The chance of enactment is not even that.
Same-sex "marriage" is never going to happen. File under AV, Lords reform, Commons boundary reform, and repeal of the hunting ban.
This Government's ability to get nothing enacted is without historical or international parallel.
I wish you were right.
ReplyDeleteBut Cameron sees this as his great chance to destroy his backbenchers in order to curry favour with the BBC and the Guardian.
Another one?
ReplyDeleteHow do you mean?
ReplyDeleteAnother attempt to curry favour with the BBC and The Guardian. Not that he needs to. They love him, anyway.
ReplyDeleteHmm I'm not sure they'll ever be able to rouse themselves to endorse the Tories-why would they need to when people of their persuasion already have Clegg and Miliband?
ReplyDeleteThey already have Clegg, Miliband and Cameron.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC has been endorsing Cameron ever since he first put up for Leader. That was how he won. And The Guardian has endorsed the Lib Dems at the last three General Elections, which would amount to endorsing Cameron if it did so again in 2015.
To be honest, the BBC have won whoever wins in 2015-its three shades of the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI'd do what PH suggests in his last column and vote UKIP to reject the whole lot.
Labour and the Tories are bound up in so many of the mistakes that have ruined us (mass immigration, destruction of grammar schools etc) that no hope can ever come from those quarters.
He came as close as he has ever done to saying "Vote UKIP", but he didn't actually say it. He is on record that he will support any party with a realistic chance of winning and which promises both to keep Sunday special and to renationalise the railways.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how he gets out of that by May 2015, when both of those, and a straight In-Out referendum on the EU into the bargain, will be, as the first already is, the policy of the party easily on course to win outright.
Then again, he might not attempt to get out of it.
On the in/out referendum he's made his position clear, and I think it's right-firstly, referendums are the tool of despots (which is why the EU always uses them) the only realistic "referendum" which would actually change our relationship with the EU. is a General Election fought on a manifesto commitment to leave.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, as PH rightly says, we'd have a referendum with no mainstream Party to make the case for departure, which will allow the BBC to get out of having to be impartial on the issue too.
That's hopeless.
Yes, I agree with all of that.
ReplyDeleteBut Labour kept Britain out of the euro. Labour MPs have elected three Eurosceptics out of three to represent them on the party’s National Executive Committee, and one of those has voted against every Treaty since the first one. The only other candidate was no more pro-EU than those three.
One third of members of the Parliamentary Labour Party have voted for it to be chaired by John Cryer, an outspoken and dynastic advocate of withdrawal from the EU. Ed Balls is Shadow Chancellor. Jon Cruddas heads the Policy Review.
One of the places for Labour’s 2010 intake to see and be seen is at the Morning Star Readers’ and Supporters’ Group, reading and supporting Britain’s original Eurosceptic newspaper. Labour’s principal Eurofederalist has had to resign for fiddling his expenses.
Ed Miliband has already defeated the Government over the EU Budget, without a single Labour rebel. The number of Conservative rebels was fewer than the number of Liberal Democrat MPs. Miliband should keep up momentum by proposing legislation with six simple clauses.
First, the restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law, and its use to repatriate agricultural policy and to reclaim our historic fishing rights in accordance with international law.
Secondly, the requirement that, in order to have any effect in the United Kingdom, all EU law pass through both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or other of them.
Thirdly, the requirement that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard.
Fourthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament.
Fifthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons.
And only sixthly, the provision for a referendum on the question, “Do you wish the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union?”
The first five would come into effect at the same time as this sixth provision, and would not be conditional on that referendum’s outcome.
A budget increase is really completely meaningless-especially when this was the same Labour Party that accepted numerous budget increases and the surrender of Britain's rebate when it last had responsibility for such matters.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, the same Gordon Brown was principally responsible for the deceitful passage of the EU Constitution which finally made us a subject province of a superstate.
The Tories, like Labour, are pretty eurosceptic in opposition-but not in power.
Renegotiation isn't possible, Mr Lindsay. Everybody who has studied the issue knows it. Miliband, Clegg and Cameron know it too.
Renegotiation (or the "in Europe, not run by Europe" fantasy) is just a bone they throw to their backbenchers and gullible voters.
The fact is that no Party will make the case for departure-they are equally implicated in this project.
Which is why we should lodge our votes with the only Party that does argue for withdrawal.
Renegotiation isn't necessary. All that we need is primary legislation, as I set out.
ReplyDeleteI can bet you that such legislation will never be forthcoming from any of the Big Three.
ReplyDeleteWe need them to collapse and make way for a party that says simply-vote for us, and we'll withdraw from the EU.
UKIP can assist that process by causing their nemesis to collapse-making way for a party that will wipe out Labour and the Lib Dems forever.
The Lib Dems are going to collapse, anyway. Pretty much, so are the Conservatives; that has nothing to do with UKIP.
ReplyDeleteUKIP remains an amateurish operation in which Neil Hamilton manages to be a rising star. It is never going to win a seat, and if Labour plays its cards right, then UKIP will not even top the poll at the European Elections.
Then what you're saying is we have no hope of ever escaping the EU project.
ReplyDeleteIn which case, you may as well give up the blogging and emigrate.
No, I have set out exactly what needs to be done, and could easily be done.
ReplyDeletePeople looking to the Right on this are in any case looking in the wrong direction.
But no Party in Parliament right now would ever do what you suggest.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's "the Right"?.
The tradition of Powell, Redwood et.al who always warned us where the EU would lead?
Or the tradition of their leaderships who never listened?
I'm looking in the only direction from which help can come-and that's from the collapse of the mainstream parties and their replacement. They're all institutionally dead, as their memberships show.
All of them are deeply implicated in the EU project and can never deviate from it, for that reason.
People looking to the Labour Party are CERTAINLY "looking in the wrong direction" (Miliband is a declared EU supporter, in case you noticed).
Oh, yes it is....as for the EU reforms, none of those you suggest have been raised by Labour. Indeed, Labour opposes most of those changes.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of Labour MP's are both pro-Europe and support equal marriage. You will see the latter in the vote, where some 10-15 Labour MP's at the very most will oppose equality. No members of the shadow cabinet will be among them, and some on the next rung down may well think about their future career and be absent....