View Poll Results: Whats' your opinion of the in/out referendum
I'm voting stay in
7
12.07%
I'm voting lets get out
32
55.17%
Don't know yet/wait and see
8
13.79%
Don't care
1
1.72%
Cameron is lying and it'll never happen
10
17.24%
Voters: 58. You may not vote on this poll
Dave's EU speech
24 January 2013, 07:53 PM
#32
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24 January 2013, 08:37 PM
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what has Brussel managed up to now, nothing but s..t little things which have not helped. How can the expensive representives (so called politicians) manage europe and diktate other countryś. I`m fed up, I left UK because of the politics and live in Germany and I`m pi..ed off here as well. Where can I go now, because I can`t change nothing? I have always paid my tax and bills. It`s getting worse all over. They promise you everything and nothing happens.
I hate E....e
I hate E....e
24 January 2013, 08:43 PM
#34
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I only listened to the first 20 odd minutes of the speech and I was quite impressed (sadly)
Underlining our commitment to Europe by evoking the memories of our war dead and the war cemeteries, with fields upon fields of British men and women buried in France Belgium and Germany – genuinely stirring stuff
But I believe the speech was more to his own party than anything else, they must be sh!tting themselves with the UKIP snapping at their heels (never underestimate a politicians need for power – it trumps everything even long held principles)
And I am still unsure of the process – does he re-negotiate our terms and then, when the outcome of the negotiations is known we have a referendum?
With a sort off “this is the best we can get, are you in or out” question
Underlining our commitment to Europe by evoking the memories of our war dead and the war cemeteries, with fields upon fields of British men and women buried in France Belgium and Germany – genuinely stirring stuff
But I believe the speech was more to his own party than anything else, they must be sh!tting themselves with the UKIP snapping at their heels (never underestimate a politicians need for power – it trumps everything even long held principles)
And I am still unsure of the process – does he re-negotiate our terms and then, when the outcome of the negotiations is known we have a referendum?
With a sort off “this is the best we can get, are you in or out” question
Last edited by hodgy0_2; 24 January 2013 at 11:09 PM.
24 January 2013, 08:44 PM
#35
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what has Brussel managed up to now, nothing but s..t little things which have not helped. How can the expensive representives (so called politicians) manage europe and diktate other countryś. I`m fed up, I left UK because of the politics and live in Germany and I`m pi..ed off here as well. Where can I go now, because I can`t change nothing? I have always paid my tax and bills. It`s getting worse all over. They promise you everything and nothing happens.
I hate E....e
I hate E....e
24 January 2013, 08:45 PM
#36
Because it's nonsense to suggest that Cameron is somehow going to back down on this. He has pretty much painted himself into a corner now.
If he was to even hint at reneging on this he would be immediately deposed as leader of his party.
No serious person or commentator has even hinted that Cameron can somehow now refuse to hold a referendum now.
If he was to even hint at reneging on this he would be immediately deposed as leader of his party.
No serious person or commentator has even hinted that Cameron can somehow now refuse to hold a referendum now.
There WILL BE no referendum. He can't risk it. It's a sop and a politician's promise.
It's been promised before and we still haven't had one.
Come into the real world, Martin, there's a good lad...
24 January 2013, 11:04 PM
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24 January 2013, 11:08 PM
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If he doesn't hold a vote he will be removed by his party, end of. Given that you think he's going to renege?
Come into the real world, there's a good lad
24 January 2013, 11:13 PM
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And I am still unsure of the process – does he re-negotiate our terms and then, when the outcome of the negotiations is known we have a referendum?
With a sort off “this is the best we can get, are you in or out” question
With a sort off “this is the best we can get, are you in or out” question
I agree, I thought it was an excellent speech by the PM and pretty much summed up how I feel about the issue
25 January 2013, 12:21 AM
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Well we differ, because Paddy Power currently have Labour 1st at 1/2, UKIP 2nd on 2/1 and Tories 3rd at 9/1 http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politi...opean-politics. Surprised Labour are doing so well considering UKIP beat them last time round http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...ion_999999.stm Think your reality radar is misfiring a little...
Indeed, which is why I said first stop Euro elections. A lot can happen in two years, the Romanian / Bulgarian immigration and the EU FU treaty for a couple of starters
Indeed, which is why I said first stop Euro elections. A lot can happen in two years, the Romanian / Bulgarian immigration and the EU FU treaty for a couple of starters
25 January 2013, 08:10 AM
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Well we differ, because Paddy Power currently have Labour 1st at 1/2, UKIP 2nd on 2/1 and Tories 3rd at 9/1 http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politi...opean-politics. Surprised Labour are doing so well considering UKIP beat them last time round http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...ion_999999.stm Think your reality radar is misfiring a little...
