Bring Cameron his booze, fags and easy women

The Barclay Brother Beano carries an unsurprising post election piece, headlined thus:

Start behaving more like Nigel Farage and less like a ‘public school toff’, David Cameron told

David Cameron should behave more like Nigel Farage and less like a “public school toff”, according to the Prime Minister’s former local council leader.

The suggestion from Keith Mitchell, former leader of Oxfordshire County Council, underlines the depressingly shallow mindset of the Conservatives.  Instead of enjoining Cameron to start behaving like a conservative (which he isn’t) and pursue policies that people in the country want to see (which he won’t),  the solution proposed to win public support is to mimic the behaviour of the party whose support among the total electorate in last week’s elections was 6.5%.

Clearly Mr Mitchell hasn’t put very much thought into this.  The mental image of Cameron knocking back pints, smoking cigarettes and chasing younger women around is too much to deal with.  Far better that we have Cameron behaving like the aloof, ignorant, social democrat enemy of representative democracy that he is, so support for him and his band of self serving Europlastics continues to decline.

Nigel Lawson awakens from his long Euroslumber

Okay. Let’s… I tell you what, let’s forget the fact that you’re coming a little late to the party and embrace the fact that you showed up at all.

That line from the West Wing is my message to Nigel Lawson today. I’ve always had something of a crush on Nigella Lawson, and I’m now starting to become fond of her old man too (not in that way).  First he speak sense on climate change, now he is speaking sense on the UK’s membership of the EU.

Setting aside the fact Lord Lawson’s u-turn on the EU is akin to him declaring that, in spite of the warnings and raft of evidence that was available to him, he is thoroughly disappointed that his expensively acquired tulips bulbs did not blossom into the beautiful roses he was convinced he would get, he makes the powerful point that any changes David Cameron might be able to secure from the EU will be equally as inconsequential as the crumbs from the table hailed by Harold Wilson as the outcome of a successful renegotiation with ‘Europe’ in the 1970s.

After years of delusion and self deception, it has finally dawned on Lord Lawson that the EU is a purpose-built bureaucratic construct, with the sole objective of drawing power to itself and eroding the sovereignty of nation states to the point they cease to exist in anything but name.  That aim has never changed, it’s just that Nigel is now saying he can see it for what it is and rightly concludes the UK should have no part in it.

However, what is disappointing is that there is no mention in his comments to suggest Lord Lawson acknowledges the fundamental problem with the EU is that it is anti-democratic by design.  Its very reason for being is to subvert and replace democracy, because allowing the people to determine for themselves what they want would result in the EU’s collapse, which would not suit the corporatist interests it serves.

So Nigel Lawson has correctly identified the remedy, even if it is still not clear to him what the ailment is.  It’s progress of sorts.

Now we just hope more people will listen to this political heavyweight and see through Cameron’s pathetic charade of a loosely defined ‘re-negotiation’ before he declares success and recommends the UK stays part of the EU, regardless of how little control over our own affairs he repatriates from Brussels.

Cameron in Thatcherite shocker!

According to a piece in the Daily Wail, when asked directly whether he was a Thatcherite, David Cameron replied:

‘No… Other people might call me that. I think the label’s now… it’s slightly become… labels now don’t quite mean what they did then.

‘I was a tremendous Mrs Thatcher supporter… The battles she won were so important for our country, but there are now different challenges and things that need to be dealt with.’

The shock in all this?  That some idiot saw fit to ask Cameron if he was a Thatcherite in the first place.

A cursory look at Cameron’s dismal record, his limp behaviour in opposition, his failure to win an election against the most unpopular Prime Minister in living memory, a quick scan of his front bench at the wets he surrounds himself with – especially that treacherous, backstabbing, europhile quisling and plotter-in-chief who worked tirelessly to bring down Thatcher, Ken Clarke – the accelerating departure from conservative principles, the vacuum that exists where conviction should reside, the two-faced rank hypocrisy, and an absence of any connection or empathy with ordinary people… yet some witless fool has the stupidity to ask if he is a Thatcherite?

For crying out loud.

Conservatives cost you less, do they?

From Richard at EU Referendum we have a story about the growing power of the European Parliament, relative to that of the European Commission.  But what the story also does is give lie to the often made claim by Conservatives that they cost you less.

The story is about the European Parliament rejecting a Commission plan to force up the price of so-called carbon credits, by delaying the auction of a variety of credit denominations until the end of the 2013-20 period, known as ‘backloading’.  The cost of carbon credits are passed on to consumers, driving up the cost of energy and goods.

