

    Politicians esp Tories will be asked where they stand on Europe and they will be agin it cos thats how they think of Johnny Foreigner anyway. Meanwhile their moats and duck houses will be clean out and fitted by some Polish workers.

    Nobody WANTS an issue which actually divides....Abortion, Migration, Europe.
    Perhaps the Daily Express will have a campaign.....sign up Vera Lynn or something....but actually this is the result Cameron wanted.
    A chance to do nothing.
    It is unlikely that UKIP can make any real ground.....wont get any seats except hopefully Bercows but a few hundrd votes from Sir Tufton Bufton and his friends in right places might limit the extent of the Tory victory.

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  6. O/T sadly but am champing at the bit - when are you writing your next Telegraph column?

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  7. You should really write a Daily Telegraph post on this. When's the next one due?

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  8. Grimble, Rev - if I remember correctly, David always made it clear that his Telegraph blog was only ever going to be for a limited time. There won't be any more columns, but this was always the understanding. David will correct me if I'm wrong.

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  9. A lot of things are on the back burner while I sort out various local and personal matters.

    Now, back on topic, please.

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  10. Surely, though, David, if you're going to have to put things on the back burner you should do less blogging here rather than cutting back on the Telegraph work - that must get a much bigger audience. You're making a big mistake.

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  11. I can write what I like when I like here, and it's read more locally.

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