Cameron's ‘No’ leaves Clegg in a tight spot

Jannie Geldenhuys

MiliE is showing why he will be the Tories' greatest electoral asset in 2015.

DavidDP

"especially when Miliband is asked the question ‘Would you have said No, or not?"

That's the key issue, isn't it? Talking about "making alliances" or "setting up a special bank" is kind of pointless when it all came down to the fact that France were unwilling to exempt the UK from highly damaging measures that had nothing to do with saving the Euro.

Bob Dixon

Who is Clegg?

Robert Eve

Clegg in a tight spot? Who on earth cares?

JohnOfEnfield

Sorry - whenever I see him I can't get it out of my head that MileE is still a student - or at best an overpaid intern.

Dennis Churchill

Yes the polls next week and the Feltham & Heston before and after polls will set the tone.
Cameron needs to fire a warning shot across the BBC’s bows, the bias is getting ridiculous .I know Patten is an EU pensioner but that is even more reason to show balance.

Maggie

People who approve of Cameron's antics claim that he has bravely stood firm and voted against the rest. On the contrary, 26 of our closest allies stood united, said he was wrong and voted against him.

arthur

Who will be more likely to vote for a Eurosceptic Tory party at the next election, the LibDems or UKIP supporters? If the coalition holds on till 2015 the UKIP's demands may well be the logical next step for UK foreign policy, so that's 9% more votes in the bag for Cameron.

Clegg will be left trying to look like he's always been Milliband's best mate all the time, really. And much good may it do him.

exile on euro street

Potentially it creates a neat dividing line for the next election: vote Conservative and steer clear of the Euro mess or vote Labour / LD and join the Euro and the new euro superstate as a Merkozy subject (there won't be a halfway-house option available). For Cameron it has the added benefit of sidelining UKIP without a direct attack. It also provides cover for the fact that the economy will still be dire by then so won't form a solid campaign base. Just a thought.

telemachus'

Clegg is right
We missed a golden opportunity to show leadership in the wake of the baying farages.
Incidentally the said Nigel started out preening but now says Cameron snuffed it

PayDirt

"Should be building alliances", with whom?
How about the Northern European states, and eastwards too. Plenty of different permutations to a new European map of treaties.

Salopian

It isn't just Clegg who is on board - listen to Ming (a leading Europhile and Coalitionsceptic) on Today this morning. He could not have been more unequivocal. The Veto was right.

Which leaves RedEd the Unready in awful pickle. He can huff and puff about the UK having lost its influence. But wait 6 months and watch the great new Axis unravel as the plan goes pear shaped. If Cameron plays his hands right (and Clegg will make sure he does) then some friends will start to emerge.

The Swedes will want to back away from the concordat, the Poles will worry about Merkel's control over thieir economy and politics (Sarko will have gone by then) and even some member states will start to rally round a Cameron's concept. The Irish almost certainly, the Portugese probably. As also will the ex-members of Comecon who will realise that the proposal is Comeocn Mark 2 with an equally intransigent nation at its head.

TGF UKIP

"But many will nonethless cheer ......" Not if the BBC can help it, they won't.

William Blake's Gost

One could consider those in the lifeboats who watched as the Titanic went down as 'isolated'. Somehow I don't think it bothered them.

Frederick de Fossard

Let's see how much is reported about the public support for the 'no' vote. The BBC only refer to Cityboys being pleased with this, so as to further demonise the move. Indeed, they said Britain is the only nation to object to this, brushing Sweden and the other three (can't remember them) under the carpet, by saying their decisions are pending. They're pending because they want to actually consult their own parliaments, who are quite possibly going to vote against this motion too. The Swedes have direct experience of these sort of disastrous taxes being imposed.