But it is the background to the story which should be more interesting to British voters, as it demonstrates that the publicly stated concern of David Cameron and his crew of neo-Social Democrats about the energy prices people in this country pay, is a deceitful sham.

It transpires that David Cameron instructed Conservative MEPs to vote for the Commission’s proposal, in favour of forcing up carbon credit prices.  No, you did not misread that.  The official British position was to support the Commission’s attempts to ramp up the carbon price.   Some of the Tory MEPs rebelled and voted against, contributing to the rejection of the proposal by a mere 19 votes.  Think back to Cameron’s very public concern about energy prices for the hard pressed consumers and threats to legislate against the energy companies to force them to put customers on their lowest tariffs, then consider what happened in Brussels, and we have (more) hard evidence that Cameron is a duplicitous fraud and the claim that Conservatives cost you less is a blatant lie.

Following the vote the price of credits dropped to an all-time record low and the carbon market finds itself in a fair bit of trouble.  You might think this is good news and the end of the matter.  But there’s more.  Because to compound Cameron’s cynical actions we are reminded of something rather important by Richard :

Sadly, though, Britain does not get the benefit of this market collapse, Mr Osborne having already decided to add to the cost of the carbon credits, with an additional £4.94 in carbon tax. This, while continental industry and electricity consumers will be paying something like £2 per ton of carbon dioxide produced, the British equivalents will be paying about £7.

With the UK government committed to driving the carbon price up to £18 in 2018, to £30 in 2020 and to £70 in 2030, using the carbon tax mechanism, we now face the spectre of the EU’s carbon market collapsing completely, leaving the UK as the only country in the EU handicapped in this way.

As this blog always encourages people, ignore the spin and the weasel words and judge politicians by their actions.  We have the high borrowing, high taxing, wasteful spending antics of Labour and Liberal Democrat incompetents and, with this story, yet more evidence should any be needed that the Conservatives are absolutely no different.

Assuming in your area the Conservatives still have sufficient members to go door-to-door canvassing ahead of the County Council elections, if you want to have a little fun, share this story with them and ask them to explain how Conservatives cost you less.

Arch Tory Timmy and the Conservative fetish for big government

It’s interesting to see that Timmy of The Times has been holding forth over on the ConservativeHome blog.  He is arguing that although David Cameron is not a great leader, he can still win the next General Election and should not be ousted by the party’s MPs.

In his assessment, Timmy references a story hidden behind the same Times paywall where he will be shrinking to greatness, talks about the way Cameron has allowed the so-called centre right vote to be split:

Most of all, I hold Cameron responsible for the splitting of the centre right vote. Successful leaders spend 50% of their time looking after their existing voters and 50% reaching out to new voters. In recent months Cameron has scrambled back to a more balanced approach but the damage is already done. UKIP is booming in the polls and today’s FT reports (£) that they are about to broaden further – adding a low tax message (which seems completely unaffordable to me) to their existing core messages on Europe and immigration. UKIP, remember, don’t need to win a single seat in order to still deny Tory candidates victory in key marginals.

As you can see from the piece I have emphasised in bold, Timmy has his eye on the fusion between electoral appeal and economics.  The piece in the Times that he refers to is summarised on ConHome’s main page as follows:

“The UK Independence party is to broaden its electoral message beyond its usual campaigns against Europe and immigration with a new tax strategy aimed squarely at swing voters in middle Britain. Godfrey Bloom, the party’s economics spokesman, wants to create a flat rate of income tax at 25 per cent with a personal allowance of £13,000, a policy which he accepts will bring particular benefits to middle earners. Meanwhile, in another attempt to chisel support away from the Conservatives, Mr Bloom also wants to allow non-working parents to transfer their tax allowance to a working spouse.”

Timmy’s big problem here is the same one that infests the Cameron Conservatives; the belief that the plans UKIP are putting forward are unaffordable because government has to spend so much money.  It is this kind of lazy thinking, and the authoritarian bent that accompanies it, which is causing so much financial misery to ordinary people.

UKIP’s economic plan is entirely affordable – as long as the government stops spending money on non-essential services and provisions.  But politicians of every stripe are in an arms race to make promises to voters that cannot be delivered without stealing ever greater sums of our money.

And when the consequences of a government’s irresponsible spending, unaffordable borrowing, increasing taxation and syphoning of our wealth to service its own ends become so serious they can no longer be hidden, we are presented with the ‘false choice’.  Brandon Smith, writing on this from an American perspective on Zero Hedge, defines it superbly when he writes:

Large and corrupt governments love to use the magic of the false choice.  For instance, “…it is better to sacrifice some of your money and your principles to the establishment than it is to live through total collapse of the nation…”  This false choice process, though, never ends.  The offending government will demand more property and more freedom from the citizenry everyday while constantly warning that if we do not submit, the alternative will be “far worse”.

