The Tories take on Brown over the Lisbon Treaty

Chris lancashire

Terrible poster. Wrong issue, badly executed. 90+% of the population ain't interested.

Keep banging on the "Gordon's Brown Debt" theme for the next 12 months.

Verity's love child.

why should people vote for a man who is committed to the anti democratic, corrupt body called the EU?

Cameron is committed to the EU! like all good Common Purpose trained people!

VOTE FOR ANY PARTY WHO WANT OUT OF THE EU!

Publius

I think we can now expect a joint attack by UKIP on the one side, and Labour on the other -- both of whom have an interest in keeping Labour in power.

R Mason

Furthermore every political party promised a vote on the constitution now called the Lisbon Treaty and campaigned on the promise of a referendum. The Tories are saying now that we can only have a vote if the Irish, Czech and even the German constitutional court say no. They promised us a vote so they should give us one. The truth is that at heart they do not want to give up on the prospect of the euro gravy train with no elections and swanning around the world blathering when their time in the UK is done.

TGF UKIP

"Isn't especially powerful" What a master of understatement you truly are, Pete. It's crap and could so easily have been so much better. It underlines just what a third rate crew the Cameron Tories are.

In any event just what is the point of a eurosceptic voting Tory. The Tories and especially The Heir can be trusted on Europe about as much Labour.

George Laird

Dear All

The Tories want to start a fight about something they are not going to give the public either!

Where is the logic in that?

New Labour must be laughing at all the free publicity in Downing Street.

The ad is pathetic, it is lacking in wit and imagination.

Did the Tories go to the same people who done Brown's advert?

Eric Pickles should do the decent thing and fall on his meat pies.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Ian Walker

If the large white caption was simply "Labour's EU-turn", it would be fine, but the wording is so clumsy (especially as someone obviously got their knickers in a twist over whether it was "a" or "an")

Good issue to campaign on coming into the Euro elections though; much better to press home on multiple fronts than overstress one issue and get outflanked.

David Lindsay

The issue on everyone's mind, of course.

They aren't saying that they'd campaign for a No vote. They have never said that.

This whole referendum business is a distraction. They pointedly failed to put down a Second Reading amendment which did not mention a referendum, but simply rejected the Treaty itself because of what was in it.

In office, they would have signed it without protest and ratified it without a referendum. They are the party of the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. And they always will be.

Tom Pride

This post (European elections) , the last post (there is no level not matter how low to which Brown will not stoop for party advantage – McBride, using troops, broken manifesto promises and downright lies) and comments made over the weekend about the morality of voting BNP, gel together an issue I have been thinking about.

Brown has a demented hatred of Mr Cameron and the Conservative party. If he is 20% behind in the polls by this Autumn staring electoral defeat in the face, might he introduce a Bill in the Queen’s Speech for PR for the Westminster Parliament, effective for June 2010, purely to keep the Conservatives out? The Liberal Democrats would support it.

The first past the post system has a stabilising effect on politics by forcing compromise into broad church parties and making it next to impossible for single issue or extremist parties to have Parliamentary representation. We avoid the pitfalls of an Italian or Israeli type Parliament and I do not think first past the post should be arbitrarily jettisoned as part of a Brown gerrymandering scheme.

I observe (I do not advocate) that a substantial BNP vote at the PR European Elections would produce the reality of BNP Euro MPs. This would make English Labour Westminster MPs, unsettled at this outcome and concerned at a haemorrhaging of votes to BNP on one side and Lib Dems or Conservative on the other, think very carefully before supporting any move to PR which Brown might seek to implement.

Chris

This is the wrong campaign about the wrong thing. William Hague proved (how many days was it to "save the pound"?) that Tory Euroscepticism is a massive vote loser. There's no reasonable way of satisfying the Europhobes (see above - they'd happily see Britain destroyed to suit their prejudices). All this campaign does is play into Labour's hands. Gordon must be loving it.

Hawkeye

I think the poster is OK. I admit to being no connoisseur of posters, but it makes its point clearly enough.

George Laird said: "The Tories want to start a fight about something they are not going to give the public either!... Where is the logic in that?"

Easy George - the idea is to put Gordon on the back foot.

That's it.

It is not about what the tories will do, it is about what Grodon promised and failed to do.

It is more "evidence" that Brown is useless, further destruction of his character and competence but, unlike smears, it is firmly based in fact.

Carrie

Very, very disappointed. Is this the best that they can do. This country is sick of the EU and is actullay becoming more Eurosceptic (recent polls: Daily Politics, Politics Home Index). I fonly the Tories could tap into this. They just seem to miss the target everytime. I am starting to think they're doing it on purpose. Cameron better realise the parties Europe policy is an article of Faith for many Conservatives.

David Cameron, please note....

David, we want a referendum pre or post ratification. If you can't confirm the position post ratification ie a referendum then I will vote UKIP.

Its not about being a headbanger, its about democracy in Britain.

Slim Jim

It's not just about Europe. This is about restoring trust in democracy and the political process. That's what Brown said he'd do, but have the Conservatives got the courage to follow it through? We really are at an important crossroads in politics.

