The Tories should accuse Brown of perpetrating a fraud against the public  

Watt Tyler

Indeed the Irish have indeed provided an opportunity for a pincer movement.

One one hand we have the Government running scared of the electorate and refusing to give them a referendum.

On the other we have the Government using Pork barrel methods to force the 42 day extension through and again running scared of the electorate by notr standing against David Davis.

Both represent an abuse of democracy and tie it into the election that never was and we have Bottler Brown II the sequel.

TomTom

In the 1974-79 Government Michael Foot was the fixer who cobbled together Callaghan's majority by bribing Ulster Unionists, Scottish Nationalists, Liberals etc.

He did this vote by vote and Callaghan hobbled on to destruction. Brown is following the script so closely it is uncanny

Kevyn Bodman

Yes,James, the Conservatives should do what you say.
The time has come for truly aggressive opposition.
DD has shown the way, now his leader should follow on the other great issues.
This is a time when Brown is vulnerable; he's already misjudged it by phoning Sarkozy to say he's going ahead with ratification, he may be about display more misjudgment by scorning the voters of Haltemprice & Howden.
Attack hard, now.

TGF UKIP

I have frequently voiced my scepticism on Cameron and his stand on Europe - in two places as often as he can manage. Well, here's his big chance - if he really believes in our freedoms he'll campaign against the Euro sell-out and for DD right through to the Summer recess. And it won't just "gee up their base" it'll galvanize the country. Bout time Dave got populist.

Max Kaye

Furthermore, what is the point of ratifying a dead Treaty?

If he had any sense, he would use the result of the Irish referendum to diffuse the whole subject. But that, of course, would require vision, determination, courage and resolution - not qualities anyone is likely to associate with the dithering bottler Brown.

Perry

AT LAST!!!

Seems like there MIGHT be a bit of fire in the belly of the Conservative Tory Party at large? There certainly is reason for it to be.

You see? DD has precipitated something, and often at such times, other things come together in the most unexpected way, - and every effort should be made to Seize the Moment!

And, unkind and disingenuous though it may be, there’s plenty to mock and be angered about in this mock democratic set-up we now are obliged to fawn before.

I should just love to see Boris free to come out of his ground and roam also, but he’s fighting that for us in the Capital.

Scott

This is the answer to your earlier Coffee House challenge regarding David Davis. If a Conservative front bencher campaigns with David Davis every day the media could not ignore it. The story would be Gordon Brown's continued refusal to let the British people have a vote on anything, culminating I suggest in a no confidence motion and calls for a general election.

Jack R

You are right, James. The Conservatives must re-assert their values of national sovereignty and freedom in relation to European Union supremacism, to which Labour is deeply committed.

This is an on-going, vital political issue, of more than temporary topical significance.

As for the political appeal of such a principled stand, I am reminded of Prof. Roger Scruton's excellent small book, 'England and the Need for Nations'(published by Civitas). The first paragraph of the Foreward here is written by Prof. Robert Rowthorn:-

"The nation state is under threat. It is being undermined by the spread of global corporations and supranational institutions such as the EU and the WTO. It is also derided by many liberal intellectuals as a divisive anachronism. In this little book, Roger Scruton defends the nation state. He attacks the accretion of power by supranational organisations and explains why the liberal intellectuals who support this trend are wrong. Although he would normally be classified as a conservative thinker, Scruton's defence of the nation state cannot readily be located on the conventional political spectrum. His case is based on general democratic and cosmopolitan grounds
that can appeal to both Left and Right."

haddock

"It allows them to tap into the current anti-politics mood, defined by its distrust of conventional politicians"

typo, you have spelt disgust wrongly.
Just what is wrong with banging on about Europe ?... far better that than pretend that we are going to grow to love the EU.

chris

Yes, hopefully the tide will continue to turn against Brown. The contrast with the Irish being able to vote on the ratification and Brown DISTRUSTING the electorate to make the correct (?) decision is stark. Signing the treaty in a back room is typical Brown: two faced, saying one thing and meaning another, trying to have it both ways so to speak. I really can't believe the Labour Party gave him the leadership through coronation. Brown is the boil that the Labour Party refuse to lance.

Pete

Most of the powers that defined us as a country have already been signed away.

Brown is just signing on the dotted line which declares that we are no longer an indepedent country.

My Dad, along with so many others that were prepared to give their lives to defend the UK must be spinning in their graves.

If we went into Europe as a result of a democratic vote then fair enough.

The simple fact that the EU is trying to impose its authoritarian rules and regulations without the consent of the voters says to me that they are no different than Stalin or Hitler.

