Clegg and his European red herring

Ray

Clegg's approach is a bit like a wife asking her husband for some help with the washing up, only to be greeted with a tirade of "do you want a divorce or not?". That said though, wouldn't it be hilarious if the British people did actually vote for a divorce from the EU. Or (as with the Danes and Maastricht) would we simply be told to rerun the vote and this time return the "correct" result?

Tom

Unlike a vote on the Lisbon treaty, the two positions in this referendum are very easy to understand. In or out. The EU is a very differnt beast to tat which people voted for in the 70s.

Mifzal

Tom - are you really saying people couldn't understand a vote on the Constitutional Treaty? Bit patronising if so, and indeed if Clegg doesn't think the "little people" can understand a vote on the treaty why did he promise one at the last election? This just shows that that the Liberal Democrats have lost their way on this. They have to be a conviction party or they will just get crushed between the two bigger parties. Bad call by Cleggy.

Puncheon

Red herring or not, I think Clegg is right. Unlike almost every other Member State, the UK has never had a full and adult debate on membership of the EU. This is mainly because the pro-EU lobby, irrespective of political party, have consistently refused to make a reasoned case, preferring instead to indulge in silly subterfuge and hurl insults at anyone who disagrees with them. Edward Heath started all this with his great lie to the British people. Until we have such a debate and referendum the British people will continue to view the EU with hostility and suspicion, which in turn makes other Member States suspicious of our comittment.

Max Kaye

Clegg obviously never paid attention to the old saying: "Be careful of what you wish for".

If he got his 'In or Out' referendum and, as he says, "...let's trust the people" , he may be unpleasantly surprised.

AlanofEngland

"Do we want to be in or out? Nobody in Britain under the age of 51 has ever been asked that simple question." It's time, it really is. The Heath lies, the untold nastiness of the political elite since then, and the uncanny feeling that whatever Blair/Brown/Cameron want, the opposite must be right for Britain. It's EFTA or nothing.

mart

I don't get it. If the Lib Dems really believed in offering people a say on in-or-out then how is this consistent with their position against a plebiscite on the Lisbon Treaty? We could have both.

Nick Kaplan

Clegg’s inconsistency on this issue reaches a level only a true Liberal Democrat could achieve. His comment that “The EU could be a lot more liberal and democratic, and the Lisbon treaty would help it to do both. So let's trust the people with the real question: in or out?” is completely inconsistent and makes no sense. If the issue is about what direction the EU should be going in i.e. as Clegg states it should be more Liberal and Democratic then the issue is not about whether we are in or out, and a vote on the treaty is what he should campaign for! This is unbelievable dishonesty from the Lib Dems and is one of the most deplorable cons of any party over the issue of Europe, and there have been a fair few. Clegg knows full well that pulling out of the EU is unfeasible and radical, he also knows that the electorate knows this. The reason why he is offering a vote on this is because he knows, unlike a vote on the Lisbon treaty (sorry EU constitution), that his side will win. Instead a referendum on the Lisbon treaty is something people could feel as though they can vote sensibly on (i.e. against). This policy of offering two extremes is dishonest, deplorable and ridiculous, if we are only going to let people vote on either extreme, why not say the issue is about whether we pull out of Europe or become a state in a fully federal Europe? What needs to be done is to offer the people a chance to vote on a serious issue like the treaty/ constitution where they can reasonably feel that they can vote for or against, and thus express how they feel about the overall direction of EU politics. Instead of this charade that Clegg and his ban of merry morons (the Lib Dems) have put forward to force people, in a more subtle and dishonest way than even Labour, to vote for further non-stop EU integration, by not offering any feasible alternative.

David

"It's EFTA or nothing." You don't know what EFTA is, do you.

Pete

An "in or out referendum"? Should that come about, how much confidence would you have in the BBC giving an even-handed coverage of both sides of the argument?

Tom

I don't think it is patronising. Presumably in order to understand it one would need to read it and realistically how many people will do that? How many journalists will do that?

Denis Cooper

Somebody has reminded me of an earlier item about this on January 17th - "Commons Clerks stymie Lib Dem plans" http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/454826/commons-clerks-stymie-lib-dem-plans.thtml So have the clerks had a change of heart about whether such an amendment can even be tabled?

Nick Kaplan

Tom; it is not about how many people read it or not. Whether or not somebody has read the treaty they can understand that it tends towards greater centralization at the EU level, if people are uncomfortable with this they should have every right to vote against such a proposal. John Locke once explained that the power of parliament is derived from below, from the people who consent to be governed. Parliament has no right to decide if they will give that power of government away to the EU because the authority to make such a decision is likewise owned by the people who must consent to such a change in government.

David Lindsay

The Lib Dems want the UKIP votes, concentrated in the South, at the next General Election, by which time UKIP will certainly have collapsed materially, and probably also formally. Hence their call for a referendum on EU membership, something that the fanatically Europhile Tory high command dare not support. Meanwhile, congratulations to Mike Hancock, the Lib Dem MP who courageously told last night's Week In Westminster that the Lisbon Treaty was unacceptable because his constituents had the right to know that the laws to which they were subject were made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. But why, then, does he want a referendum. He should simply oppose the Treaty on the floor of the House of Commons, because it extends the legislative power of a body which meets in secret and publishes no Official Report (hardly liberal or democratic), and because it fails to abolish the Common Fisheries Policy (a very serious problem in the Lib Dem heartlands of the West Country and rural Scotland). There is no need for a referendum. The Tories refuse to say which way they would campaign in the event of a referendum, or which way they would vote at Third Reading if the Bill contained a referendum clause by then. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems need a Big Issue comparable to Iraq. This could be it. And, as over Iraq, they would be right.

William Norton

It would be interesting to see how the Conservative Party votes on such amendment. Wouldn't it be funny, though, if Brown changed his mind and agreed to hold an In-or-Out referendum?