Clarke clarifies and muddies the Tory position on Europe

Nick Kaplan

Interesting that they choose to wait until after the election to announce this stab in the back.

Makes me glad I voted UKIP.

Alan Douglas

My last hope is that this is Clarke's attempt to bounce DC into this policy, but it looks like my hoped-for one-time UKIP vote last week might become a permanent fixture.

And I am NOT a rabid little Englander, indeed, not even British. I simply cannot stomach being ruled by anyone I cannot dispose of if necessary.

Alan Douglas

Jock

Another gift for Gordo and Mandy.

Do the Tories think they are so far ahead that they need to play fair and handicap themselves, or are they just determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

David Cameron, please note.........

If Ken Clarkes statement is true then the Conservatives are truly a lamentable party. The third party to break a manifesto promise!.

How can trust be restored in politics if this is the best the Conservtives can come up with.

Ken Clarke is once again letting his europhile tendencies get the better of him.

Last weeks results have sent a clear and resounding message from the British public that we do not want to go further into Europe.

We have seen the people of Holland, Ireland and France being grossly insulted by their political class who have dismissed their votes and now the Conservatives look like behaving in the same manner. Sickening.

David Cameron, if you go ahead with this policy as laid out by Ken Clarke you do not deserve respect or to become PM. You asked for people to vote Conservative for positive reasons - this policy is completely the opposite of that.

Don't embarass yourself, your party and your country with a position on Lisbon like this.

The views of the British people on this matter are are who you should represent not the EU political class.

Don't replicate the invertebrate behaviour of new Labour!

There is no way I'm voting Conservative if this is their policy on the Lisbon Treaty. No way!

James J

Does anyone believe the Tories on the E.U? You can buy a lot of Duck Islands on the money available from the EU and no chance of being pilloried by the media ,and the peasants and plebs that our political class think make up the electorate.
No wonder Continental Europeans riot and revolt at regular intervals.

Verity

This is a very interesting and distressing post, Pete, because it tells us there is no one on our side. No one, who is in a position to do so, willing to protect our independence as a nation.

Worse, we know that they have malintent because they have been so ... I was about to say 'sly', but slyness suggests intelligence and cunning and I believe that Cameron doesn't possess either in great measure. Malintent doesn't mean that you necessarily have the cunning to execute it.

Cameron wants to be PM, and our 2,000 years of history are to be sacrificed to that end.

I don't believe he will make it. There is no hunger for the duplicitous David Cameron.

What is more, he has consistently misread the British electorate, probably because he knows so few of us. He should stay in Islington, or wherever, and spend more time with his windmill.

We need John Redwood, a man of strength of will, intelligence and, indeed, cunning.

Disorganised1

It's not hard, David Cameron is saying nothing about Europe until he has to, I'm hoping Labour push this hard so we can get a real debate it.

strapworld

The way Hague looked like a limbo dancer, when asked this very question by Paxman, and, it appears, his LIES!

Cameron is a Europhile and has not had any intention of having a referendum.

The Conservative Party have treated us all as aunt sally's and do not deserve our vote.

Any party other than the three pro EU parties! + Greens!!

An open goal for Farage to score into now!

The Oncoming Storm

If the Irish vote yes in the autumn (which sadly they will because of the uncertainty caused by the economic collapse) then the treaty will be ratified and operational. What then would be the point of Britain holding a referendum?

Colin

I think we should be told, in clear terms, what the position of the Conservative party is on this issue.

Sooner rather than later...

egh

What's the principle behind this deafness to public opinion?

If you make them shout at you often enough for long enough they'll just get tired and go away?

How the British turned into this despicable, low, spineless bunch of twerps I don't know. But unless a new Guy Fawkes shows up soon....

The point is, surely, that we have always been able to fight for right and light. We don't just wait for the Irish to save us. And we don't just follow the powers of darkness because they're wreathed in slimy smiles.
It's all just too shameful and despicable.

