UKIP has had 20 years, or as good as, to turn the
Conservative Party into its own Eurosceptical fantasy of that party's past. It
has failed miserably, and comments on certain websites make it perfectly clear
that its supporters will now tell themselves anything in order to be able to go
home to the federalist-as-ever "Tories" before they die.
Seats won is how we count these things in this
country. UKIP has never won one. Not one. The Greens, also very anti-EU, have
won one. Respect has won two, even if they have both been won by the same
person, no friend of the EU. But UKIP has never even managed that. And for
internal reasons, UKIP will be lucky to exist at all by 2015.
They don't need to win a seat.
ReplyDeleteThey just need enough votes to be able to tip the balance.
The Labour Party owes UKIP for ensuring they clung on to some of the seats they did.
Impossible to prove, and of no interest anyway five years later.
ReplyDeleteWhen a Eurosceptical party has 257 seats and a commanding poll lead, then what need is there of UKIP? There is none.
I believe if you look, you'll find that the UKIP's vote was enough to deny the Tories several key seats in 2010.
ReplyDeleteAnd what proof do you have that the Labour Party is Eurosceptic?
Last night's vote, for a start.
ReplyDeleteEd Miliband's repeated expressions of openness to an In-Out referendum.
The presence of Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor and of Jon Cruddas as Head of the Policy Review.
Who the three PLP representatives on the NEC are; one of them has voted against every Treaty since the first one.
The 88 votes for John Cryer, an outspoken advocate of total withdrawal, to chair the PLP.
And so on.
I assume Mr Milliband's expressions are more cast iron than Mr Shameron's?
ReplyDeleteYou can't argue with the division list of the House of Commons.
ReplyDeleteYou and I both know the division list of the House of Commons can mean f all come election time.
ReplyDeleteJust come across this interesting post.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, "Eurosceptic" means staying in the EU, but moaning about it to get votes(see Christopher Booker and Peter Hitchens explanation of this meaningless term, a way for Parties to hoover up dissent, while keeping us in the EU).
Last night's vote is evidence of what, Mr Lindsay, except political opportunism to undermine Cameron?
You didn't notice that the Labour Party calling for a budget cut the other night, was the same Labour Party that gave away £7 billion of our rebate for nothing, and agreed above-inflation rises in EU spending for both multi-year budgets?
They are about as principled as Berlusconi.
And, as for Miliband's referendum "hints"...one is reminded of Gordon Brown and a certain manifesto promise on a certain EU Constitution...
This must be the only blog on the net, that still believes everything British politicians say on the EU. The rest of us have grown up.
hello, I have read and thoroughly enjoyed your Essays Radical and Orthodox. How do I get hold of your other book? It doesn't seem to be on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Tom
Apparently it now is, but by far the easiest way to obtain it is from http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/david-lindsay/confessions-of-an-old-labour-high-tory/paperback/product-20123509.html
ReplyDelete