Cameron faces the eurosceptics

disenfranchised

there's nothing in this world that could make the eurozone work. but the longer the delusionals procrastinate - fiscal integration, stretching the ECB's powers, dodgy eurobonds, and all the rest - the worse it will be for all of us stuck in the experiment.....

Verity

Disenfranchised ... Agreed, but that isn't the point. The EUSSR has to be advanced and the single currency is the next step, regardless. That is the plan.

nonny mouse

A single currency works in the United States of America. There is no reason why it could not be made to work in a United States of Europe.

Whether or not it is, of course, is a totally different question.

We should support it because we will never join it, and by doing so we are effectively distancing ourselves from the fast track to European integration. Eurosceptics should see that as a good thing.

The 'anything Europe does is bad' mentality by Cash et. al. is sadly self defeating. That attitude is why our Eurosceptic movement is so powerless to stop us being swept up in the ever closer union.

Tim Williamson

Watching it was a depressing experience. He talked only in terms of the economic advantages he fondly believes will accrue. He also refused to act knowledge scale of power transfer to Brussels. Somehow he seems to envisage a Europe that would be federal in practice but with the UK is somehow having an independence from it in areas where it suits us. Vague enough for you? Exactly. That man is in denial and frankly, the idea of an open Europe with Turkey and the Ukraine as part of it is horrifying. Good grief, Turkey alone has fairly porous borders with Iran and Syria. Europe? Not for me.

He cheerfully stated that people in the UK didn't want an in-out referendum on Europe!! I think that makes me wonder what colour the sky is on his home planet! Well, Guido Fawkes referred to speculation as to Cameron being a one term Prime Minister. He is going the right way about it and right now, I am feeling that this is not the party I joined, worked for and voted for. So, unless things change substantially, its UKIP for me. I'm not alone.

commentator

I'm sure that the average German will be pleased to know the Heir to Blair thinks it's a great idea for them to make unlimited unending wealth transfers to the PIIGS. I'm sure the average Greek will be pleased to know that he thinks they should no be governed from Berlin.

In2minds

Gormless Dave, again!

John B (UK)

Tim Williamson, 7:36pm

Tim, I agree completely. And I suspect we are not alone....!

I've been a Conservative voter ever since my first election some 40 years ago, and I don't think I've ever seen the Conservative party looking as "un-conservative" as it is now.

This seems to be symbolic of many things which could so easily be fixed, but which no one in authority seems to have the will or the desire to actually do. Politicians seem to have forgotten that government and its institutions are there to serve the people, not the other way round.

This was so beautifully illustrated just recently when a judge declared that squatting was good for the country, and should be encouraged, and reminded us all that as the law currently stands squatting is a perfectly legal activity.

It makes you weep.

TomTom

So Cameron thinks that the ESM is a great idea ? Sovereign Immunity from National Governments, Sovereign Immunity from any Courts; the Governing Board able to decide on capital increases at will, and national governments obliged to produce extra capital within 7 days.

Die Welt has a super article with a viral video today.

Cameron clearly has signed up to the New European Central Government which is totally unaccountable to any forum......good to know that old duffers like Bill Cash are on board

Romantically Hard Hearted Perry

Nothing! Absolutely nothing! . . . could make a stronger case for a rapid withdrawal from anywhere near the EUSSR than that damnable cod picture of the H2B trying to look what? – thoughtful? A prat? Wise?

Please don’t do that.

Or is it a Speccy ploy to drive away discussion by leaving us entranced at the sight of this smug individual?

Tim Williamson

.
John B, you are right and I know of a few other like-minded individuals.

For me, one of the most disquieting aspect of the Downing Street approach to all matters of EU is the disdain for grassroots opinion. This is particularly unpleasant in the high command's instinct for control of local party operation, particularly when candidate selection is involved. It seems to be an attitude, hideously reminiscent of Ted Heath's, that out here we don't somehow fully understand all the implications of any course of action and that we'll just have to trust them to do what is necessary "in the nation's interests". The Conservative Party has always been able to call upon grassroots party loyalty at election times because, at the end of the day, we are all fighting for the same cause. Aren't we? The trouble is, that assumption is being undermined and once the grassroots lose their sense of loyalty, the party loses votes. Right now, that's where we are headed. And it will be self-inflicted.

Nicholas

How the Hell does he know that the UK public don't want an In-Out Referendum? This member of the UK public does.

Cameron is shaping up to be a disaster for conservatism and I really have to wonder if this is deliberate - that the final step in Gramsci's Long March is to subvert the Conservative Party.

denis cooper

If Cameron was any kind of statesman and any kind of patriot he would see that what the UK needs is a eurozone which has been cut down to size so that it works and then contained, not a eurozone which will inexorably expand until it finally, inevitably, engulfs us.