Throughout Europe the only defence we have against dictatorships is the power of the democratic vote.

Labour have decided that we should be denied that vote.

Just another thing the Labour Party should be judged on!

David Lindsay

You're assuming that Cameron is against the Lisbon Treaty. Whatever gave you that idea?

It's a pity that the Cameron Tories are not putting up a candidate against their arch-enemy, David Davis. I think we all know who'd win if they did. As it is, we just have to make do with watching him beat the living hell out of the Murdoch Payroll Party instead.

Of course, now I'm the one making an assumption: that the Cameron Tories and the Murdoch Payroll Party are two different things.

PoliticiansStink

Well it SHOULD be an opportunity for the Conservatives and David Cameron to exploit, but sadly, whenever the EU is the subject, the party have always let the nation and the people down. They've never shown any more inclination to trust the people than the Labour or Liberals.
What would be REALLY honourable would be for all the Tory MPs to resign a la David Davis IF Brown doesn't call off our ratification, and have by-elections based soley on the referendum for the EU treaty issue.
Now, that would be something the BBC, Manuel Baroso and Brown etc. could worry over. Will it happen?
Don't hold your breath.
(As there are now so many Pete's on the Coffee House, Ill now select a more uncommon name)

Ed

I agree that we now have an opportunity of exposing the fraud at the heart of Labour's approach to Europe, exemplified by their handling of Lisbon. However I wonder how forceful Cameron will be on this issue as he will be mindful of the 'Kenneth Clarke' type forces that still, sadly, prevail within his party. Cameron will, I fear, be hesitant about opening old wounds.

John

"He attacks the accretion of power by supranational organisations and explains why the liberal intellectuals who support this trend are wrong"

One more example of the hijacking of the word 'liberal' by the fascist left. People who are rabid fanatics of a top-heavy oppressive empire cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be liberals.

For what it's worth, I have emailed Cameron, CC my MP, to urge the Tories to exploit the public disgust with MacLabour and MacPinnochio to the full.

Travis Bickle

Pete

Well said mate. I voted No in 1975 but accepted the fact that the Yes vote won.

However today's EU is far removed from the trading union we were asked about 30 odd years ago, but if the question was asked and the majority of my fellow citizens voted YES to Lisbon then I would accept this as the will of the people (rather than political elite, many looking at future job opportunities).

I suspect that many of the 490 million feel pretty much the same way, and really fear that one day the resentment at how we have been ignored in this process will result in serious bloodshed across the continent.

Fergus Pickering

I must say I thiught Hague's performance yesterday rather weaselly. Iwould hate to thin that David Lindsay is right about Cameron.

cuffleyburgers

Travis Bickle - The point you make about accepting the outcome of a vote, is sacrosanct.

You other point is one which has been worrying me for a long time now and I have posted several times on several organs, but so far you are the only other person to whom anything similar seems to have occurred.

The "great and good" as they like to style themselves, even though we know different, have on more than one occasion referred to the end game of their project as an empire, and that certainly chimes with the way they are carrying on now.

I am convinced they will not stop until they have achieved their superstate.

France and Germany have spent most of the last three centuries being jealous of the British empire and trying to match it or overthrow it and in the process millions have died.

We have heard many times, usually from the French, of the need to act as a counterpoint to the USA, who is now standing in as a sort of surrogate British Empire.

What happens with these European empires, is that when the internal tensions become unbearable, they fall apart.

The collapse of the Roman empire ushered in the Dark Ages and the events surrounding the collapse of the Habsbergs led to nearly a century of the bloodiest strife in history.

Once this superstate is made, what then? "Ever closer" union cannot but mean harmonised taxes, being paid to the centre and redistributed from there. Unified justice systems but a step away.

Any dissent will be stifled (as we already see with for example whistle blowers on the expenses fraud in Brussels).

By then, violence will be inevitable.

The removal of a nation's sovereignty against the will of the people is akin to an act of war, and one that Brussels now seems determined to visit upon the Irish people, to judge by their reaction to the outcome of the vote.

Great Britain will be failing in its historic role as guarantor of the freedoms of smaller nations against oppression if we fail to stand by Ireland now, and to start with we must halt the ratification process.

C H Forsyth

"You're assuming that Cameron is against the Lisbon Treaty. Whatever gave you that idea?"

I think he really is favourable to a decentralised system for government, and the Lisbon Treaty creates the opposite. Even withdrawal becomes not a local decision, but strangely subject to a majority vote! If Cameron really is serious about decentralising the United Kingdom, it must eventually bring him into conflict with the system created by the Lisbon Treaty. It will be easier for him as things stand. Thus, he should be against it.