The truth is, Cyprus is not the issue.  What the disaster in Cyprus reflects, however, concerns us all.  It is a moment of precedence; an action which sets the stage for the final destruction of the idea of private property.  It dissolves one of the final barriers to total government control.  Governments and elitists have always stolen from the public through misspent taxation and rampant inflation, but with Cyprus, we see a renewed feudalistic paradigm.  The EU and the banking hierarchy are sending a message to the Western world:  You are now their personal emergency fund, and nothing you own is actually yours anymore.

When an institution confiscates property and capital at will from a subdued and frightened populace without consent, they are essentially exploiting the labor of that populace.  In any culture or language, this is called “slavery”.

The Tories, for all their pontificating about personal freedom and responsibility, are following this exact path, just as Labour and the Lib Dems would if they held ‘power’ exclusively.  This is the disease that has infested the political class and will harm us all.

Where Timmy should be shouting from the rooftops that government should not be continuously expanding and over reaching and does not need to be so big or spend so much, he merely whimpers that leaving people to decide for themselves how their money is spent and how they use their resources, is unaffordable – for the government!  How is that viewpoint reconcilable with someone who professes to want limited government and individual freedom?  He clearly hasn’t got a bloody clue.

The Conservatives will never return to the ‘common ground’

She often comes in for a lot of stick, but Melanie Phillips often articulates the reality of a situation with supreme clarity. Consider this rhetorical contribution directed at the conservative-in-name-only in Number 10.

“Mr Cameron does not have to enter an alliance with UKIP in order to reconnect to Conservative voters. All he has to do — revolutionary thought! — is adopt Conservative policies himself.

Since the fall of Mrs Thatcher, British Conservatism has lost its way.

Mr Cameron wrote yesterday: ‘It’s not about being Left-wing or Right-wing; it’s about being where the British people are.’

Well, the British people want to get back from the EU the power to govern themselves. They want to live in a country that does not resemble an international transit camp, but where citizenship is based on a truly common culture.

They want to end ruinous and pointless green taxes, and to conserve the countryside against urban sprawl. They want armed forces that can actually defend the country and a drastic curtailment of international aid. And they want solid, unambiguous support for traditional family life.

That’s where the British people really are, Prime Minister. The problem is that you are somewhere else.”

So, sadly, are all but a tiny handful of senior Conservatives. While I wish well the genuine conservatives who in spite of everything remain in the Conservative party, my decision to resign as a Conservative Councillor and leave the party, because of the direction Cameron and his cronies were taking, has increasingly shown itself to have been completely justified.

What Phillips is saying is in her own way is what this blog has long said – the political class’ interests are wildly different from the interests of ordinary people.

The likelihood of the Conservatives rediscovering the common ground is so remote as to be negligible. The party leadership has been infested by people like Cameron, devoid of principle or belief, who want to govern for its own sake; and who think they alone should have the monopoly on decision making and therefore refuse the electorate’s wishes on a wide range of issues.

The concept of representative democracy is just that, a concept.  Something the Philosophy, Politics and Economics graduates learn under the likes of Vernon Bogdanor, before heading off into the world to maintain elected dictatorship.  Compare and contrast with the way things are done in what increasingly appears to be the last true democracy in the western world…  Until the status quo in the UK changes the politicians will never come close to sharing the common ground with the people.  Power to the people, Citizen Cam?  Not bloody likely.

Louise Mensch criticised by Corby Tories as a Central Office clone

Conservative Party membership is nose-diving and with very good reason – the party’s grassroots members have been neutered by the Conservative Central Office machine.

Cameron may think he mashed the Turnip Taliban with a patronising campaign of ridicule, but grassroots grumbling has not gone away and has now returned in the form of the Midlands Militia that makes up the Corby Conservative Association.  Following the recent abdication from the Corby throne of wannabe Cameron Queen, Louise Mensch, and subsequent by-election humiliation in November that saw Labour regain the seat with a substantial majority, the local activists that remain are finding their voice again.  Speaking to the Northamptonshire Telegraph, Cllr David Sims, leader of the Conservative group on the borough council, said:

It could be very frustrating for us at times when Louise Mensch was in office.

The local Conservatives are not clones from Central Office or career politicians sent in by the party, but hard-working Corby people who care deeply about the town and who are involved in local politics to further Corby’s interests and to help bring this great place the bright future it deserves. Of course we wanted to win the recent by-election, but we are now in a position where the new Team Corby Conservatives will have the freedom to do things the Corby way.

