There are few things as contemptible as politicians making public some of their supposedly private comments in order to con the public.
James Forsyth’s article on the Daily Mail site last night will no doubt have some Eurosceptics crowing with glee that the Cameron government is waking up to how membership of the EU hinders the ability of Westminster politicians to govern the UK. But Forsyth’s piece should not be taken at face value, instead it should have people asking questions, such as:
Who gave this story to Forsyth?
Why did they give it to him?
Think about it. We’ve heard all this before from senior Conservatives. Anyone with a half decent memory will recall the repeated handwringing and calls to do something that have been drip fed from CCHQ over the years. The EU is doing nothing new, Brussels is behaving as it has for a long time and in a way with which the Tories are familiar, so why position this supposed frustration story in the media now?
Constantly being told what you can and can’t do by Brussels is driving Ministers and No 10 deeper and deeper into the Eurosceptic camp.
Oliver Letwin, Cameron’s mild-mannered and cerebral Policy Minister, has become so frustrated by this constant interference that he has told colleagues he thinks Britain should leave the European Union if it won’t give us all the opt-outs the Government wants.
What a load of rubbish. It’s just another imaginary crumb from the table to keep us distracted while the business of the EU running the UK continues without impediment. If there was any truth to this, why did the entire Conservative front bench team, including Letwin, abstain from voting against votes for prisoners following the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in Hirst v United Kingdom?
Having finally been allowed to put their grubby paws on the levers of power at the Westminster level what have the Conservatives actually done about the EU’s governance of this country, apart from not turn up to vote? That’s right, a continuation of opt ins to EU measures such as European Investigation Orders, the timid acceptance of EU oversight of the UK’s financial sector and desperate attempts to prevent any amendments to the sham European Union Bill in the Commons. How very Eurosceptic. This little story is one of the CCHQ permitted ‘dissents’ that are purposely encouraged to give the impression the Conservatives might be somewhat opposed to the EU after all.
Are we seriously supposed to believe that they have had a Damascene conversion and now understand that reforming the EU is impossible and only leaving can result in the UK being sovereign once again? Perhaps if James Forsyth believes this horse dung he has published he still believes in Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny too. It is an insult to our intelligence.
Update: Paul in the comments has more on his Luikkerlog blog.
Autonomous Mind 
Agreed. The surprising thing is that Tories in power have been considerably more EU compliant that Labour in power. They’ve only been in again for eight months and already they have nodded through more stuff that Labour did in the preceding eight years.
I think you miss the point that it was Blair who declared we didn’t need a referendum when he signed the Lisbon Treaty and rammed it through Parliament and it was Blair and Brown who gave away all the Thatcher opt-outs and vetos and signed us up to the “Social Chapter”, thereby locking us into the farce that is the ECHR…
We either have to get ourselves “fully in” and play the game as everyone else does, or get out altogether, and the latter would, at this point, be disasterous as we would be exposed as a very small player literally farting against an economic powerhouse. Getting out at this point would damage the UK economy termnally.
What does need to happen, and must happen soon, is to make the Commission and the Council of Ministers fully elected and fully answerable to the EU Parliament and that Parliament needs to actually represent the people of Europe properly.
Well said AM, the only thing missing from this sham is for Labour, now that it is in opposition, to adopt a more eurosceptic stance (even possibly offer an in or out referendum). Give it time.
Gray Monk (I greatly enjoy your writing btw) you seem to forget the number of opt ins and actions performed by Conservatives that have led us to where we are today. The Tories spoke of repatriating powers before the election, but hey presto, once in Downing St that nice Mr Cameron just ‘leaves it there’.
We should be fully out. The EU is heading for disaster that will drag us down. Outside of the EU political establishment we can determine our own path, act in our own interests, and contrary to your claim we would be better off financially.
It is a pipe dream to think the Council of Minister and the European Commission would ever become elected bodies. You seem not to realise the European entities have been formed precisely so that they cannot be challenged democratically.
