The truth that Mats Persson and Open Europe don’t want you to know

The claim that Norway has to put up with EU regulation without representation, and has no influence over what it must implement to be part of the single market (so called ‘fax democracy’) is a lie.  There is no other way to put it.

The fact is Norway has more influence over EU regulation than every EU member state.  Norway also has a veto over EU law so it does not have to follow the EU line.  Norway also pays substantially less to the EU for single market access than it would pay to the EU for being a member state.  Facts such as these are not just drawn from documentary evidence, they have also been established by speaking to ministerial level politicians in Norway who are best placed to understand exactly how access to the single market, without being an EU member state, impacts Norway.

These facts have been repeatedly shared indirectly and directly to Mats Persson of Open Europe – a ‘think tank’ that claims to be Eurosceptic, but which doggedly works to keep the UK firmly stuck in the EU – in order that he may correct his inaccurate claims.  Despite this, Persson continues to repeat the lie time and again, using his platforms on the Open Europe site and the Telegraph’s Blogs section.  The only conclusion that can be drawn is that Mats Persson is determined to deceive people in order to further his agenda of keeping the UK in the EU.

But knowingly repeating a falsifiable lie in the media in such a manner, to deliberately deceive readers, surely cannot be acceptable.  Therefore, my friend The Boiling Frog has submitted a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, outlining the truths that Mats Persson deliberately seeks to conceal from people as part of his deceitful campaign.  The text of the complaint is shown below – and all readers are invited to share it and its contents widely in the media and on other blogs.  Please also feel free to reproduce the information below to submit your own complaint about Persson’s falsehoods, so that the PCC takes notice.

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Dear Sirs

I’m writing to you wishing to draw your attention to an article on the Daily Telegraph website by Mats Persson Director of the think tank Open Europe. He writes about the important issue of the UK’s membership of the European Union – more specifically in this case the possible method of leaving. The website URL in question is below:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/matspersson/100026967/leaving-the-eu-how-article-50-could-make-the-divorce-very-tricky-for-britain/

My reason for contacting the Press Complaints Commission is that I have deep concerns that much of the article is incorrect and factually wrong. In particular I wish to highlight this paragraph regarding the debate about the UK’s role in the EU:

“If only it was that simple. There’s no good off-the-peg model that the UK can simply adopt should it leave the EU. The Norwegian (“regulation without representation)…”

Persson’s dismissal of the Norway option (“regulation without representation”) has been repeated before despite being corrected personally to Persson himself and in the comments (url below)

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/matspersson/100022087/brixit-why-the-norwegian-model-simply-wouldnt-work-for-the-uk/

Mats Persson’s argument relies heavily on the false doctrine that Norway has “no influence” in making EU law. However this is simply factually untrue, Norway has more influence than the UK regarding Single Market rules as illustrated below:

A) Many of Single Market laws are made at an international level for example the WTO – Norway gets to represent itself while the UK has only 8% influence with the EU which represents us on our behalf.

B) Norway is also on over 200 EEA (Single Market) committees which influence EU law from the outset –Anne Tvinnereim, former State Secretary for the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development in Norway for example said this: “we do get to influence the position”.

C) Norway can then contest that laws don’t apply to their EEA agreement – currently they have over 1,200 in dispute.

D) Ultimately Norway can veto any EU legislation, as they did with the 3rd EU Postal Directive while the UK had no choice but to implement it by the 2011 Postal Services Act.

Another inaccurate assertion by Mats Persson in the same article is:

“Under Article 50 [of the Lisbon Treaty] and in continuity deals, France, the European Parliament and others could consistently block market access for the UK’s exporters of IT, insurance, banking and other services.”

The Lisbon Treaty and Article 50 is covered by international law, notably by Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties, for the EU – an international organisation – to block market access would be in fundamental breach of international law. The EU would be obliged to adhere by its international Treaty agreements.

The UK’s membership of the EU is clearly a very important topic of debate and regardless of various views of our membership rigorous but accurate debate in our media is essential. The Press Complaints Commission confirms on its website it considers that accuracy of the press is of utmost importance:

1 Accuracy

i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.

ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and – where appropriate – an apology published. In cases involving the Commission, prominence should be agreed with the PCC in advance.

iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

iv) A publication must report fairly and accurately the outcome of an action for defamation to which it has been a party, unless an agreed settlement states otherwise, or an agreed statement is published.

The issue of the UK’s membership of the EU has clearly taken a more prominent role in UK politics, signified by David Cameron’s promise of a referendum in 2017 (if he were to win the 2015 election) and the current debates between Nigel Farage and Nick Clegg. Thus it’s imperative that the public are accurately informed. In this spirit we note the Press Complaint Commission’s conclusion with an untrue story about EU rules on eggs in 2010:

http://www.pcc.org.uk/case/resolved.html?article=NjU5OQ==

With this in mind I wish to formally complain that Mats Persson’s article breaches the code of conduct of accuracy – it is misleading and is an attempt to severely distract readers of a very popular newspaper from forming a proper and considered opinion.

Yours faithfully

The Carswell conversion gathers pace

At this rate Douglas Carswell, Europlastic extraordinare, will soon be fighting for the UK to remain in the EU, such is the pace of his efforts to toady up to Cameron and the Tory leadership.

A piece in the Telegraph reports on a study by Capital Economics (commissioned by Geert Wilders) into the likely impacts of the Netherlands leaving the EU.  It concluded that the Netherlands would be better off out of the EU, explaining:

Over that 21 year period, the benefits of Nexit to Dutch national income would have accumulated to between €1,100 (£913bn) billion and €1,500 billion (£1.3 trillion) in today’s prices.

This is equivalent to between €7,100 (5,893) and €9,800 (£8,134) per household each year. But even if the Netherlands is unable to negotiate a status akin to Switzerland’s, the economy would be better off out of the union than in.

Naturally the Telegraph scampered off to the prestigious Carswell for comment, and he didn’t disappoint Conservative HQ with his contribution (emphasis mine):

This report is significant because it has been produced by a credible City research group. It cannot be easily dismissed.

It shows we are no longer alone. It is not just us Brits who have come to realise that European integration is fundamentally flawed. We’re very like the Dutch, a small country that has prospered by trading globally. Think what countries like ours could be in a different type of Europe.

‘In’ a different type of Europe?  That’s not the same as leaving the EU, it sounds more like Cameron’s Deludophile ‘reform’ agenda at work.

It seems that when it comes to the EU, the Carswell residence is playing host to a huge exhibition of the hokey cokey.  One minute he wants out, then he wants in.  It’s amazing how the prospect of being outside Cameron’s wigwam of trust can focus the mind on career and electoral prospects.

But then, Carswell is a politician and the political class across Europe wants a piece of the EU action to service their own interests, regardless of what the voters think.

While 55% of Dutch voters surveyed say they would vote to leave the EU if the stated benefits could be achieved, the Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, immediately dismissed the idea as ‘very unwise’.  It seems he will soon be able to count Douglas Carswell as a kindred, pro-EU spirit.

Another steaming pile of Europlastic bullshit

The Europlastics are at it again today in the Telegraph, again in the shape of Jacob Rees-Mogg – aka Pooh Bear, on account of him being an MP of very little brain.

The response to Pooh’s piece is very simple and I left it in the comment thread.  However it is reproduced below for the benefit of readers who are not minded to venture onto the Barclay Brothers’ online circus…

What part of surrendering political control (sovereignty) to the EU over a number of decades is it that Rees-Mogg doesn’t understand?

Parliament accepted the EU’s plan for ever closer integration without ever asking the people if we agreed. The Tories even championed enlargement so more foreign entities would help determine how Britain will be run. Now they don’t like being powerless and pretend EU control was not part of the plan.

The European project, even since the 1920s and Monnet and Salter’s plans for a United States of Europe, has always been about governance from the centre and outside of democratic control. It has never been a secret. The European Scrutiny Committee’s proposal to give Parliament an emergency brake is therefore ridiculous. It is fantasy politics, signing up to the rules then complaining about their impact.