Kittler

Now that recent events have revealed the extent of the economic and financial mismanagement, perhaps the dissolution of the UK government and the introduction of some form of direct rule from Brussels could be considered as the saving solution. The UK has demonstrated that it cannot satisfactorly support or govern itself.

Kittler

Now that recent events have revealed the extent of the economic and financial mismanagement, perhaps the dissolution of the UK government and the introduction of some form of direct rule from Brussels could be considered as the saving solution. The UK has demonstrated that it cannot satisfactorly support or govern itself.

Cynical Voter

The Conservatives are not credible on the EU...all the hedge-fund financed parties are untrustworthy on the EU. With Brown's financial disaster Britain will in the Eurozone within the next Parliament as the pound ceases to be a valid currency

Lloyd

The poster is not top-notch Saatchi, to be sure, but it dog-whistles at the widespread fury felt across the spectrum at Brown's dishonesty over the broke manifesto promise of a referendum.

In searching to find a positive but critical, EU policy,and get away from the nihilitic Europhobia of post-Thatcher times, Cameron has a tightrope to walk.

Events, dear boy, events. If the treaty is fully ratified before the GE, it changes the terms of any referendum on Lisbon. A 'No' vote then doesn't simply stop the Lisbon treaty coming into effect but poses a serious constitutional problem for a government that has to 'negotiate' its way out of an enshrined treaty.

Also, as David Brooks (CH 2 posts down) and Dan Hannan (spring conf speech vid on Coservative Home)articulate, the Tory reconciliation of devolving power in the UK to branches of 'society' sits uneasily with any acceptance of EU 'techocrats'.

Leaving aside the banal europhobia of the redtops and UKIP, Cameron has yet to find an approach to the EU issue that goes beyond the first sensible steps of withdrawing from a pro-federal liberal grouping and the referendum promise.

Strategically we need to belong to the EU - we are no tiny Switzerland, Iceland or Norway - but developing how we punch our weight and helping France and Germany to have more international clout will be difficult diplomacy and policy post 2010.

(BTW - grammar - Fowler says that an' is needed before and unstressed vowel - an EU - but it is 'a' before a strong vowel - a European (a 'youro..) 0

biggestaspidistra

well its better than the 2012 olympics icon.

what I keep seeing on London underground posters is 'of' used as 'have', for instance 'I would of thought' instead of 'have thought'. Often I'm wrong and perhaps this is an instance of that.

logdon

I disagree. The poster hits two points, the hated Brussels dictatoriat and Brown's shifty dissembling. Try reading the reader comment in the Mail whenever a crazy EU story emerges. It get's pretty epic especially when it was on the referendum. When Ireland said no you could almost hear the hats hitting the roof. The second point is that a manifesto promise was renaged upon by use of convolution and spin.
Remember it's not just boom and bust he promised to abolish but also also the despised Blairite methodology of twisting untruth into reluctant acceptance. His trashing of that promise was an early indication of Browns trustworthiness, ie zero, and from then on his polling ratings slid and slid. Believe me, that poster will hit plenty of buttons out there.

Mark

It's for the EU elections, for goodness sake! So it's about the EU, not the yawning gap in our finances.

Voters are, generally, smart enough to know that an EU election is about the EU. And those who are interested in the EU are, I suspect, more likely to bother to vote.

I also suspect that the poster has been designed to reduce the number of defections to UKIP. I seem to recall that the Tories did better in the Euro elections under Hague than they did last time, not least because of a surge in support for UKIP.

So, while not the best poster ever, it may well be pushing the right buttons for the particular election. (Not that some of those who want out of the EU will agree, of course.)

mac

I don't think the poster is very effective but it's purpose is exactly as Hawkeye describes. It strikes me that openly holding Brown to account in this way is a good idea.

I would like to hear the Tories clearly reject the federalists' goal of ever closer union that the the Lisbon Treaty aims so unmistakably to facilitate. Close economic cooperation, yes. A uber-state run from Brussels? No.

@ Kittler:

Wrong. It is New Labour that has demonstrated it cannot govern satisfactorily.

Susan Hill

O.F.F.S Why didn`t they just put the idea up for a Blue Peter Poster Competition ?

JONNY

That's good then Verity.
Looks like UKIP have got themselves one extra vote.

JONNY

Yes indeed this poster touches all the right buttons.
But of course it was never going to satisfy the stuck-in-the-mud Europhobic diehards.
Anyway it surely must be clear to a child of ten that with our economy currently disintegrating into bankruptcy it would be foolhardy beyond all reason to jettison our European trading advantages.

Martin C

I think they should reprint the old 1997 poster of Tony Blair with red demon eyes that was captioned "New Labour same old danger", and underneath an additional caption - "Told you...".

teledu

Chris - can't agree with your comment that "William Hague proved (how many days was it to "save the pound"?) that Tory Euroscepticism is a massive vote loser. "
The Conservatives would have lost that election by just as big a margin no matter what the party's stance on the EU had been.Hague could have promised to halve income tax and refund cash spent on call girls and he'd still have lost big time; don't blame it on the masses not being anti-EU. That just gives our disingenuous EU-loving Tories an excuse to shuffle the issue to the back of the queue. There is an undercurrent of anti EU sentiment across all classes, yet our Europhile out-of-touch elitist political dipsticks either ignore it or are unaware of it.