The grey monk claims that:
“What does need to happen, and must happen soon, is to make the Commission and the Council of Ministers fully elected and fully answerable to the EU Parliament and that Parliament needs to actually represent the people of Europe properly.”
What do we need another Parliament for? We have our own.
Why would we wish for an alliance of foreigners to be able to dictate what we do in the UK? The people of Europe are not one people, they never were and they never will be. The insane determination to weld a people from separate groups is papering over cracks and stresses that will later tear apart. No elected German or Frenchman or Dutchman will ever have any inkling of my wishes and hopes or share any sympathies with me as an English person, so why on earth would I wish to be subject to their power to dictate their ideals and ideas onto me?
Europe is a family of sovereign nations, we join together to help and assist each other where national interest aligns and that is only right but to be ruled and dictated to by foreigners we didnt elect and have no right of veto and cannot remove has a simple meaning, its serfdom and slavery.
And what if they were to become elected bodies? If we live in an elected dictatorship now, how much worse could it be if our government was completely decided by Europeans, so many of whom are newcomers to the very concept of democracy?
I’m awfully sorry, but England is in enough of a mess already, thanks to the voting habits of the Celtic fringe. God knows what it would be like if it was overwhelmed by votes from, say, Greece, Spain, Italy and – heaven forbid! – Turkey.
The Grey Monk is simply flogging the old dead horse of fear, the same one that the traitor Heath and his followers have flogged every time there’s been a whiff dissent about this hideous project.
Out. Now.
Has anyone looked into whether we’d be allowed to split from the EU if we wanted to?
I very much doubt we would be allowed to leave and our continued membership would be ensured by force if necessary.
I haven’t seen any framework that allows a withdrawl, but I have seen clauses in the Lisbon treaty that allow the forces of EU nations to legally work within the borders of another EU member.
To be honest AM, I think you’re on the money in that this is another sop to the EU-sceptics while pushing full steam ahead towards further integration and the dismantling of our armed forces to prevent support of a withdrawl.
All of this happening at the same time as a group of people (i.e. Muslims) are starting to be targeted by EU governments leaves me rather concerned.
The Grey Monk peddles the usual fearfulness from europhiles: “we would be exposed as a very small player”, blah, blah. Prove it: explain away all the economies, smaller than the UK, which survive happily in that big bad global economy.
James Forsyth’s article is a puff for the Tories because the local elections are coming up. If the Tories think they can keep on fooling us, they have another think coming.
Hi Delphius. I would fear for any force sent by the EU to coerce the British people into obedience. We have a disconnected and disinterested population when it comes to basic politics. But if an outside entity tried to openly assert itself over the UK with the use of force, most of the population would fight to resist them. Beyond lies and stealth the EU hasn’t the capability to act in such a way.
Well said AM (particularly your last comment). Force would only wake up this country. Perhaps that’s what we need.
Also well said Cassie.
Cassandra King points out that, “The people of Europe are not one people, they never were and they never will be.”, and this is true.
In fact most countries in Europe are made up of smaller states that have come together to form a “country” – Germany being a prime example. Even Great Briton is a collection of smaller states.
What the EU is doing (in their view) is simply an extension of this trend for smaller states to consolidate into larger groupings. In looking at the intent, I find it hard to fault their logic, however unpalatable that logic may be to me.
The real issue is around governance of the supra-state that follows from the logic.
Given that a significant portion of the modern EU now consists of people who grew up under Communism, and another significant portion live in countries which while not communist, do have a historic tendency towards socialistic ideals, is it any surprise that the current EU sees no reason for democracy? Especially democracy in the style practised in the United Kingdom.
At best, the EU might adopt a form of Republicanism, but only within the combined limits of two parties and two houses. That is what the United States has, and that is (or was) the original model for the EU.
The Gray Monk writes
“We either have to get ourselves ‘fully in’ and play the game as everyone else does, or get out altogether”.