The fantasy continues as the Tories pretend they can unpick 80 years of European efforts to create a United States of Europe with their unknown ‘reforms’. Britain can’t force a treaty change, it can’t convene an Intergovernmental Conference and it can’t persuade enough EU states to agree to sweeping away the very foundations of what they also signed up to.

There is one choice. In, or out. No mythical reforms, no fake renegotiations. No pathetic ‘Fresh Starts’ or Matthew Elliott wheezes. No more moronic pieces in the Telegraph talking about non-starter plans that can never be realised. Just give us a straight choice where the people decide in a BINDING referendum who should run Britain. Anything else is just game playing.

No, the EU has not gone off the rails; we are seeing what was always intended

The Tories are at it again, pushing their lie that the “Common Market” started off with good intentions and somehow went off the rails.  It is laughable because this argument cannot withstand the merest wisp of a breeze of scrutiny of the substantial mountain of evidence that underlines the truth. What we are seeing is what was always intended.

The European project has not lost its way or gone beyond its original plan.  It is firmly on track to achieve what its architects set out to do.

But that doesn’t stop the likes of John Redwood and an assortment of nice/nasty but dim Europlastics in the Conservative Party, and their corporatist proxies such as Open Europe, from chuntering about a mythical renegotation of UK membership and wider reform of the EU, because the union has supposedly gone further than they ‘believe’ was intended.  These people need only to trouble themselves to read the substantial body of documents and speeches by the European project’s leading lights, dating from the present all the way back as far as the end of World War I, to see how deluded and ignorant their ‘off the rails’ argument is.

While the EUphile media in the UK laps up the Tory ‘off the rails’ lie and reports the faux fightback it as if it were a defining issue of our time – because like the media the Tories want to keep the UK firmly under the control of the supreme government in Brussels – in reality this hoo-haa is just for domestic consumption by a British audience, to service the vested interests of corporations that benefit from EU membership and rule by bureaucracy, while the negative consequences of membership are experienced by ordinary people as the democratic process is eroded and the capacity of people to effect change is eradicated.

But in the corridors of EU power, this renegotiation/reform ‘debate’ so beloved of the Europlastics barely registers, as Mary Ellen Synon explained to the Bruges Group recently, because David Cameron reassured the EU last April that he would not take Britain out of the EU just because a referendum result was a vote to get Out.  Renegotiation and reform is a singularly British monologue and it doesn’t even make it into the EU’s in-tray.

The fact is there is no great crisis of confidence in the EU.  In fact the EU is supremely confident and relatively content with its patient implementation of the decades-old plan, hatched by the likes of Monnet and Salter, to develop one overall government for all of continental Europe.  It was never about creating a continent-wide free trade area.  The customs union was not the aim, just a consequence of creating a single political jurisdiction. In José Manuel Barroso’s own words, the agenda is ever closer union and ‘the EU needs to be big on big things and smaller on smaller things’.  Governance is a big thing and the EU will be big in governing, as per the long standing plan.

The European project was always intended, slowly and deliberately, to relegate national governance to nothing more than a rubber stamping operation.  By keeping nominal national governments in place, the distracted and barely cognisant populus would retain an impression of national sovereignty where none exists.  The Tories are either too stupid to read the evidence and grasp this; or too dishonest to admit it, lest their complicity in this long planned and slowly implemented subversion of national self determination is eventually recognised, understood and punished by the electorate.

Until the reality of the European project, and the EU it has spawned, is understood so people see the lies, delusion and misrepresentations for what they are, we will never have an honest debate about the UK’s future and this country’s place in the world.  Remember, those suitcases on the baggage carousels at Brussels airport so vividly described by Mary Ellen Synon in her Bruges Group speech linked above, have stickers that say “Europe is my country”, not ‘Europe is my free trade area’.  The reality of what has always been intended is no secret. It is ludicrous in light of so much evidence that the Tories are allowed to get away with their lie.