Peter Buss

This is excellent news from Ken and ties in with all that Cameron has said before and so there is nothing muddied about it at all. Cameron is (thankfully ) pro EU but sceptic on its powers. Ken has explained what he will do post ratification.May not be succesful but then it may be - we have the budget contribution to bargain with. Anyway nothing pleases me more than that Cameron will not be pushed around by the BOO and UKIP but stays true to his prinicples.

Hoolio

I hope Ken and the Tories mean that if Lisbon is ratified by all 27 Member States by the time (or if) the Tories win a GE, then just like Maggie handbagged the then EU leaders in the 1980's until they eventually agreed to the British Rebate ("give us our money back")(which Blair gave away again in return for non-existant CAP reform), David Cameron would do the same as regards our laws and competencies, starting e.g. with justice and home affairs.

Seems pretty clear to me, and it would mean we would stay in the EU but we wouldn't be run by the EU in those areas where we retain our national veto, or we can have it returned to us.

I can't see what's not to understand about the Tory position. You could argue that our fellow Member States may not agree to give us our competencies back, but that's a different horsetrade.

Shep

Wait -- so outside of education policy, and of course their ridiculous No-NHS-cuts guarantee, where do the Tories propose to differ from this current set of clowns?

Simon Stephenson

Why is it that with Europe, as with public spending, the NHS, education policy and everything else that is a MAJOR national issue, the political class and their facilitators in the media refuse to generate a debate that addresses the issues at their fundamental level? Why instead is every supposedly "wide-ranging" discussion always directed tangentially at the issue?

Is it that there is such a fear of failure that it is policy only to discuss at a level where defeat will not destabilise what are seen as necessary positions to hold, come what may? For example, is being a member of the EU regarded as sacred - so fundamental to the UK's interests that nothing should be done that carries even the slightest risk of bringing this position into question?

Or is it that they believe there would be such emotion brought to the real in-depth, nitty-gritty discussions that it would be impossible to guarantee a rational result? I can understand this point of view; after all there ARE trumpets of popular opinion that contain, perhaps, rather more emotion than reason. But I would also make the point that this MAY be in no small part down to the frustration felt by the ordinary man at not being allowed any input into the serious issues affecting his life, that of his family and friends, and his country. Maybe, if it was allowed, the extension of serious-issue input beyond the political elite would galvanise the ordinary man into taking an interest in national events at a much broader level than might presently be expected.

Or does he have to prove his seriousness before being allowed to take part?

strapworld

Mr Buss and the other europhiles.

Could you tell me where our Royal family sit within the European Super State?

Obama Beachhead

Jettison Ken!

TGF UKIP

Thank you Ken, the true face of the Cameron SocDem Green Party. You are all that I hoped for - and more!

I look forward with great pleasure to seeing UKIP deprive Dave of any chance of an overall majority at the GE.

Then it can be a quick bye bye Dave and then perhaps the Stupid Party, instead of allowing itself to be conned by d'Ancona & Co, will go on to elect a proper conservative next time round and give the Labour Party the thrashing of its life when the new weak government inevitably falls.

sylvia

At what point will someone organise a protest march on this ? and who will do it?

Boudicca

Looks like my vote for UKIP in the Euros was completely justified.

I would accept the LisbonConstiTreaty if the British people had voted for it .... but they haven't. And they have been denied the vote because our politicians believe the vote would be NO - which is a disgraceful distortion of Democracy.

I am not interested in Cameron 'not letting matters rest there' because, once again, the British PEOPLE will have no say in the matter.

If Cameron doesn't clarify this before the next election, I will be resigning membership of the Conservative Party and instead campaigning for UKIP.

Verity

Strapworld writes: "Cameron is a Europhile". I would amend that slightly: Cameron is a Cameronphile. He is going to do what's best for Cameron no matter whose freedoms he has to hand over in order to get his feet under the desk at number 10 and, after that, the top table in Bruxelles.

If all comes to pass, he and Tony can stroll together down the mirrored, carpeted corridors of power in Brussels, congratulating one another. "After you, Prime Minister ...". "No, no! After you, M. Le President!"