Cynic

"As [MiliE] put it on Twitter earlier, ‘David Cameron should be building alliances. The UK went into the summit without them and the outcome showed we lacked influence.’" Yes, of course he should build alliances - Canada, Australia, NZ, the other Anglophone and Commonwealth countries ... MiliE shows complete lack of any grasp on reality if he thinks we EVER had influence in the EU. It was designed that way. De Gaulle kept us out until we'd been totally stitched up.

eric the red

Wee Dougie got suckered by Brillo on the DP today.His only answer
seemed to be 'we wouldn't have started from here' So from where exactly- Lisbon?

Rhoda Klapp

Clegg is on my TV now lying about those three million people in the UK whose jobs depend on the EU. That one has been demolished about three million times, yet he still trots it out, to no objection by the interviewer. Looks to me like a man in denial. He no longer has a consistent position. Why has such a man got influence on policy, he is nothing but contradiction, like his party.

Kieran E

"The BBC only refer to Cityboys being pleased with this, so as to further demonise the move"

I get really fed up with lazy BBC attacks like this. I followed most of their coverage today, and it was balanced. It's not always, but on this it was - they even pointed out that a majority of those writing in to the BBC about it supported Cameron's decision to ensure that while there was balanced opinion presented, it was clear which had more support.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Corporation, but hamfistedly cramming in criticism about it when there is little to no basis for that view in what is being talked about is not helpful to anyone who actually does have concerns about the them; the BBC can safely ignore what might be genuine criticism as obvious nonsense.

Sorry for the rant.

As for Clegg, yeah, things are once again tricky, but I don't think it will be as bad as past moments. Even if just going with an 'good idea one day but not now' approach might be ok.

Boudicca

Boudicca

I've posted on here often enough that Cameron was a useless waste of space and would capitulate to whatever Merkozy demanded.

Last night he behaved like a British Conservative Prime Minister should. He put the interests of the UK above those of Merkozy and has gone up in my estimation.

Now all we need is complete renegotiation of our terms of membership or if they still won't negotiate, to serve notice that we will no longer be paying them an extortionate £50million a day because we quit.

Good start Mr Cameron.

Frank P

Robert Eve

"Clegg in a tight spot? Who on earth cares?"

He does I should think. He lucky to find a tight anything in the LimDems.

Cue Andy's placard.

Frank P

Call an election DC. Timing is everything. Get a quick majority and then listen to the Conservative Party for a change and decide what's best for England. Dump the fellow travellers and the ponces and nonces, ffs. It's a once in a lifetime chance to claim your place in history.

Diane C

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Cameron. He should be brave enough to call a snap general election. He can very convincingly justify breaking the 5 year Liberal Democrat "agreement" by insisting these are profoundly difficult times. The cuts are still being seen as necessary, his own popularity is strong after today, Labour is in disarray and still being blamed for bankrupting the country, Ed Milliband is a joke, the Lib Dems poll ratings are at their lowest for years and UKIP might be persuaded not to stand if a referendum is on offer. By the time 2015 arrives it will be too late - the country will hate the Tories. Cameron would do well to remember how Gordon Brown failed to strike when the iron was hot ....

Julian F

Is the new fixed term law in place yet? If not, there could scarcely be a more propitious time for Cameron to call an election and make it a referendum on his use of the veto. Labour would be all over the place and the Lib dem vote would disappear. Bring it on!

Halcyondaze

Who cares about Clegg? He's a bed-wetting hand-wringing over-privileged little squit. And Millipede is a slow-witted adenoidal over-grown student. The Heir to Blair has bought himself a reprieve today but he'd better follow up with some principled pro-British action or he'll be toast as well.

Snowman

would anyone care telling me what has the boy actually achieved by his vetoing of the plan?

David Lindsay

The Swedish Social Democrats are dead against this, and Sweden has a hung Parliament. The Social Democratic parties of the Continent, please note, have a very well-police left flank. We are not talking about the fringe here. Similarly, Cameron could have dealt with 100 rebels on his own side, if there had been that many. But not if they had been going into the division lobby behind the entire Labour Party. And that was what was on course to happen. If anyone has kept Britain out of this wrteched new treaty, which bans fiscal expansion completely, then it has been Ed Miliband.