Indeed, which is why I said first stop Euro elections. A lot can happen in two years, the Romanian / Bulgarian immigration and the EU FU treaty for a couple of starters
Indeed, which is why I said first stop Euro elections. A lot can happen in two years, the Romanian / Bulgarian immigration and the EU FU treaty for a couple of starters
Thanks to a vagaries of our silly electoral system I say UKIP are highly unlikely to win a single seat at the next General Election.
I think that Cameron has put UKIP in a real bind. In theory if you want a referendum you HAVE to vote Tory. A vote for UKIP will almost certainly result in a Labour win and no referendum.
Clever politics, by the PM, dangerous nonetheless.
25 January 2013, 08:49 AM
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Martin is on the nail here. This is in part about stopping people voting for the UKIP at a general election and thereby letting Labour in via he back door.
As much as I don't like Cameron the thought of Milliband as prime minister makes me shudder!
As much as I don't like Cameron the thought of Milliband as prime minister makes me shudder!
25 January 2013, 10:10 AM
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I agree that the rules of the EU are nonsesnse, and not many people understand them. Here we see a leader desperate to stop a surge in the popularity of UKIP, and one that is trying to force Labour in to supporting his Yes vote. A Leader who doesn't understand.
If the Conservatives don't get voted back in, then he probably won't be their leader either, so he has nothing to lose in that respect.
Originally Posted by Christopher Booker
Under the EU’s treaty rules, there is no way powers, once handed over by a country, can be given back. Such negotiations as Mr Cameron has in mind would require a new treaty, a convention and an intergovernmental conference, which his EU colleagues would never allow. The only way he could compel them to negotiate would be by invoking Article 50 of the treaty, which can only be triggered by a country announcing that it wishes to leave. So the only way Mr Cameron could get agreement to the negotiations he wants would be by doing something he insists that he doesn’t want to do.
But another very important point he keeps on getting wrong is his insistence that he wouldn’t want the kind of relationship with the EU enjoyed by the Norwegians, because although they have full access to the single market, as members of the European Free Trade Association (Efta), they only do so at the price of having to obey rules they have no part in shaping: what is dismissively described as “fax democracy”. Mr Cameron clearly has not been properly briefed: the Norwegians in fact have more influence on shaping the rules of the single market than Britain does.
Like many other people, he hasn’t grasped that the vast majority of the single market’s rules are decided by a whole range of international and global bodies even higher than the EU – from the International Labour Organisation, which decides working-time rules, to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, which agrees worldwide standards on food safety and plant and animal health.
On these bodies, Norway is represented in its own right, as an independent country, while Britain is only represented as one of the 28 members of the EU.
But another very important point he keeps on getting wrong is his insistence that he wouldn’t want the kind of relationship with the EU enjoyed by the Norwegians, because although they have full access to the single market, as members of the European Free Trade Association (Efta), they only do so at the price of having to obey rules they have no part in shaping: what is dismissively described as “fax democracy”. Mr Cameron clearly has not been properly briefed: the Norwegians in fact have more influence on shaping the rules of the single market than Britain does.
Like many other people, he hasn’t grasped that the vast majority of the single market’s rules are decided by a whole range of international and global bodies even higher than the EU – from the International Labour Organisation, which decides working-time rules, to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, which agrees worldwide standards on food safety and plant and animal health.
On these bodies, Norway is represented in its own right, as an independent country, while Britain is only represented as one of the 28 members of the EU.
Originally Posted by Peter Oborne
So much for the short-term consequences. In the longer term, the situation is much more interesting, and more dangerous. The Prime Minister has moved the bomb, but he has not defused it. It remains in the room, ticking away. It is simply in a different place, and the circumstances have changed: Mr Cameron, by committing the Tories to an in-out referendum, has greatly increased the likelihood that Britain will eventually leave the European Union, while a formal split within the Conservative Party over Europe now looks almost certain.
To understand why, let’s try a mental experiment. Let’s assume (a big assumption) that the Tories win the 2015 general election, and that Mr Cameron makes good on his promise of a referendum. What happens next?
Fortunately, we don’t have to guess – because all this has been tried before, in very similar circumstances, and for near identical reasons. Back in 1972, Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour opposition, faced a similar dilemma to the one Mr Cameron does now. His party was horribly at odds over Europe. The majority of Labour MPs (like most Tory MPs today) were fiercely opposed to Europe, partly for old-fashioned reasons of national sovereignty, but mainly because they regarded Brussels as the headquarters of a sinister capitalist plot to exploit the workers.