So long as the Tories and their proxies are allowed to keep presenting their distorted and false narrative unchallenged, the British people will never be able to make an informed decision about the central and vital question of who should run Britain.

Please help more people to understand the reality by spreading it far and wide, in general discussion and on comment threads.  It’s time that people had the chance to  debate and decide Britain’s future in an informed way with knowledge of the realities, not the politically-motivated myths that currently hold sway.

Europlastics at large

Today’s big political story, the Adam Afriyie inspired vote to bring forward an EU Referendum in this parliament, will be the big story for the wrong reasons.  As the Daily Mail reports:

David Cameron is facing a Tory rebellion of up to 20 MPs today as he tries to head off calls to hold a referendum on Europe next year.

Maverick Tory Adam Afriyie last night indicated he would defy the Prime Minister and force a Commons vote as he tries to make the PM hold a referendum before the 2015 general election.

The media will paint this as Eurosceptics trying to push David Cameron into an early referendum so people can have their say on who runs Britain.  The reality is rather less noble. They are not doing this for us.  This posturing is the political equivalent of the Italian Job with Afriyie in the Michael Caine role, leading a small gang on an enterprise in their own interest.  This is the self preservation society in action, putting their electoral prospects before all else. As the story reminds us:

In a letter to MPs, Mr Afriyie said: ‘This is Conservative MPs’ last chance to try to secure a  referendum. If we don’t take this opportunity we risk sleepwalking to election defeat by driving voters to Ukip.’

We may as well look away.  This is a local issue for local political climbers, there’s nothing for us here.  Whereas in the film we are left guessing as to whether Caine’s gang managed to save the gold they had plundered, the outcome of this little enterprise is nailed on.  It is going nowhere.  But that won’t stop the media hamming it up in an effort to embarrass Cameron.  With most governance being managed from abroad, this is what passes for major political news in Britain these days.

Still, it will serve to deflect attention from something else.  So keep your eyes peeled for something unappetising being sneaked out while the glorious media corps piles into Westminster in an effort to make a big drama with some colouring pencils, old pieces of newspaper and paste.

Cowardice

David Cameron has today marked himself down as a coward yet again.

Following the CBI’s ludicrous assertions about UK membership of the EU being worth £3000 for each household in the country, Cameron has gone to the organisation’s annual conference to praise as ‘very positive’ their report which called for the UK to stay in the EU.  The Telegraph is reporting his comments.

Anyone can bandy figures around in the way the CBI is doing.  But when one scratches below the surface of what the figures include, it is easy to see this was a desperate attempt to service the vested interests of the CBI’s corporate membership.  Perhaps EU membership is valuable to corporates for the way it enables them to choose where they pay tax so they maximise profits. But these profits do not filter down to UK households.  They leave the UK economy and are sent overseas to the overseas bases of uber-investors.

Anyone Europhile can do a Cridland and go on radio and TV and say that alternatives to membership, such as Switzerland and Norway, aren’t as beneficial as membership, so long as they don’t have to back up their assertion with evidence.  Switzerland is not a good model because although they are independent they have to negotiate every deal they have with the EU.  And the problem with that is?  Norway is not a good model according to Cridland because, well, the only rationale he can come up with is the ‘influence’ lie that has already been comprehensively debunked, but is ignored by our biased media.

And as for that tired old canard that we export half our output to the EU, that too is a deliberate distortion.  That 50% figure includes goods destined for non-EU countries that only transit through other member states.  The lie has long since been exposed, but it continues to be retailed by the likes of the CBI and the BBC, as part of their political motives for keeping the UK in the EU.

But back to Cameron.  He has spent all his time as Conservative Party leader telling the UK what he wants.  That included saying he doesn’t want a referendum on EU membership because he feels membership of the EU is the right thing.  But having been painted into a corner he has had no option but to promise a referendum – so long as the Conservatives are elected into office in 2015.  Only now he talks of seeking ‘consent’ for the UK to stay shackled to Little Europe – a consent he previously said wasn’t required.  How times change.

