Credit where credit’s due to the Tory spin machine for following up a good idea and putting pressure on Labour and the Lib Dems. This doesn’t happen very often, so it’s noteworthy. The party has launched a website called Let Britain Decide, which asks the public to back James Wharton’s private member’s bill for an EU referendum. It asks visitors to sign up to the campaign, lobby their MP, write to their local paper and brandish posters supporting the bill. A clever little paragraph on the site reads:
‘Currently, only one of the main three political parties believes the British people deserve a say on Europe: the Conservatives. They are bringing forward a draft bill to legislate for an In-Out referendum before the end of 2017, following a renegotiation. This bill will need the support of either Labour of Lib Dem MPs to pass. Some issues are bigger than party politics. It’s time to Let Britain Decide.’
Now, of course this is all about party politics. It’s a private member’s bill that Number 10 only introduced as draft legislation in the first place because of brewing political problems that led to a motion regretting the absence of that bill in the Queen’s Speech. And the beauty of Wharton’s bill is that it forces Labour and the Lib Dems into a position that is electorally beneficial for the Conservatives either way.
This is only the first phase of a sustained campaign from CCHQ on the legislation. Perhaps for once the party machine won’t pass up an opportunity that seems too good to miss to prod the other parties.
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