R.Rowan EX TORY VOTER

A gross betrayal shows their's no difference between the main three parties it's UKIP for me from now on.

Rhoda Klapp

To get our own rights back we need to trade? Limp.

There is no mechanism to get any sovereignty back outside of a full-scale inter-governmental conference and a unanimous vote. It just isn't on, unless we give away something they all want. And of they want it that badly, we shouldn't give it or trade it away. The Tory policy is severely wanting an explanation. It is not realistic, except as a position to sell to the gullible. It would be nice of some journo got clued up on the how of it and asked some intelligent questions at a presser.

Steve Green (Daily Referendum Blog).

"I joined the frontbench because the Conservative Party is not as Eurosceptic as it was"

Wrong!!! I want this idiot sacked NOW!

RobertD

Get real. If the Treaty has been ratified by all of the countries and has passed into law before the next UK election then there is no point in having a referendum because it can't change anything. The only options open to a new UK government will be to abrogate the treaty and declare unilateral withdrawal from the EU, or to start a long and painful renegotiation of the UK's relationship within the EU in the context that the institutional arrangements set up under Lisbon are unlikely to be alterable.

Rather than try to guess how best to deal with very unpalatable alternatives the Conservatives need to be ramming this outcome down people's throats and making it clear that the responsibility for such an outcome rests squarely with Gordon Brown and the Labour party. They can offer to do the best they can with the hand they are dealt, but they need to be open with the British voters that their options will be limited and the choices are all bad.

Susan Hill

Isn`t it bizarre ? Have a referendum on the EU any day of the week and the result would be a resounding 'get out'. Very very few ordinary people want us to be in it but for some reason every political party does.. UKIP apart. There is really nowhere to turn. Of course when you read how much money the Kinnock family have made out of the EU you begin to see exactly why politicians are desperate to stay in it. Feathering. Nests. Own.

Simon Stephenson

The Oncoming Storm and Peter Buss

If you are so clear that it's in our interests to ratify the Lisbon Treaty cum Constitution, why do you seem lacking in confidence about convincing a majority of the rest of the population that you are right? After all, surely you can only be this insistent about it if you have no doubts at all, and if this is the case, then it must be so clear-cut that it can't, in all honesty, be too difficult to put the argument over in such a way that anyone with a brain will find it impossible to disagree with you?

Maybe, though, your objection to a referendum is on the grounds that this doesn't constitute an issue on which it is necessary for us to have one? Not remotely, therefore, that the decision might go in what is in your opinion the wrong way, but that there are no constitutional grounds for having a referendum in the first place. If so, would you care to say so while clutching a bible? And, while you're at it, ask Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clarke, Clegg and all the other referendum-deniers if they would be prepared to do so as well.

JONNY

The Tories have let their Euro divisions lose them 3 Elections in a row.
I suppose the Clarke statement must be a gift to Verity, who would dearly like them to lose a 4th.
Unfortunately Europe is not the only, or even the major,issue coming up.
Do we want 5 more years of Brown/Mandelson/Miliband?
That's the issue?

And that's why I deplore the strident self indulgence shown by so many posters here.

Publius

A bad treaty doesn't suddenly become a good treaty just because others have ratified it.

I too am glad I made my point by voting UKIP in the Euro election.

Glynne Tidmarsh

This needs to be sorted quickly.

The current public view of the EU is that we need a referendum. - For many, Lisbon is a treaty too far, and the EU is an undemocratic monster.

It has become the fundamental issue, a cancer at the heart of politics.

If a referendum on Lisbon or whether we stay in or come out is not on offer, UKIP will cut deeply into our share of the vote.

Sean O'Hare

I thought Ken Clarke had promised to button his lip about the EU. As he has broken his promise he should return to the back benches.

Max Kaye

Cameron and Hague better get an unambiguous message across as part of their election manifesto - otherwise it's a UKIP vote from me.

Again.

Ex-Tory voter

I've not forgiven Cameron for failing to back grammar schools as a means of social mobility. If he doesn't give us a referendum on the Treaty, he can forget my vote.