The Attlee Government refused to join the European Coal and Steel Community on the grounds that it was “the blueprint for a federal state” which “the Durham miners would never wear”. Gaitskell rejected European federalism as “the end of a thousand years of history” and liable to destroy the Commonwealth. Most Labour MPs, and one Liberal, voted against Heath’s Treaty of Rome. Labour won the 1974 General Election after Enoch Powell had told his supporters to vote Labour because of Europe.

The Parliamentary Labour Party unanimously opposed Thatcher’s Single European Act. 66 Labour MPs voted against Maastricht, including, in Bryan Gould, the only resignation from either front bench in order to do so, and outnumbering Conservative opponents by three to one. John Prescott and David Blunkett abstained rather than support Maastricht in the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.

Every Labour and Liberal Democrat MP, without exception, voted against the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies annually between 1979 and 1997. The 1997 General Election result kept the United Kingdom out of the euro, by making Gordon Brown Chancellor the Exchequer in place of Kenneth Clarke. Ed Miliband and Ed Balls were valiant in seeing off those who sought to take Britain into that ill-conceived currency while Tony Blair was Prime Minister.

Half of the French Socialist Party successfully opposed the EU Constitution. Even before the most recent events, the euro was dealt an electoral blow in the Social Democratic heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia. Half of the UKIP vote, based on its geographical distribution, must be Old Labour or Old Liberal rather than Old Tory. The No2EU – Yes to Democracy list at the 2009 European Elections, in London included Peter Shore’s erstwhile agent, and in the North West included the immediate past Leader of the Liberal Party.

Attlee denounced the referendum as “a device of demagogues and dictators”, a view echoed word-for-word by Thatcher as Prime Minister; it is Pythonesque that ostensible defenders of British parliamentary sovereignty and democracy demand the adoption of this foreign and deeply flawed device, rather than demanding that parliamentarians who would not simply say No to any erosion be replaced with parliamentarians who would.

Peter From Maidstone

David Lindsay. The world changes. We are no longer represented by our 'representative' democracy. It is now possible for the view of the many to be represented very easily by technological means. This does not mean that every issue should be subject to such referenda, or even that referenda should always be binding. But to suggest that we must always stick with a system that disenfranchises most people, but because it is the one we have is deeply undemocratic in itself.

It hardly matters what Atlee said. He does not live now. I can communicate with people around the world instantaenously in a way that he could not have imagined. I can work on projects with people in different countries and cultures. But I am not allowed any say at all in how I am governed. That can't be right.

My MP was selected by a small committee in a back room. Probably 10 people elected her. No-one else got a say. And she now represents whatever David Cameron wants, and not what her constituents want. She can probably continue doing that for the rest of her career. How is that democracy?

We need a shake up in how our government is organised, and extending the voice of the people is just one aspect of that. Local primaries, recall of MPs, referenda, participation in the work of committees - these are all things that would extend democracy.

Rhoda Klapp

Snowman, according to the BBC he has left us out in the cold. I wonder how those chaps are doing inside the burning building?

dorothy wilson

Someone should remind Milliminor what happened when the euro was first in trouble just after its launch. Brown bought euros and sold half our gold to do so. It cost us around £12bn.

Kentishman

The shrewd observer will note that the Tory Eurosceptics need not focus too much on pressurising Cameron in private when it is plain to see that it will all fall into their laps eventually. Sure, make your demands in public, have your leader make generous gestures to the Liberals saying "No need for a referendum" but gather at Chequers and congratulate each other on a well executed plan, thus far.

This country is by nature Eurosceptic and when the chips are down, patriotism will prevail.

Holly ......

Maggie,
Just out of interest. Can you please tell me which of the 26 actually signed anything?