Which means we need EU treaty changes, so that:

1. Any EU member state which has joined the euro can later make an orderly withdrawal - including of course the 17 countries which are already in it.

2. The 8 EU member states which are not yet in the euro but are legally committed to joining it are relieved of that legal obligation.

3. That legal obligation is never again imposed on new EU member states as a condition of their accession to the EU.

4. Preferably, the EU is prohibited from allowing the UK to join the euro unless that decision has been approved not only by the UK government and Parliament, but also by a national referendum.

All of which would have been reasonable demands in exchange for this major EU treaty change which was agreed on March 25th:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:091:0001:0002:EN:PDF

To which Cameron readily assented, without asking for or getting any treaty changes to protect our national interests or move the EU in the direction we would prefer.

And, adding to what TomTom has said about the ESM, it's this EU treaty change which would provide the legal base for that intra-eurozone treaty, as made clear in its preamble:

http://consilium.europa.eu/media/1216793/esm%20treaty%20en.pdf

"WHEREAS ...

(2) On 25 March 2011, the European Council adopted Decision 2011/199/EU amending Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union ... "

Which by itself is a very good reason why our MPs should refuse to approve that EU treaty change agreed on March 25th.

Y Rhyfewr Dewr

Nonny Mouse @ 7.27: "A single currency works in the United States of America. There is no reason why it could not be made to work in a United States of Europe."

In the first place, the USA is a single nation with a single treasury and a single central bank controlling a single interest rate that applies across the entire country.

The Eurozone is a couple of dozen countries, all with their own treasurers and their own central banks. The ECB might declare a single interest rate, but that doesn't prevent Greece, for example, from abusing it in the expectation that German taxpayers will pick up the tab. Nor does it prevent said German taxpayers from exercising pressure on their politicians to refuse to pick up said tab.

In the second place, most people in the USA consider themselves primarily Americans, and citizens of their individual state second.

They also all speak English. These two facts make for flexible labour markets. A Californian who can't find work in California will start looking for work in Arizona, Utah or Nevada, and when he finds a job, simply moves.

In the Eurozone, people consider themselves first and foremost citizens of their own country, and "Europeans" second. A Frenchman feels no great affinity for Finns, Italians or Lithuanians, and vice versa.

And they all speak a vast variety of languages. It is trite to say (as Euro-supporters on these forums often do) "Why don't you learn a foreign language then?" Which foreign language should he learn (a task that usually requires years to develop fluently, in any case)? The EU has 22 languages -- and that's just the ones that are officially recognised!

So, Nonny, a little hypothetical brain teaser for you: Mr Dupont, employer of Toulouse, France, receives job applications from a Frenchman, and a Polishman who speaks French only inexpertly. Which will he employ, do you think?

And that is why labour markets are inflexible in the Eurozone. The result is that, whereas in America, a state in recession simply loses population until its unemployment problem has taken care of itself, in Europe a severe unemployment problem will simply continue existing indefinitely. There is no possibility of Greeks in their millions simply moving to Germany and Holland for work.

It's easy to say "A single currency works in the USA". A single currency also works in Australia, China, India, Brazil -- but guess what, Nonny, this ISN'T the United states of America.

The politicians are not going to reinvent the European economy simply by taking upon themselves a name similar to the USA's, any more than they can emulate the Chinese economy by calling themselves "The People's Republic of Europe".

Mirtha Tidville

So Dave thinks we dont want an in-out referendum on Europe??....just another reason why this euro fanatic liberal should not be PM

Vulture

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that Casmeron is a witting agent - probably a paid agent, certainly a bought and sold agent, of the European 'project'.

The project, that is to make that uber-statesman Van Rompoy President of a United States of Europe.

Cameron is out of step with bhis party, let alone the rest of the country. IT's really time for the Tories to organise themselves to defenestrate this treacherous reincarnation of E. heath

Cynic

@nonny mouse "A single currency works in the United States of America. There is no reason why it could not be made to work in a United States of Europe." You are not comparing like with like. The USA has a common language, common history and common culture, not to mention a sense of everyone being American. None of these conditions applies to the EU.

John David Barnett

It was a brilliant performance by the PM. We are very fortunate to have him at the helm.

Dennis Churchill

We are in a similar position to the quasi-colonies we used to have. We used natives to rule them while we pulled the strings.
Our political class are like those native administrators and “princes”.
We need to stop believing the country is run for the benefit of its people or policies implemented because they are believed to be in the best interests of the country. Once you accept that, the more bizarre decisions taken in the last 20 years don’t seem so inexplicable.
Were the natives offered a referendum by our native administrators? Of course not.