Trapped in a party political model the Corby Tories will find their apparent freedom after the Mensch’s emigration affords them only limited room for manoeuvre.  They are constrained by undemocratic party rules and direction by an autocratic leader who can only be removed if a sufficient number of Conservative MPs trigger a leadership contest.

While some are defecting to UKIP far more are simply walking away from party politics altogether, despite being passionate about a number of burning issues, such as UK membership of the EU.  This is fertile ground for non-party grassroots movements to plough.  As more former party members realise there are campaigns in which they can contribute a great deal, party political tribalism will contract until it contains only the career politicians, policy wonks and ‘special advisors’ and the next self selecting generation coming out of college to climb the greasy pole into those roles.

Party politics is moving into old age and the countdown to its inevitable demise continues.  The future will be rather different and more democratic.

Tackling the Open Europe ‘in’ campaign

It’s nice to see the good folk at Open Europe being challenged by readers in the comments section over on their blog about their repeat of the plainly deceitful claims that the UK would have to follow all the rules of the EU while having no say, if we left the EU and joined EFTA; and that by staying inside the EU the UK has ‘influence’.

Open Europe takes its lead from Rodney Leach, also known as the Tory peer, Baron Leach of Fairford. Leach, like all Tory europlastics, claims to be eurosceptic yet advocates and campaigns for the UK to remain firmly inside the EU – which is in no way eurosceptic. The doublespeak is deliberate as it always has been, as the Tories say one thing while doing the exact opposite. Thanks to his marshalling of Open Europe the group is nothing less than a deliberately misleading false flag operation.

Despite this the press still refers to the group and its current Director, Mats Persson, as eurosceptic and quotes its comments as being eurosceptic – which causes confusion among voters who believe (rightly) the term means wanting the UK out of the EU, not staying part of it and trying to ‘reform’ it. After all, what kind of eurosceptic claims the UK’s options outside the EU are limited and all of them harmful?

To successfully campaign for UK withdrawal from the EU it is necessary to take every opportunity to show up the Open Europe position for what it is and to reclaim the definition of eurosceptic, so its meaning cannot be corrupted by europhiles determined to drag the UK ever deeper into Brussels’ control.

Tony Hall appointment at BBC demonstrates Tory corporate stupidity

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the utter stupidity of senior members of the Conservative Party.  When it was announced that Tony Hall was being appointed BBC Director General after the sopping wet Lord (Chris) Patten foolishly rushed in to fill the post without carefully examining other potential candidates for the vacancy, the Labour Party speedily showered Hall and the decision with praise and plaudits.

You would have thought Labour’s delight would have started ringing alarm bells in Tory HQ, but no.  Perhaps the problem is threefold.  Firstly you have the legendary idiocy of the Tory elite, which treats its members and the public with contempt while making all manner of balls-ups.  Secondly, perhaps Tories just possess incredibly short memories and therefore have forgotten about Tony Hall and what went on at the BBC while he was in cheif executive of BBC News and Current Affairs?  Let’s take a couple of moments to remind them.

Under his Tony Hall’s management, the BBC had an incestuous relationship with the Labour Party.  BBC staffers assisted Labour’s ‘rapid rebuttal unit’ by tipping them off every time a Conservative said anything that challenged Labour in the run up to the 1997 general election.  Former BBC journalists ran as Labour candidates (remember Ben Bradshaw who remained on the BBC Radio 4 payroll despite not working and instead campaigning to win the Exeter seat?) while Labour people went the other way into the BBC (remember Joy Johnson, ex-BBC PR professional who became Labour’s director of communications, then lost her job and was immediately re-hired by the BBC?)  What about the champagne strewn corridors of the BBC after Blair’s election victory and the BBC bias against the Conservatives that had Brian Mawhinney and Charles Lewington in red faced fury as the Patten-loving Major government was pulled to pieces?  It was under Tony Hall that the BBC effectively campaigned for Martin Bell in Tatton, without once challenging him on his motivation for standing or probing his behind the scenes relationship with the Labour Party.

Small wonder Labour has welcomed his appointment, and the corporate stupidity of the Tories sees them also welcome a man into a post far more powerful than the one he used to help to see the Tories ejected from office in 1997.  But what of the third possible problem?  Maybe the long stroll leftwards of the Conservatives, which has accelerated under David Cameron, has made the Tory leadership so indistinguishable from Labour they now share the same mindset enabling them to convince themselves Tony Hall is someone they can do business with.