The Oncoming Storm

Simon, No I don't like Lisbon one bit and I believe that it and any subsequent EU treaty should be put to a referendum. My point is if Lisbon is fully ratified and implemented then what is the point in continuing to call for a UK referendum?

David

Spectator journalists are a clever bunch, which is why I just can't understand their Europhobe indulgence - they know it would be impossible to hold a referendum on a treaty that has already been ratified, so why they don't make this clear is beyond me. Yes, let's campaing for a referendum while we still can, but if this government bounces us in you know that different tactics will have to be used. Treat us like adults, please.

Publius

The Lisbon treaty obliges signatories to move to ever-closer union. The treaty is thus incompatible with less union and more independence.

What really sticks in my craw is that Mr Cameron, or other Tories, could have spoken up before the Euro election and made their position clear.

I feel I have been manipulated and deceived.

Denis Cooper

Parliament is still the supreme legal authority for the UK, and so it can decide to consult the people in a national referendum on any question, at any time.

It can also decide what action will be taken in the event of the people replying to the question one way or the other, either before the votes are cast or afterwards.

So there can be no legal obstacle to Parliament ordering that a national referendum be held about the Treaty of Lisbon, even if it's already in force.

Some people may have forgotten that the only referendum we have ever had about the EEC/EC/EU, in 1975, was in fact a retrospective referendum.

And not retrospective by just a few weeks or months, but by two and half years - the accession treaty came into force on January 1st 1973, and the referendum was on June 5th 1975.

Jeremy

Unlike JONNY, I think that Europe is a defining issue for the British people, as is Immigration, and unless the Tories find ways of toughening up their stances on both - in time for the General Election - then like other posters above, my vote will be going to UKIP.

Edward

Ken Clarke ?
Clear as mud ?
Here's a clue.
Ken Clarke : Bilderberg attendee 93,98,06,07,08 and probably 09.

Adam

Christ, with the problems we've got, Europe is a NOTHING. A non-issue.

We are facing the biggest economic crisis in god knows how long, massive long term debt and huge unemployment, combined with failing public services and increasingly militant unions.

Its disgusting to see us fighting over Europe. At least the Tories have had the gall to be honest and admit that a referendum on a ratified treaty would be pointless, as it would have no legal force. Does anyone actually believe that Farage's lot could do anything? They can't even vote to portect British fishing from the Spainiards in the EP!

With the state of the nation as it is, this petty arguing over a relatively minor issue is both laughable and lamentable.

THX1138

I never understand why you all get your knickers in a twist over Europe. Apart from the right wing of Tory party and it's bastard son UKIP who gives a toss?

Ray

Oh dear. Conservative prime minister no. 3 is about to be chewed up and spat out by that remorseless meat grinder called the European Union.

TomTom

There are top-down Establishment parties and bottom-up "Sans-Culottes" parties and every so often the new parties catch the public mood. Ken Clarke is a well-heeled BAT executive and QC whose views were formed 40 years ago and who has no comprehension of the realities faced by today's voters.

It is simply that the Establishment Parties throughout Europe represent noone except the PR firms, the Money interests, and protecting both from the Sans-Culottes

Dorothy Wilson

Ken Clarke is my constituency MP. It is time he retired. I for one would be glad to see the back of him.

Verity

Jonny - You don't think use of the word "deplore" is rather strident?

http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com

Cameron justified Clarke's entry into the Shadow Cabinet by saying that where Clarke's views differed with those of the mainstream party, Clarke would keep them to himself.

Unless Cameron repudiates Clarke's stance today, I will assume that Clarke's view is in line with those of the mainstream party.

Before Labour self-destructed, most people intended to vote Tory just to get Labour out. Now that its support has imploded, Cameron can't be sure of an outright victory.

Should more senior Tories switch to UKIP, Cameron will have a fight on his hands.