Firstly, I would pose the question; who is the “we” who would be “fully in” the EU and playing the game? Who else but the politicians and the British establishment would ever be able to “play the game” to win anything? The rest of us would be without a representative democratic government; a state as good as slavery. This is the crucial issue. I don’t care if the UK (or England if it becomes necessary) is a major player or not. My liberty is more important. Being a willing slave in a superpower is to be someting other than a human being.
Delphius writes
“I very much doubt we would be allowed to leave and our continued membership would be ensured by force if necessary.”
We don’t have to be in the EU for a Progressive/Liberal-Fascist government to have the borders wide open, and to rule according to alien concepts regarding the interaction between government and citizens, and to subscribe to rules defined by Transnational Organisations designed to impede our ability to create wealth as an independent nation. The pertinent question to consider is will the LibLabCon ever allow us to throw it out without it resorting to force? My answer is no they wouldn’t, and they don’t need to use force. They use lying media, smoke and mirrors, and a politicised police to make sure that citizens don’t think and speak against the measures used to indoctrinate them.
Finally on the subject in the original post about Conservative fakery, did anyone see Tim Montgomorie’s piece in the Mail about Clarke? I’ve already hogged enough space, but I wrote about it here if the moderator would be so good as to pass the link on.
AM, we might as a nation awake if forces from abroad come to pacify any “unrest”, but the problem is, what do we fight them with?
Any arms that the population might have used has been taken away and now even our armed forces are being stripped of capability. We’re like a Tiger willingly laying down to have its teeth and claws wrenched out.
The political elite have seen to it that the largest illegal arms cache that we could lay our hands on, that in Ireland has been put out of use by political subversion.
I’m sure that we would have the will to fight, but sticks and stones cannot repel force of arms, as the Palestinians know all too well.
The Swiss have the right idea, refusing to give up their right to bear arms and refusing to be part of the EU.
The Tories have managed to completely fool the electorate with this eurosceptic stance, they are as eurosceptic as van rumpouy, when will people wake up and realise that the only way to express your opinions on europe is to vote UKIP in the UK general elections, vote for the 3 main pro european party’s (Labour, Liberal or Conservative) in the EU elections as that is the rightful place for those euro mouthpiece outfits.
You worry without cause, a simple repeal of the European Communities Act while we still have a single Trident submarine at sea will be sufficient.
Can’t understand about the supposed persecution of Muslims though, the EU is doing nothing, zip, zero to stop Europe turning into Eurabia.
“Has anyone looked into whether we’d be allowed to split from the EU if we wanted to?
I very much doubt we would be allowed to leave and our continued membership would be ensured by force if necessary.
I haven’t seen any framework that allows a withdrawl, but I have seen clauses in the Lisbon treaty that allow the forces of EU nations to legally work within the borders of another EU member.
To be honest AM, I think you’re on the money in that this is another sop to the EU-sceptics while pushing full steam ahead towards further integration and the dismantling of our armed forces to prevent support of a withdrawl.
All of this happening at the same time as a group of people (i.e. Muslims) are starting to be targeted by EU governments leaves me rather concerned.”
Grey Monk. Hmm, Troll.
Gordo,
To use Trident, you have to assume that the people wanting to split from the EU have control of it.
In an Egypt-like scenario, where the population rises up and demands a split, its quite plausible that our own government would prefer to use foreign troops that have no connection to the people they are “pacifying”. As in Egypt, if they use our own Army, its highly likely they will refuse to subdue a popular uprising. Trident isn’t an option as the government would still retain control.
If an anti-EU government were democratically elected, its still not certain whether a split would be allowed without a fight. What is certain is that we would find it hard to prevail against any hostile action thanks to the current destruction of our armed forces. Especially as its clear that other EU countries are not slashing their services in the same manner.
France also has an independent Nuclear Deterrent (in fact more independent as it doesn’t rely totally on the US), so would we sign our own destruction by unleashing Trident or would we roll over and let them take over? Which is the lesser of two evils?
A strong conventional armed force is a necessity, not a luxury and I fail to see why our government is in a rush to dismantle it in such a wholesale fashion.