The timing is incredibly ironic.  Here we are, mid-term of a somewhat unpopular coagulation government, where the Lib Dems are electoral dead ducks struggling to remain the third mainstream political party as UKIP catches and overtakes them in the polls; and the Conservatives are being painted as evil for supposedly trying to repair (badly it has to be said) the economic scorched earth of Labour’s insane tax, borrow, spend and borrow some more policies while continuing to fawn over the EU.  Labour is on top of the polls for simply not being Tories or Fib Dims, despite being led by an incompetent champagne socialist career politician who has never done a proper job in his life and who lives in comfort with a couple of million in the bank.  And now the man who gave Labour a free ride on BBC’s news output to help them win the election in 1997 is placed into an even more powerful role as head of the BBC, enabling him to ensure the BBC helps Labour to victory again in 2015.

Describing the Tories as lemmings doesn’t seem to go far enough.

Tory Party faced with new rift as MPs prepare to mount coup

So reads a headline in the Independent.  But this isn’t another instalment in the recent string of stories planted in the media to convince voters that backbench Tory MPs will rein in David Cameron and protect the right flank of the party from UKIP.

No, this story is different from the fayre trotted out in the pages of the Failygraph as it marks the increasing confidence of the Cameroons and a concerted effort they have undertaken to eject members of the so called ‘awkward squad’ from official positions on the executive of the backbench 1922 Committee.  And it will come as no surprise to regular readers that at the heart of this operation to protect the ‘instinctively Eurosceptic’ Cameron is supposed critic and prominent Judas goat, George EUstice – his former press secretary.

Cameron, with an ever watchful eye focused on crushing any dissent of his autocratic control of the party, has seen to it that parliamentary private secretaries – MPs who are ministerial aides and therefore are expected to toe the leadership’s line – are now able to vote in the election. This means the backbench group, which is supposed to hold the leadership (and by definition any Conservative government) to account could now have its executive and direction influenced by the leadership.  It is the political equivalent of castration – or at least it would be if there were any more than a tiny handful of Tory MPs with balls.

It is classic Cameron.  If anyone opposes his direction he changes the rules enabling his minions to be dispatched to initiate a hostile takeover.  They keep the opponents’ organisation structures intact and wear their clothes, but change the language and corrupt definitions to mean the opposite of what they did.  He has already done this by adopting the mantle of Eurosceptic despite his words and actions being entirely Europhile.

If successful, this putsch against the 1922 will still see the committee describing itself as holding Cameron to account and putting pressure on him to be ‘more conservative’, yet it will be entirely supportive of Cameron’s actions and utter all the sycophantic words of endorsement he wants to hear.  And no doubt the Failygraph will continue to publish op-eds from various talking heads earnestly telling readers that Cameron will soon show his conservative credentials, that there is real pressure for change inside the party which will win the day and there’s no need to support UKIP.

Only a simpleton could believe it.

So where are the 81 Tory ‘Eurosceptic’ MPs now?

A rule of thumb this blog keeps reiterating is when it comes to talk of Tory MPs being Eurosceptic, people need to judge them by their actions rather than their words.

Yet another excellent, pathfinding blog post by Dr Richard North at EU Referendum delivers a case in point that our media is too stupid to understand or dishonest to explain to readers.  This concerns the proposal in Gideon Osborne’s coagulation budget to impose VAT on hot take-out food.  Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about the governance of this country will know Value Added Tax is a European Union matter and that member states must impose a VAT rate – currently with a minimum standard rate of 15%.

As Richard explains, the change to VAT announced in the budget follows the European Court of Justice rulings on a number of German cases where it was held that Germans had to charge the lower rate of VAT on all hot take-out food, instead of the higher rate.  The UK is at the other end of the spectrum, charging 0% on hot take-out food because of our our permanent derogation from the Sixth Council Directive (77/388/EEC), which therefore allows the UK to zero-rate most foodstuffs.  But the proposal in the budget would see the UK voluntarily give up this derogation, and once it has been given away it is assured we will never get it back.

It would be an act of deeper EU integration.

So, we ask, where is the supposedly heroic and infamous band of ‘81 Tory MPs‘ who profess themselves to be rebellious Eurosceptics?  Were they shouting Osborne down as he committed his budget to the House of Commons?  Or were these tribal drones cheering and waving their order papers with the rest of their playmates as Little Gideon took his seat on the sumptious green leather bench?  Let’s remind ourselves of the facts about these 81 Tories.

Once again we see Ministers of the Crown acting as the gophers for the EU bureacracy.  Our Ministers have many levers of power, but most aren’t connected to anything.  The seat of Government of this country is not Westminster, it’s Brussels – but this is only the case because UK Ministers and those who came before them wanted and allowed that to become the case.  One lever of power that remains is the ability to close the door to Brussels.