Verity

Jonny - I don't know why you address your post to me. I haven't posted on this thread yet.

I think the poster was indeed an attempt to try to leach votes out of UKIP. It's also deeply dishonest because it implies that the Tories under Cameron are anti the Lisbon Treaty, and that is a lie. The Heir to Blair is a keen Europhile and has his eye on the top table.

John Page

I only understood the headline when I read the small print.

No good.

Athesius the Facilitator

I hope we get to find out exactly what Cameron wants with Europe. He will have to win power first. So on them grounds we should all be pulling for him out of curiosity if nothing else. Mind you that poster is "crap", I expect some overpaid London based commercial artist got paid a fortune for that rubbish.

egh

EUSSR GO HOME - looks like a good slogan to me.

'Home Rule for Britain' might make another.

Kittler - just because your assonating friend Hitler didn't succeed doesn't mean we can't govern ourselves. Please note that we have always (eventually) rid ourselves of invading master-races -ever since the Younger Dryas.

hadrian

The E.U. is such a load of undemocratic c**p that it matters little for whom one votes - just so long as it is NOT for Labour! The fun of it all is it'll give us a glorious opportunity to knock the stuffing out of Labour. Yippee!!!

My vote'll go to UKIP on this.

Publius

Verity. I have sympathy with your overall position because I think that political liberty, and education, are the key long-term questions.

But if you're going to make claims about Cameron and the Tories such as the ones you make above, then you need to back them up with evidence -- which will no doubt bolster your case.

If, on the other hand, you're allowing emotion and parti-pris ire to lead you into telling lies, then you ought to know better.

So evidence, please.

Denis Cooper

David Cameron, writing in the Sun, September 26th 2007:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/eu_referendum/article273758.ece

"Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations."

Nothing about "Provided that at least one other member state has still not ratified the treaty".

Now he makes the democratic rights of the British people conditional upon events in other countries - if the Irish vote "no" again, we might be allowed a referendum; if the Polish President delays signing off the treaty, we might be allowed a referendum; if the Czech Senate or President obstructs the law to approve the treaty, we might be allowed a referendum; if a court in Germany finds that the treaty conflicts with the German constitution, we might be allowed a referendum.

And this is from a party which tells us that it would take a leading role in the EU.

TGF UKIP

Publius, I think Denis Cooper has provided a more than adequate answer for Verity.

Publius

TGF UKIP. Actually no, Mr Cooper's post does not address the question. Verity said that the Tories under Cameron are "not anti the Lisbon treaty" and that Cameron is a "keen Europhile".

I find that very hard to believe, and I put it to you and Verity that there is no evidence.

You may disagree with my analysis, but my view is that the Tories would be fools to make themselves hostage to events. They would play straight into Labour's hands. I am deeply opposed to the Lisbon Treaty. But my opposition is better served, I believe, by a Tory victory than by a Tory defeat.

Are you batting for a Tory victory, or a Tory defeat, TGF-UKIP? If the latter, then you will not be getting my vote in the coming European election.

Verity

Thanks, TGI UKIP. And thanks, too, to Dennis Cooper! Very well said.

Publius - You are new in these parts, but TGI UKIP is not a member of UKIP. And yes, I disagree with your analysis and it beggars belief that anyone would trust Cameron in regards to the statist, fascist EU.

I believe that liberty and our future as a country would be better safeguarded by a Conservative defeat at the next election. We need a stronger leader with stronger conservative instincts than social democrat and self-proclaimed Heir to Blair David Cameron.

Publius

Verity. I am prepared to give the Tories the benefit of the doubt - once - on this question.

As for your comment that my analysis "beggars belief", well I think that's a bit strong. But maybe that's how you like to express yourself.

I do not agree with your final paragraph. My opinion (and clearly it's only an opinion) is that the kind of coup against Cameron that you favour would be counter-productive.

I really cannot stomach another Labour gov't. There are too many other questions (ID Cards and databases; Education; and yes, Europe) that I feel too strongly about.

Shall I assume that you have no evidence for the claims you made earlier?

JONNY

Apologies for my mistake Verity.
But you did, I believe, state somewhere in these columns, that you were thinking of giving your vote to UKIP.
If true, this must be the most heartening news they've had for weeks.

CuttingEdge

The Conservatives should simply employ Dan Hannan's oration to Gordon Brown in their forthcoming pre-EU election party political broadcasts - get it aired prime-time on the MSM where the wider public can see it, and its a case of game over, job done.

Verity

Publius - Your faith in David Cameron's good intentions beggars belief, given all the evidence to the contrary.

None of us wants another Labour government, but I believe that if it squeaked in, it could lurch on longer than a year or 18 months. A small price to pay for getting a Conservative Leader driven by Conservative beliefs and not a burning desire to get his feet under the top table in Brussels.