Edward

I repeat my previous comment which must have been "lost" in the system or considered too frivolous: :

Ken Clarke ?
Clear as mud ?
Here's a clue.
Ken Clarke : Bilderberg attendee 93, 98, 06, 07, 08 and probably 09.

And I add : Draw your own conclusions.

Fergus Pickering

Take a tip from those devilish clever Froggies. If there's anything you don't like about the EU just DON'T DO IT. Ignore their rulings. Break their laws. Don't pay their fines. Tell them to get stuffed. What can they do? Oh, and unilaterally reduce our contribution to what it was before Blair gave it away. They're only bloody Europeans after all. We've seen them off before. There is no need whatsoever to take the silly Treaty seriously.

JohnAnt

It means that we were right to switch our votes from the Tories to UKIP at the recent EU elections, and that we should now put our money where our vote was, and help UKIP to fight like a tiger at the next general election. Cameron is fumbling every catch - away with him!

Archie

Splendid, Verity! I thought I was howling into the darkness when I extolled John Redwood here and elsewhere. At the very least he should be Speaker. What a scandalous waste of talent! Speaks volumes for Cameron's judgement, or lack thereof.

Jack R

And the Tories are quietly approving, not opposing, the entry of 75 million Muslim Turks into the EU as part of the EU Eurabia plan. The Tory Party, almost as much as Labour and Lib Dems, do not act with the views of the British people who want their national powers restored.

Verity

Who are the other attendees, Edward? I ask out of genuine interest.

Derek

Susan Hill
June 14th, 2009 5:18pm is on the right track in seeing the hope of pelf as the main reason why the main political parties are blocking a referendum. There should be an extension of the Daily Telegraph's investigation into MPs expenses which all reputable journalists should conduct so as to look into MEPs expenses. It should brianch out from there to explore the granting of sinecures and well-padded posts by the EU to British politicians after they have left office. The parallel situation, or one example of it, is the appointments by the Saudi Arabian government of members of US administrations who have shared its political objectives, but made only after they had left office. "Cherchez la femme" in this case involves identifying the consideration - the "for services rendered" link - not easy, but when has defending our liberties not been difficult? The position taken by
THX1138
June 14th, 2009 7:43pm , if not intended to be ironic, is a vote for the Charlemagne Project and to have Europe ruled by an autocratic, and unaccountable state - enough to twist the best man's knickers, I would have thought... unless one is seeking pelf...

Ken Clarke true to form

The expenses row has barely dented political culture in Westminster, if you think anything will derail the EU cash juggernaut then think again. Cameron is just another one on the make.

Verity

Edward ... horrifying ... and, I believe, true. There's been a force at work since WWII which doesn't make sense without an agenda.

Vulture

This is a 'my country or my party' issue. The Cameron/Clarke clique are a bunch of Eurofanatics leading an increasingly Eurosceptic party - and, indeed,people. The choice is becoming increasingly clear : a free and independent country, or a powerless province an an undemocratic dictatorship.
That's why I'm voting UKIP as long as Dave leads the Tories.

euSSR GO HOME

Verity @ 2:21 pm - it's more than 2000 years of history: more like 7-8000. It's been about 2000 years of fighting off the foreign euros though (as opposed to euro Celts/Gauls), maybe that's what you mean.

As for the person who can't understand why we like independence, our own country, and our own culture - nice of him to admit we have 'cullottes.' Even if he is crude and ignorant about the rest.

And yes, Sylvia - that Protest March is way overdue. Maybe more than one, at this point!

mbj

Apart from wasting our time - are all the lefties at the neu-speccie playing divide and conquer on the Tories? No - they must know that the Tories are lefties as well...

Mark C

The anti-Cameron comments above are rather depressing. The position is simple.
If Cameron gets into power before the Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified, Cameron will hold a referendum on it.
If it is already ratified, then it will be in force. It will be binding. It will be too late to hold a referendum on it. However, in that case Cameron will seek to negotiate a new deal. Until he does so, there is no decision to put to the British people unless you want a vote on whether the UK should leave the EU or not (which I suspect many of those laying into Cameron above would like).