There is little point attacking the EU.  The people responsible for maintaining this country’s subservience to the EU are the Ministers and MPs sitting in the House of Commons.  Irrespective of the difficulties and challenges of taking back control of this country, they have the power to withdraw the UK from EU membership.  But as they choose to integrate more deeply with the EU they also choose to resist any desire of the British people to become sovereign once again.

Given the ‘81 Group‘ knows all this, where are they?  Perhaps they are missing in action because as we have stated over and again their faux Euroscepticism doesn’t extend to doing anything that removes the EU from power over this country.  They are consummate Europlastics.

‘I am just a loyal Conservative.’

That sentence sums up all that is wrong with politics today.

It was the reported response of Conservative MP, Douglas Carswell, when we was told that fellow Tory MP, Claire Perry, had directed a foul mouthed comment at him in the House of Commons – namely ‘Why don’t you f*** off and join UKIP?’

Carswell is putting tribal party loyalty before all else.  He claims to believe the United Kingdom should not be part of the European Union.  Nevertheless he doggedly remains a member of a political party whose leadership and policy is to remain part of the EU at any cost, to deny the electorate a referendum and to conceal the extent to which the EU is the true government of this country.

How can a man who holds the view he claims remain a loyal Conservative when that party behaves in the way it does?  The party’s position is sewn up tight.  The leadership sets the policy, regardless of the wishes of the membership.  Behind the scenes and out of the public gaze there is a powerful group of people with vested interests who bankroll and control the direction of the party.  They determine who will lead it and what agenda will be followed, to suit their interests irrespective of the impact on the rest of the country.  The Conservative agenda will not be changed.

It is not dissimilar to Labour taking its direction from Union barons and the uber rich champagne socialists who want to pull up the ladder behind them after acquiring wealth and influence.

Being an MP is a good gig, with its good pay and expenses and the illusion of power and influence that comes with it.  Carswell, for all his bluster and verbiage, is just another Europlastic happily sacrificing supposed principles to cling to tribal party loyalty in service of his own interest – namely remaining an MP.  When a person sees it for what it is they quickly realise Carswell couldn’t be a more loyal Conservative if he tried.

Voters who oppose EU membership yet continue to vote Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem only have themselves to blame for this country’s ever deeper integration into the EU and ever greater control by Brussels.  Until they stop being taken in by the likes of Douglas Carswell nothing will change.

Roger Helmer abandons Europlastic Tories and joins UKIP

When this blog coined the increasingly common term ‘Europlastics‘ to describe politicians and tribal political party members/supporters who are pro-EU but claim to be Eurosceptic, it was as a direct result of comments made by Roger Helmer MEP in support of pro-EU Conservative MPs who were .

This blog had published a post that exposed yet more Tory deception, with MP Chris Heaton-Harris taking a leading role in a new Tory MP grouping that claimed Eurosceptic views when their Commons Committee actions and voting record showed otherwise.  Helmer stepped in via the comments to defend his friend and former fellow MEP while trumpeting Heaton-Harris’ Eurosceptic credentials.

While tribal Tories rushed to Helmer’s defence, our criticism and that of a number of other blogs that had joined the discussion, we learned that within Europlastic circles there was substantial concern about the way their fragile edifice was being demolished.  The Eurosceptic gloss had been wiped off and grassroots Tories were starting to accept the reality of the situation – their party is bereft of genuine Eurosceptics at senior and parliamentary level.

Roger Helmer’s statement that he has resigned from the Conservative Party (channelling Neville Chamberlain at the same time) and joined UKIP is a further nail in the Tory Europlastic coffin.

It suggests Helmer’s principle may have finally overcome the tribalism that kept him part of a party that does not share his publicly stated views on the most fundamental political issue in the UK today – whether this country is genuinely democratic and who really governs it.  While I am not a UKIP voter for reasons previously explained on this blog, I applaud Helmer for taking what I know to be a very difficult decision.

The response from the political blogosphere’s answer to Hans Christian Andersen is as predictable as it is laughable.  This is not a Cameron problem, it is a Conservative Party problem.  The Conservative Party does not provide the best, or any, hope for Eurosceptics. It remains pro-EU and anyone remaining in that party while professing to be a Eurosceptic is a Europlastic.

The fault lines in the Conservative Party now appear to be opening – and not a moment too soon.