Derek

What we don't know of course was how much Cameron was paid to deliver the country bound and gagged and by whom. In the absence of investigative journalism here, we are also unlikely to find out - unless the relevant papers are left on the floor of No. 10 by those fleeing an enraged people.

Derek

Please offer Denis Cooper a blog.

eyesee

'Eurosceptic'. What kind of word is that? If you drink a poison you do not say that you are sceptical of the outcome! If you invade Poland you cannot also say 'C'mon, I love you guys'. You also can't say it if you take over Greece through fiscal shenanigans, methinks. Particularly when you planned the thing (though maybe got the detail a little wrong).

Verity

Nonnymouse - Read your history. America was a gigantic, largely unsettled continent. There wasn't a common history of over 2,000 years and a dozen different countries/peoples.

Do not compare an unsettled, vast continent (yes, we know there were tribes of Indians throughout, thanks, and some of them, like the Iroquois, the Hurons, the Eries, etc interacted within comparatively small distances, and the plains tribes, like the Cherokees and the Sioux barely knew of each other over the hundreds of miles, except by hearsay. And we won't forget the pueblos, as I know you will bring them up.)

The comparison is daft. There weren't dozens of competing civilisations.

Things picked up speed after the Spaniards brought the horse, but there were not the competing civilisations that there were in Europe, Britain and Asia over 2,000 years or even, given ancient Egypt and its high level of development - wheat to sell to the entire middle east, cotton to sell to the middle east, great eye make-up and outstanding cat collars, for 5,000 years.

Verity

John David Barnett --- "It was a brilliant performance by the PM. We are very fortunate to have him at the helm."

Are you mad?

Verity

Dennis Churchill ... well said!

TomTom

"It was a brilliant performance by the PM. We are very fortunate to have him at the helm."

Pity about the icebergs though !

Boudicca

Well said Dennis Cooper.

Cameron was given an easy ride yesterday. He was allowed to call for the removal of democratic accountability to the taxpayers of the Eurozone and not one member of the panel reminded him that democratic rule relies on the premise of 'no taxation without representation.'

He was allowed to assert that the people don't want a Referendum, and not one member of the panel pointed out that recent polls show over 80% want a Referendum.

We saw his true colours yesterday - and they are Orange. He is no Conservative; he is a pro-EU Orange-book Liberal, just like Clegg.

Tim Williamson, you have reached the right conclusion. Come on over to UKIP - the water's lovely and you will be with many friends.

Simon

Dennis Churchill that is a fair point and exactly the way things are.

Dave is just preparing himself for his next job in Brussels at our expense once he is kicked out of No 10

2trueblue

We now know that we will not get our referendum on the EU, thanks Cam.

Edward McLaughlin

As long as and until we get our referendum on the EU and our involvement in it, then Cameron DOES NOT face the eurosceptics.

In his position as a democratic leader, he continues to deny the people of measures which he knows they desire. That's why the system is dysfunctional and largely despised.

oldtimer

The early Cameron doubters and sceptics who comment here, notably Verity, were and are right about Cameron. He is not a Conservative.

What he and his cabal have achieved is a successful infiltration of, followed by a coup to seize control of, the Conservative party and much of its machinery. The most blatant example is the greening agenda. His European agenda has also been amply revealed by his statements and actions. Occasionally he has suffered setbacks, such as his attempt to control the 1922 Committee. But for the moment he still retains control buttressed by Clegg and co. He is the latest leader of the one party state that effectively controls UK political life. No one should be surprised that so many of the electorate are alienated and do not vote. That, of course, only serves to entranch the regime.

TomTom

Now that Karlsruhe has okyed this Vote of Self-Abnegation in Germany the Blogs are referencing Art 20 (4) of the German Constitution, viz.

Article 20 [Basic institutional principles; defense of the constitutional order]

(1) The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state.

(2) All state authority is derived from the people. It shall be exercised by the people through elections and other votes and through specific legislative, executive, and judicial bodies.

(3) The legislature shall be bound by the constitutional order, the executive and the judiciary by law and justice.

(4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, if no other remedy is available.

Derek Pasquill

The political class is probably even more afraid of its feeble self than it is of the proles, seeing how it is palpably unable to respond to the sequence of increasingly chaotic events except with bluster and bombast.

If the political class were a confident one, it would have no qualms at all about allowing a referendum on the EU.

michael

EU lies/sculduggery are being exposed on an hourly basis,
- A series of bogus unintelligible documents (treaties) sold on the faux premise, all for one and one for all, the realities of which are penal and undemocratic, suffocating (Weimar style) nations rather than allowing them to prosper. IF there is any organisation that is likely to cause national tensions and friction then ultimately ,this 'every man for themselves- (only mugs stick to the rules) - wink wink nudge nudge but don't let on',then the EU is it!
Socialism turning into national socialism, again. Perhaps the Euro is becoming a metaphorical jack boot. let it go.

arnoldo87

oldtimer is right to claim that Cameron "is the latest leader of the one party state that effectively controls UK political life."