The bullshit that emanates from Cameron’s mouth is the most putrid kind.  He told the CBI:

Be in no doubt that in the end you cannot stay in these organisations, give up quite a bit of your national sovereignty, unless you take the British people with you.

The British people were told about a Common market, about an economic area, so much has changed about this organisation and so little consent has been granted.

It is time to make those arguments, seek that consent and as Prime Minister of this country that is exactly what I am going to do.

It is an accepted fact that the British people were lied to.  The project is and always has been political union.  The economic argument, the supposed free trade area, was a seemingly acceptable by product which has fraudulently been advanced as the end in itself.  The ‘organisation’ as Cameron puts it has changed, but only in the way it was always intended to do so.  It has simply continued its objective of ever closer union on a path to becoming a single political entity.

Cameron doesn’t even have the guts to admit the truth, in much the same way he doesn’t have the guts to admit that in effect the UK no longer has sovereignty.  We no longer control our laws and we no longer control taxation of entities on these islands.  Without control of these essential pillars of governance, this country cannot consider itself in any sovereign.  We have not given up quite a bit of national sovereignty.  We have ceded control of that without which we cannot claim to be an independent nation state.

Cameron is deluded at best, an appalling liar at worst, if he honestly thinks he can reform how the EU works in advance of a referendum where the changes will be put to the British people.  He has more chance of pulling a living dodo out of his arse.  The whole premise is based on a lie.  No matter what happens, Cameron is going to declare that he has achieved reform and the likes of the CBI will be right there agreeing with him and spewing more lies – without any challenge from the sick-inducing media which is utterly biased in favour of the EU.

It’s not just Cameron and the CBI that are deserving of white feathers.  The BBC deserves one for its prominent coverage on all its radio and TV news of the CBI’s laughable findings that my household and yours are each better off by £3000 every year as a result of EU membership and that CBI members believe the benefits outweigh the costs.  Compare that to the almost zero coverage of the contrary view from Business for Britain that more business leaders now say the costs of EU membership outweigh the benefits – and that despite Business for Britain wanting to remain in the EU!

Ed Balls also deserves – among other things – a white feather.  This supposed economic genius tells us that there is ‘no future for Britain to walk away from our biggest market’ when the EU is not a market, it is a political construct.  He knows the difference, but is part of the agenda and hasn’t the balls to tell the truth.

We are surrounded by lies and deception and spin.  And we are nowhere even close to a referendum fight yet.  We have been sold out by cowards who do not have the guts or honesty to admit that the only question that matters and needs to be addressed is this…

Who should run Britain?

Nothing else matters.  Everything else can be dealt with.  The fight we are in is only about this single, essential matter.

Should the British people run Britain, or should we do what suits the narrow interests of the political climbers and the money grubbing corporatists, and leave the EU to run Britain?  It is all about sovereignty.  Do we rule ourselves or submit to rule from abroad by people whose interests undermine ours?  It is the honest question that Cameron, the CBI, the BBC and Labour dare not ask.  They are cowards.

Beware! Children at play

No, we are not not talking about the millions of youngsters who are now enjoying their summer holiday.   We are talking about the juvenile delinquents who inhabit Westminster and play their idiotic, copycat, yah-boo games in a crass attempt to appear superior to their opponents; and the childlike fools in the media who publish stupid stories laced with faux shock and concern for the nation’s well-being.

The answer to the question hasn’t changed in years – and certainly not since the last time this pathetic question was asked by the Mail’s space filling dimwits in a roundabout way.  The answer is still our supreme government in Brussels, the EU, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Anyone would think the reason this fact is ignored has something to do with the supposedly anti-EU Daily Mail trying to play down its pro-EU position because its readers are mainly Eurosceptic.  By way of a reminder…

Click to enlarge

This is why, addressing Richard’s commentary over on EU Referendum, the Daily Mail – despite its evident distate for Roland Rudd of pro-EU propaganda merchant ‘Business for New Europe’ – the Mail as a newspaper seems quite happy to take stories sourced by him and to spread them uncritically.