The EU elephant in the Europlastics’ room

Returning from my blogging holiday I was delighted to find another outstanding piece of work emanating from the EU Referendum blog of Dr Richard North. Once again, the media is left watching the birdie by the oh-so-clever politicians and their civil service puppeteers, this time on the much discussed subject of defence equipment procurement.

The upshot is that our ‘instinctively Eurosceptic’ and faux ‘veto-wielding’ Prime Minister and his collective of political pygmies have once again shown their Pro-EU credentials, happily sneaking in Brussels diktat through the back door, while moaning of too much EU power to the media at the front.  Surely that merits some attention?

As North explains in his opening:

You would have thought that, given the huge number of column inches devoted to the diverse and expensive defence procurement failures, the MSM might be interested in this government’s proposals for remedying the system, delivered on Wednesday in the form of a White Paper.

After all, the media fixated on for days and thousands of column inches on the merits or otherwise of paying RBS Chief Executive, Stephen Hester, a bonus of £963,000 worth of shares.  So surely the media would be all over a subject that concerns the spending of many BILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers money. But no. Britain is home to the Kindergarten Press, where playground antics and which kid in the class is most popular today takes the lead in headline selection.

So it is, once again, left to an attentive blogger to do the job the dumbed down media won’t or can’t do, and explain that the government’s White Paper showing the MoD will no longer favour UK companies when procuring defence equipment is not based on getting best value for money, but rather the result of compliance with the instructions of our Supreme unelected, unaccountable Government in Brussels:

These come in the guise of EU Directive 2009/81/EC “on the coordination of procedures for the award of certain works contracts, supply contracts and service contracts by contracting authorities or entities in the fields of defence and security, and amending Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC”.

The result is that:

British ministers are implementing EU law, and they are always going to obey their masters. And in this White Paper, they are providing an ex post facto explanation of how the procurement system is to be adapted in order to ensure absolute obedience.

Not that the uninformed masses will know that, because our media – the same one that bleats about democracy erosion and political openness – either doesn’t understand it or doesn’t want to explain it.

Cameron’s lies are the nails in the Tory coffin

As this blog regularly reminds readers, don’t judge politicians by their words, judge them by their actions.

Actions such as these that follow meaningless pledges to the contrary.

It is not just the left lining up against Cameron.  As one would expect, his Conservative colours make him the target of the tribalists who back Labour and the Lib Dems.

But his control freakery, deceit, waste of our money on overseas spending as vulnerable Britons go without, broken pledges and pandering to a social democrat agenda is now making him the target of classical liberals and those who want a smaller state that keeps out of people’s lives.

It will be just desserts for such an unprincipled opportunist and the tribal Tory idiots who continue to prop up and support the unconservative agenda he is pursuing.

Europlastics? A explanation through analogy

Over on his blog The Boiling Frog, in response to yet another tribal Tory appeal for genuine Eurosceptics to support the pro-EU Conservatives, uses a great football analogy to explain why the Tory ‘Eurosceptics’ are nothing of the sort:

I have supported my team for over 25 years, in that time I’ve criticised players, managers and the board but every year I still renew my season ticket. That makes me a supporter not a sceptic. And the same is true of Tories, despite the criticism of some aspects of the EU, when that EU season ticket renewal comes up they gleefully renew. They are supporters not sceptics.

It is a superb explanation of the Europlastics.  Anyone who declares that genuine Eurosceptics – those people who want the UK to leave the EU – have a home in the Conservative party is either deluded or plain dishonest.

Tories increasingly desperate to stem falling support

Earlier this week we blogged about a piece in the Daily Express where Conservative ‘EU rebel’ Mark Reckless made the ludicrous claim that as many as half of the 306-strong Parliamentary party were in favour of total withdrawal from the EU.

In the comments section we went on to explain that the Tories were desperately trying to claw back deserters and cling on to waverers as their own polling data shows they would lose the next general election if it was held tomorrow, and that many Tory supporters had been saying they would never vote Conservative again after the sellout over Lisbon, HRA being shoved on the back burner and continued EU opt ins in 2010.

Yesterday Gawain over at England Expects highlighted another ‘Eurosceptic’ Tory playing tribal party politics.

It is increasingly looking like the party-before-country sentiments being expressed are being coordinated. The Tories have been damaged as the realisation has dawned among a growing number of voters that Cameron has duped them and that he never had any intention of standing by all the Eurosceptic noises made before the election.  Now all hands are being roped in to hold the line – even the supposedly Eurosceptic backbenchers who were dumped on by Cameron and the Whips in the referendum motion vote.

Clearly the Tories are frit.