That "party" is essentially Blairite and is why it is an entirely desirable state of affairs.

I suspect that those Coffee Housers who think Cameron is not a Conservative all exercise their right to vote already, and the same is true of all similarly-minded Conservatives.

I would surmise that if those who did not currently vote started to do so, then the right wing of the Conservative Party would not gain any nett benefit.

Tiberius

You are partly right, oldtimer, but you have to complete your second sentence with "stuck in opposition".

Can someone please teach Verity about sarcasm?

David Parker

Old Timer is right. Cameron & Co have achieved a successful political coup of what used to be the Conservative party. They did this by deliberately destroying the old party, calling it the nasty party and saying that a right wing party was unelectable.
The reason that the party had become unelectable was not because it was a right wing party but because under Major it had become increasingly corrupt and incompetent and was deeply divided over Europe. Its elder statesmen were mostly approaching their sell by dates and it had lost its way.
The next two election campaigns were very badly handled and the party had become demoralised. It was therefore a soft target for the heir to Blair and his coterie of modern professional politicians, to whom being in power took precedence over political principles or the national interest. It is notable that the British electorate were not particularly impressed with Cameron, who almost managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory at the last election and will almost certainly lose the next one if he continues to emasculate a once great party.

FvH

what is so desperately sad is that he expresses his EU position in such a defensive,fearful way - it seems to confirm how weak and vulnerable the UK is (a "consumer" nation trying to get what it can from Europe but also afraid to properly join in...
We should all start agitating for a referendum now!!
The leadership is pretty weak - relying on Lib support
if Osborne is serious about a majority at the next election he will need all the Tory euro-sceptics onside and all the UKIPers back in the tent
Who has active links to the best of the sceptic groups?

michael

For those who think that USA is some sort of model they ought to be looking at Bismark's U.S. Germany or Garibaldi's U.S.Italy the tensions between Kingdoms and Republics the carve up of Austria Hungary and the territorial beneficiaries over the period.
Whilst I appreciate that all this was 150 years ago. The USA is 250 years old.

TomTom

"he expresses his EU position in such a defensive,fearful way"

Of course. He wants an EU Government regulating budgets so Britain simply has to join to gain influence over its own budgets and taxation......like Clegg, Cameron wants Britain subsumed into an EU Government

Tiberius

David Parker: your view of the Cameroon ascendancy is jaundiced.

The "old party" needed to be "destroyed" (I unwillingly use your terminology) because it could not win a general election. Regardless of anything else, the country deperately need a viable Opposition to preserve it traditional parliamentary system of government. That the government of the day during the Tories' dog days was the most distastful this country ever had to suffer (although many voters did not absorb this) made it more imperative that the Tories sorted themselves out.

Cameron was the only politician capable of stopping Brown winning a fourth term for Labour. He will have the country in a better state in 2015 than it would have been if Brown had won the election.

Judging whether Cameron has been a success or failure purely in policy terms won't be known until 2015 at least. The message from so many on here is that he is expected not only to achieve more than any PM in memory in one term, but also do it before breakfast.

Dennis Churchill

There must be a temptation among some Conservative MPs to earn a place in history and resign the Whip forcing the referendum issue to the front of British politics.
Peerages are devalued so what have they to lose?

Dimoto

I liked Dennis Churchill's analogy to the "native rulers" too, but to imagine "Cameron revealed himself as a Europhile" is nuts.

I think he was just having a bit of fun at the expense of the tedious Cash and Jenkin.

Dennis Churchill

Dimoto
September 7th, 2011 4:37pm
I don’t think Cameron is a Europhil.Like most of our political class he just follows fashion and looks to the main chance.
Although,due to his family background, the comparison is probably best suited to Clegg Cameron must surely realize he is like the Dutch boy holding back the flood.
There is a growing dislike of the EU among the electorate as well as in the parliamentary Conservative party and it is now almost impossible to see how we can continue to be full members in the teeth of opposition from the electorate.
Referring to a referendum on joining the Common Market, held before many of the present electorate were eligible to vote ,is hardly much of an argument and anyway multiple referenda are held in EU states when it suits our colonial masters.
Cameron should accept the inevitable as should the EU leadership and manage the exit of the UK rather than wait for the situation to get more bitter.

Verity

Vulture
September 6th, 2011 9:28pm -- As always, I endorse absolutely every word. Your post sums up the dire straits that Britain is in, having weirdly and unaccountablely elected a successor to the very weird Edward Heath.