The Croat stuff DOES NOT COUNT. So don't be naughty.

Snowman

Rhoda, thanks, your analogy is perfect except that in the burning building of Europe of the 26 there’s a lot of furniture and stuff that belongs to us, if the building burns down, we, and not only the building owners, will also be poorer.

To think we can be in Europe whilst being out of it borders on the seriously delusional, it won’t work, it cannot work, we have to either get out of the club, replicate Norway, or push for a fundamentally new treaty that would put a limit of what the club should be, like it or not, the muscle the 26 have is immeasurably stronger than ours, on the single issue of financial services, the Britless EU could cripple the sector, most likely will, we will not be able to do a thing about it.

It pains to say it, but Britain is no longer in a position to play the big boss in Europe, yet the boy has behaved as if she was, it won’t be long before we regret it.

Rhoda Klapp

The building is burning down anyway. We can't help that. Now, are we sorry we are not inside with our furniture? Of course, it is cold out here. Shall we stand a little closer to the flames?

Rhoda, analogy-stretching a speciality.

Snowman

Rhoda, Snowman (aka Baron) dislikes the politically driven monstrosity as much if not more than you do, the political gnomes representing his mother country have all been recruited from the ranks of failed, pitifully incompetent politicians, some with a strong communist pedigree, however, the dislike of the construct shouldn’t blind one to the need of being on good terms with those one will have to negotiate with whatever one does.

What has the boy achieved except for a pat on the back from the Eurosceptics? Bugger all, we are still lumbered with the old baggage from all the EU institutions, not a single power, however insignificant, has been reclaimed, won’t be reclaimed.

On the key question of the tighter fiscal conformity, the boy should have said what the other four have done ‘we’ll think about it’, then present it to the House, better still hold a referendum, then answer ‘nope, we don’t like it’ to our Brussels friends, the no would have had the backing of the unwashed rather than a petulant shrug of an Eton boy who lost an argument, cannot take it.

Rhoda Klapp

Snowman, I believe he was stitched up. That fits the observed facts best. The media in fact continue to stitch him up, and his own deputy PM is on my TV as I write, stitching him up a little bit more. Maybe he could have dodged the stitchup, but look at the way the scene was set, with Merkozy both making personal remarks to and about him. They were determined to get a free rein, and they have it. Smarter countries are inside the negotiating group, but they are not planning to surrender to franco-german hegemony, one hopes. Or if they are, their own people will not have it. When you think of how many of them have been invaded and occupied by one or the other F or G in the last couple of centuries, and some by Russia too, you can't see why they would want to do it again. Possibly we could have gone into those negotiations with the aim of avoiding the bits we don't like, but Cam could not have sold that to his party or the rest of us. I expect that the negotiations will not result in a deal, or if they do, that deal will have nothing in it to save the euro, because the inherent problems cannot be fixed that way.

And yes, I believe we can leave and get a trade deal, we need to start the process and see what the terms could be.

Rhoda Klapp

Snowman, I believe he was stitched up. That fits the observed facts best. The media in fact continue to stitch him up, and his own deputy PM is on my TV as I write, stitching him up a little bit more. Maybe he could have dodged the stitchup, but look at the way the scene was set, with Merkozy both making personal remarks to and about him. They were determined to get a free rein, and they have it. Smarter countries are inside the negotiating group, but they are not planning to surrender to franco-german hegemony, one hopes. Or if they are, their own people will not have it. When you think of how many of them have been invaded and occupied by one or the other F or G in the last couple of centuries, and some by Russia too, you can't see why they would want to do it again. Possibly we could have gone into those negotiations with the aim of avoiding the bits we don't like, but Cam could not have sold that to his party or the rest of us. I expect that the negotiations will not result in a deal, or if they do, that deal will have nothing in it to save the euro, because the inherent problems cannot be fixed that way.

And yes, I believe we can leave and get a trade deal, we need to start the process and see what the terms could be.