Meanwhile, Roy Jenkins led a pro-European rump. As a result the Labour Party was all but ungovernable and there seemed no way it could fight the forthcoming general election on a united manifesto.
Most unusually, it was Tony Benn (then approximately halfway along his journey from respectable technocrat to Left-wing fanatic) who produced the solution. He came up with a characteristically radical and shocking proposition, an affront to the British tradition of parliamentary democracy: a referendum. Wilson bought the idea and included in Labour’s election manifesto a pledge that the party would renegotiate the British terms of entry to the Common Market, and then put the result to the people.
The ruse worked: the party went quiet. Arch-Europeans like Jenkins cheerfully campaigned side by side with antis like Michael Foot. Labour narrowly won an election victory in February 1974, and from that moment Wilson embarked on a year of tortuous negotiations with the European Commission.
His incoming government set out seven areas where it wanted change in Britain’s favour. These included reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy, the introduction of some restraint on Brussels spending, a promise that Britain would never be forced into the single currency, and no harmonisation of VAT across national boundaries.
Prime Minister Wilson achieved virtually nothing in his renegotiation. The Brussels budget and the CAP carried on their majestic way. Even he had to admit this: “We do not pretend, and never have pretended, that we got everything we wanted in these negotiations.” But Wilson, a notoriously devious politician, maintained: “We did get big and significant improvements on the previous terms.” It was on the basis of these illusory “big and significant improvements” that Labour recommended that Britain should remain inside the European Economic Community.
Chaos ensued. As the stock market collapsed to its lowest level since the Blitz, and amid talk of a military coup to be headed by Lord Mountbatten, several Cabinet ministers (including Tony Benn and Peter Shore) announced that they would join the No campaign against their government colleagues. Others sat it out.
Labour did regroup for a few years after the referendum was won by the Yes camp. Yet in retrospect it is easy to see that those early splits over Europe formed the basis of the party’s civil wars of the early Eighties and the secession of the SDP.
History is about to repeat itself. If David Cameron is lucky, his referendum wheeze will quieten matters for a time. All the indications suggest that we then face another version of the mid-Seventies. The British Government will set out its key objectives for negotiations. Some of these will be met in part, but the majority will not be met at all. Prime Minister Cameron, who fundamentally does not like to rock the boat, will present these European concessions to the British people as a victory and lead the Yes campaign.
To understand why, let’s try a mental experiment. Let’s assume (a big assumption) that the Tories win the 2015 general election, and that Mr Cameron makes good on his promise of a referendum. What happens next?
Fortunately, we don’t have to guess – because all this has been tried before, in very similar circumstances, and for near identical reasons. Back in 1972, Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour opposition, faced a similar dilemma to the one Mr Cameron does now. His party was horribly at odds over Europe. The majority of Labour MPs (like most Tory MPs today) were fiercely opposed to Europe, partly for old-fashioned reasons of national sovereignty, but mainly because they regarded Brussels as the headquarters of a sinister capitalist plot to exploit the workers.
Meanwhile, Roy Jenkins led a pro-European rump. As a result the Labour Party was all but ungovernable and there seemed no way it could fight the forthcoming general election on a united manifesto.
Most unusually, it was Tony Benn (then approximately halfway along his journey from respectable technocrat to Left-wing fanatic) who produced the solution. He came up with a characteristically radical and shocking proposition, an affront to the British tradition of parliamentary democracy: a referendum. Wilson bought the idea and included in Labour’s election manifesto a pledge that the party would renegotiate the British terms of entry to the Common Market, and then put the result to the people.
The ruse worked: the party went quiet. Arch-Europeans like Jenkins cheerfully campaigned side by side with antis like Michael Foot. Labour narrowly won an election victory in February 1974, and from that moment Wilson embarked on a year of tortuous negotiations with the European Commission.
His incoming government set out seven areas where it wanted change in Britain’s favour. These included reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy, the introduction of some restraint on Brussels spending, a promise that Britain would never be forced into the single currency, and no harmonisation of VAT across national boundaries.
Prime Minister Wilson achieved virtually nothing in his renegotiation. The Brussels budget and the CAP carried on their majestic way. Even he had to admit this: “We do not pretend, and never have pretended, that we got everything we wanted in these negotiations.” But Wilson, a notoriously devious politician, maintained: “We did get big and significant improvements on the previous terms.” It was on the basis of these illusory “big and significant improvements” that Labour recommended that Britain should remain inside the European Economic Community.