Alfred T Mahan

I remember being ridiculed in the early 1990s for saying that I thought the Euro would be bad for Britain. The terms used were pretty similar to those of the Europhiles in the comments above. Let's hope it doesn't take them twenty years to realise their errors this time.

If the Lisbon Treaty is the answer, the question's wrong.

Jamal Akhbar

Just keep asking Broon for out referendum.

anne allan

"We will not let matters rest there"
Translation" "We have a spinal column consisting of pure custard."

Denis Cooper

David @ 7:00 PM - "... it would be impossible to hold a referendum on a treaty that has already been ratified ..."

Except, of course, that is exactly what we did in 1975 - we held a national referendum on a treaty that had not only been ratified, but had been in legal force for over two years.

If anybody fancied a trip to the National Archives at Kew, they could ask to inspect two bundles of Cabinet papers from 1975, piece numbers CAB 193/121 and /122, both described in the catalogue as:

"EEC Referendum: 'No' contingency planning; implications of withdrawal"

It would be different this time with the Lisbon Treaty, but please don't say that it would be impossible.

The key legislative step would be to repeal Section 2 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008, which adds the Treaty of Lisbon to the list of treaties in section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.

Removing the Treaty of Lisbon from that list would mean that its provisions would no longer be incorporated into UK law, and so any EU measures which depended upon its provisions would no longer automatically take effect within the UK.

JONNY

Jonny - You don't think use of the word "deplore" is rather strident?
If you say so Verity.
But as far as UKIP goes:
1. Apart from getting out of Europe I haven't the foggiest what they stand for, on any number of, at least to me, very important issues.
2. With FPTP I doubt very much if they'll elect one single MP.
So how's that going to help the cause of so many posters here?

James J

If UKIP want to really change our relationship with the EU they should concentrate resources in Clarke’s constituency, and other EU advocates standing as Conservatives. A scalp like his would concentrate the minds of others. After all it’s not many other jobs where you can charge Duck Islands, Moat Cleaning and Remembrance Wreaths to expenses.

THX1138

Derek

I wasn't being ironic like being part of the EU - I genuinely can't see what all the fuss is about.

Dave's Europhile credentials only strengthen my resolve to vote Tory at the GE.

Publius

@Jonny.

How is voting for a party that wants more EU going to further my own personal cause of wanting less EU?

The Lisbon Treaty commits signatories to striving for ever-closer union. It commits the European courts to making decisions that favour ever-closer union.

If the mainstream parties disenfrancise me on this, I will either not vote, or vote for which ever party says what I believe on the EU question, however unlikely it is to be elected.

As for Westminster, the EU will rapidly make it no more relevant than a local council, implementing what others have instructed.

John Lea

Cameron's complete absence of policy is the elephant in the room. The Tories no longer have any principles. Over the last 10 years they have yielded to political correctness, a form of double-think established by New Labour that forbids any frank debate on crime, multi-culturalism, immigration, the environment, the EU, the merits of grammar schools and private education. The Tories - and Cameron in particular - have capitulated to the Guardian-rading classes. Having said that, people like Jonny (and many others on here) will vote for them, not because they can distinguish between the two parties, but simply because they see Brown/Labour = BAD, Cameron/Tories = GOOD. Pleeeeeaase Don't Vote for either party! They're both a waste of space!

Mike Hanlon

Couldn't those discussions about 'divisions of competence' for example relate to the areas where Lisbon advances Brussels' power over its member countries? Thus the referendum pledge can be saved and, come the next election, the Tories can occupy the powerful moral highground of trustworthiness and sticking to their promises. It would be madness to give up that huge political advantage and abandon that clear Lisbon referendum promise just because (if) Ireland finally ratifies. What Ireland or any country does relative to the promises we have been given is irrelevant. The Tories should hold onto the political advantages of clarity and consistency. If they are going to re-open the EU Treaty over anything, it might as well be the 'advances' of Lisbon.