 

More Tory Eurosceptic delusion and bullshit

It’s enough to make you wonder if DC Comics have taken over publication of the Daily Express.  Once again we have a Tory reaching out to readers to spin the line that actually, the Tories are mainly Eurosceptic.

The tribalism in Westminster politics never ceases to amaze and depress in equal measure, as once again the electoral interests of the Conservative Party are put before the national interest of the UK with an unchallenged throwaway comment turned into a news item.

There is panic at CCHQ that voters are deserting the Tories as they finally realise Cameron is a liar, his Tory MPs are quislings and Conservatives want power over this country to remain in Brussels.  Instead of seizing the moment, a leading Tory ‘Eurosceptic’ has been rolled out to help hold the line.

For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, today’s Daily Express has a piece by Tom Morgan that claims:

HALF of all Tory MPs want Britain to pull out of the EU, it emerged ­yesterday.

More than 150 – nearly twice as many as those who voted for a referendum last week – want the UK to free itself from the shackles of Brussels ­interference.

Conservative rebel Mark Reckless claimed as many as half of the 306-strong Parliamentary party were in favour of total withdrawal.

No, that really is bullshit you can smell wafting down your internet connection.

The voting records of MPs shows most of the Tories who voted for the motion for a Parliamentary Bill to call a national referendum have voted in favour of measures that pass more control to the EU.  Media interviews had many of the ‘rebels’ saying they wanted to ‘renegotiate’ our EU membership – i.e. stay in the EU and reform it.  Yet now we are enjoined to believe that most of them – including many who voted against the motion – actually want the UK to withdraw.

This is brainwashing the Moonies would be proud of.  Freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength, Tories are Eurosceptic.

As always the lack of elementary understanding of EU membership is laid bare as Morgan describes Brussels’ rule over the UK as ‘interference’.  The EU’s governance of Britain is no more interference than Westminster’s illusory governance.  The EU is not an outsider meddling in our affairs, it is our supreme government determining our affairs.  The Express professes it is spearheading the campaign to get us out of the EU, yet its journalists can’t even grasp the nature of the thing.

If the Express wants to sit up front on the ‘Leave the EU’ bandwagon they have belatedly jumped aboard, perhaps it should ensure its journalists understand the EU and the control it has accumulated over this country.

John Redwood is Tory dead wood

If anyone ever required further confirmation that John Redwood is just as out of touch and deluded as any other Conservative, he obligingly provides irrefutable evidence on his blog, where he writes:

There are various EU initiatives being undertaken by a variety of Conservative MPs. Bill Cash has tabled a Bill to seek to sort out the growing legal and sovereignty difficulties.  Bill through the European Foundation keeps up a stream of informed comments on the evolution of the EU. As Chairman of the EU Scrutiny Committee he and his colleagues daily seek less or better rules and regulations, and try to strengthen the government’s hand in negotiations about the new measures.

Daily seek less or better rules and regulations?  Really?  No, really?  I have just three words to say in response to that…  Integrated Maritime Policy.

See here and then here.

Tory quislings rush to man the Europlastic barricades

‘The time for promises on the EU is long over,’ says Andrew Lilico, ‘only deeds will do’.  However the repatriation of powers from the EU that he refers to in his piece on the content partner site of the Guardian – ConservativeHome -  is not possible due to the core terms of EU membership, making the Tory manifesto pledges nothing more than empty promises.

Yet in his indignant piece we read Lilico demanding the commencement of that mythical renegotiation.  What we have here is either the politics of wishful thinking or the politics of dishonesty.

Is Lilico unwittingly demanding something that cannot be delivered, making him nothing more than a useful idiot?  Or is his article part of a cynical effort to hold the line on behalf of the pro-EU Tory leadership, making his piece a deliberate attempt to deceive people?  Perhaps we should be told if Mr Lilico still believes in Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny given they are just as real as this fabled notion of renegotiation.

Make no mistake, anyone who calls for ‘renegotiation’ wants Britain to remain firmly inside the EU and remain governed from Brussels.

Despite their apparent protestations and tough talk they are in no way Eurosceptic.  These are the people the Tory party is rushing to the barricades, to spew out hundreds of column inches of comment in the media and places like Con Home, to help in the deception effort and maintain the status quo.

Update: In the comments Richard North points us towards a piece on EU Referendum from 2008 about Lilico’s renegotiation fantasy.  Nothing has changed since then, apart from the person who occupies Downing Street and the faces around the Cabinet table. Which is why his conclusion then remains true today:

What will not wash, however, is any pretence that “renegotiation” under the present terms is a practical proposition. The Conservatives must recognise that this is no longer an option, without first committing to withdraw from the EU.

Exactly.