Chaos ensued. As the stock market collapsed to its lowest level since the Blitz, and amid talk of a military coup to be headed by Lord Mountbatten, several Cabinet ministers (including Tony Benn and Peter Shore) announced that they would join the No campaign against their government colleagues. Others sat it out.
Labour did regroup for a few years after the referendum was won by the Yes camp. Yet in retrospect it is easy to see that those early splits over Europe formed the basis of the party’s civil wars of the early Eighties and the secession of the SDP.
History is about to repeat itself. If David Cameron is lucky, his referendum wheeze will quieten matters for a time. All the indications suggest that we then face another version of the mid-Seventies. The British Government will set out its key objectives for negotiations. Some of these will be met in part, but the majority will not be met at all. Prime Minister Cameron, who fundamentally does not like to rock the boat, will present these European concessions to the British people as a victory and lead the Yes campaign.
25 January 2013, 03:16 PM
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I agree that the rules of the EU are nonsesnse, and not many people understand them. Here we see a leader desperate to stop a surge in the popularity of UKIP, and one that is trying to force Labour in to supporting his Yes vote. A Leader who doesn't understand.
If the Conservatives don't get voted back in, then he probably won't be their leader either, so he has nothing to lose in that respect.
If the Conservatives don't get voted back in, then he probably won't be their leader either, so he has nothing to lose in that respect.
In short, if he wins the next election, we are having a referendum, or have I misinterpreted Obournes piece??
25 January 2013, 03:57 PM
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25 January 2013, 06:05 PM
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25 January 2013, 08:41 PM
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Dave wants to negotiate a better deal for us.
Dave can only begin negotiations if he tells the EU that we want to leave.
Dave doesn't want us to leave, hence he won't tell the EU that we want to leave.
Dave will only ask us to vote in or out, if he doesn't get the new deal for us.
25 January 2013, 09:38 PM
#52
jeepers, i don't even have access to decent news feeds and i know were going nowhere.
Was in my local bar in croatia tonight and some guy recons that the uk will be out of EU by 2017, he seemed a little disappointed when i told him no way, but apparently thats what is being reported here, so the ruse is working on this side at least.
Was in my local bar in croatia tonight and some guy recons that the uk will be out of EU by 2017, he seemed a little disappointed when i told him no way, but apparently thats what is being reported here, so the ruse is working on this side at least.
25 January 2013, 10:29 PM
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jeepers, i don't even have access to decent news feeds and i know were going nowhere.
Was in my local bar in croatia tonight and some guy recons that the uk will be out of EU by 2017, he seemed a little disappointed when i told him no way, but apparently thats what is being reported here, so the ruse is working on this side at least.
Was in my local bar in croatia tonight and some guy recons that the uk will be out of EU by 2017, he seemed a little disappointed when i told him no way, but apparently thats what is being reported here, so the ruse is working on this side at least.
I've seen the French saying they would roll out the red carpet for the UK to leave, but surely the UK's contribution would then have to be paid by the other member states. I'm not convinced that France (and possibly Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece) could afford that scenario of increased payments.
25 January 2013, 11:52 PM
#56
this is just a 'negotiating ploy' -
he is negotiating with....
the electorate - "I'll give you a vote on Eu membership"
the EU - "Give me what I want or I will leave"
his BackBenchers - "back Me and I will give you POWER"
he is negotiating with....
the electorate - "I'll give you a vote on Eu membership"
the EU - "Give me what I want or I will leave"
his BackBenchers - "back Me and I will give you POWER"
26 January 2013, 07:15 AM
#57
Why is he disappointed that the UK won't leave?
I've seen the French saying they would roll out the red carpet for the UK to leave, but surely the UK's contribution would then have to be paid by the other member states. I'm not convinced that France (and possibly Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece) could afford that scenario of increased payments.
I've seen the French saying they would roll out the red carpet for the UK to leave, but surely the UK's contribution would then have to be paid by the other member states. I'm not convinced that France (and possibly Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece) could afford that scenario of increased payments.
26 January 2013, 11:51 AM
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26 January 2013, 12:30 PM
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Cameron had buckets of influence and cash before he was PM, while power can be subjective I would suggest that the phrase true power only comes with anonymity has plenty of truth in. Some of you clearly do not know any MP's if you think they are all in it for 60k and the possibility of being on the dole after 4 years. They may be thick at times, and idealistic and perhaps arrogant in thinking they know whats best for the country but the ones I have met (I still speak to, and argue with the former labour MP for where I live) all started because they believed they could do a better job of running the country.