Edward

Verity 1:12am
Thank you for asking :

Many other interesting attendees, amongst them a gentleman by the name of George Osborne.
Have you heard of him by any chance ?

And the agenda seems to be going well.
Either that... or I'm a Dutchman.

Archie

The problem, with respect, Fergus Pickering, is our inherent jobsworth culture - starting in Parliament - which stupidly adopts any lunatic legislation spewed out by Brussels. Lower down the food chain middle-jobsworths are only to happy to chuck their weight about enforcing these laws.
Now please forgive me while I drag out and dust off the old soapbox again! I liken the present EU situation to the disarmament parts of the Treaty of Versailles whereby certain signatories to that treaty completely ignored those parts they disagreed with whilst Britain adhered to it religiously, thus leaving us virtually defenceless in 1939.

David Ossitt

THX1138
June 14th, 2009 7:43pm

"I never understand why you all get your knickers in a twist over Europe. Apart from the right wing of Tory party and it's bastard son UKIP who gives a toss?"

The short and simple answer to your question THX1138, is most of the population gives a toss.

The longer answer; is a bit more complex, it is all to do with the lack of truth.

We were sold the E.U. on a lie; each successive government has spun the same lie.

The vast majority of the people in this country do not want ever closer ties with Europe; a majority would vote against the Lisbon Treaty.

I suspect that a majority could be persuaded to leave the EU.

As to the reasons; I have mentioned the first, it's not what we were told it would be, but the main reasons are that it is a corrupt, non-democratic, socialist bureaucracy.

It is simply not British.

Verity

Anne Allan - V good!

Denis Cooper - Hush! David Cameron has his fingers in his ears and is stamping his feet on the floor intoning, "I can't hear you!"

Archie, Redwood has the political nous, the sharp intelligence and the bottle to take over the Tory Party. He would be wasted in the service of Parliament qua Parliament. We need him fighting for us!

THX1138

David O

'We can take pride in the distance travelled. But we must also remember how far we still have to go. The Community is now launching itself on a course for the 1990s, a course which must make it possible for Europe to compete on equal terms with the United States and Japan…. What we need are strengths which we can only find together. We must be stronger in new technologies. We must have the full benefit of a single large market'. -

Margaret Thatcher upon signing the Single European Act

Try telling the young people
of Britain that they can't work in Spain or Germany or the 100'000's of thousands of retired people in France and Spain that they can't access health care or can't transfer their money without paying duty.. Tell the company exporting it's goods to Europe easily in a single currency with no export tariffs that they can't do that anymore- Go on and see how far you get and I suspect that huge majority when it came down to it would opt to stay for the same reasons that Margaret Thatcher articulated so well in that quote.

You lot can howl at the moon all you like, because that's all it is, we're never leaving the EU.

Publius

@THX1138
"Try telling the young people
of Britain that they can't work in Spain or Germany..." etc.

Nonsense. You can have these things without having to have a superstate.

Your argument is fallacious.

THX1138

David O sorry that was a bit of a rant. Nothing personal I promise.

David Ossitt

THX1138

"You lot can howl at the moon all you like, because that's all it is, we're never leaving the EU"

We won't have to; it will in the fulness of time collapse, a corrupt autocratic bureaucracy that has no mandate should not be allowed to exist.

Saying 'you lot can howl at the moon' implies that we sceptics are at best foolish or at worst insane.

I would argue; that attempting to meld together into one unit a large group of countries, each with it's own language history and culture. Is a true sign of madness.

THX1138

Publius maybe you're right & reading it back it was a bit of a rant.

Still why would the other members of the EU give us the undoubted benefits (in mind anyway) of EU membership if we left?

Simon Stephenson

THX1138 : 16/6 : 2.12pm

"Still why would the other members of the EU give us the undoubted benefits (in mind anyway) of EU membership if we left?"

Probably because they benefit from the same arrangements that we do. An extended EFTA would give just about all the pluses of the EU, with none of the minuses. Why should a political plan contrived to keep Germany and France from each others throats need to involve us?

As Enoch Powell argued, cogently, in the 1970s.