As we reminded readers recently, we cannot trust the media because it is ‘in the tank’ for the EU and we should therefore view all stories through a prism of scepticism, where we question whose agenda is being serviced.

Media bias and UKIP’s failure highlighted yet again

Another day and yet another example of how the the media distorts coverage of matters EU, while UKIP continues to act as if the cat has got its tongue by offering no Eurosceptic view on the subject in question.

Robert Watts, writing in the Telegraph, gives that pro-EU paper’s take on the burden British businesses experience as a result of EU regulations.  According to Watts, the details will be laid bare in a series of reports which will be published on Monday by the Foreign Secretary, Concrete Willy, beginning with a focus on how the EU affects UK taxation, health, overseas aid, foreign policy, animal welfare and food safety.

Watts goes on to tell readers that a further 26 reports will be published in coming months, ‘in a boost to the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservatives’.  Having made his reference to Eurosceptics, Watts runs off to get a Eurosceptic quote from… yes you guessed it, the Tory stooge EUphile ‘think tank’ Open Europe which, as the Telegraph intended, prattles on about the non-existent fantasy renegotiation where the UK can supposedly secure more flexible membership terms from the EU.

Where the main Eurosceptic force, UKIP, is supposed to be leading by rebutting the bullshit coming out of the Tory delusion department, instead we get the Europlastics of pro-EU Open Europe taking a break from acting as official minder to Andrea Leadsom (wherever she speaks about EU matters, Open Europe are at her side keeping her on message) in order to blaze a trail for the Tory line, being the only supposed Eurosceptic voice that readers hear – and in the absence of any challenge, those readers assume what they hear to be accurate and well informed.

The problem is not only that UKIP isn’t establishing itself ‘go to’ organisation for Eurosceptic commentary in the mainstream media, it is that UKIP isn’t even talking about this issue on its own website.  How can potential supporters take UKIP seriously when it is voluntarily absents itself from engaging on core issues concerning the negative aspects of EU membership, just as the subject gets serious media profile?

When it comes to boosting Nigel Farage’s personal profile, no column inches or photo opportunities are spared.  But when discussion turns to subjects that are supposed to be at the heart of the very reason for UKIP’s being, the party goes AWOL.  This isn’t a one off, this is part of a consistent pattern.  The only logical explanation is that Farage deliberately refuses to engage on these topics because he doesn’t understand them himself.  He determination to not do detail means he doesn’t have anything of value to add and he is scared of being bested in an argument as a result.

This is just the latest in a long line of examples of both the public and the UKIP membership being ill served, by the press and the UKIP leader respectively.  In such circumstances how can we Eurosceptics possibly hope to win any prospective EU in-out referendum?  The media is ‘in the tank’ for the EUphiles and the sole Eurosceptic political party is asleep at the wheel as its leader plays ‘look at me’.  The media is serving its own interests and Farage relies upon his cult to lash out at any criticism of his ineptitude.  With this seemingly unresolvable issue, we can be excused for asking ourselves why we bother.

Delusions of the Living Dead, aka Europlastic Tories

A Victor Kiam moment here at AM Towers.  This blog post over at EU Referendum hit the nail on the head so accurately and articulated my own thoughts so precisely, I have ripped it off almost entirely, with only a few minor personalisations.

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Normally, I ignore Conservative Home. That part of the blogosphere remains the hunting ground for tribal warriors, and I have neither time nor patience for its party-before-principle guest and the attendant petty-mindedness.

Others, with tougher constitutions, still frequent the site, and I have thus had my attention drawn to this from Andrea Leadsom (above), who is still pushing her mantra of “meaningful reform” of the EU. And there is also this from George Freeman, also of the Fresh Start Group.

Actually, having read the pieces, I wonder why I bother – why anyone bothers. Neither are saying anything new, nor anything interesting – there is nothing at all that informs or inspires. We are not getting argument – simply leaden propaganda, repeated again and again, presumably to reinforce the belief systems of the faithful – for no one else will believe it.

Richard North’s answer to this was given in June 2004, repeated many times, but particularly in January of this year. These are Richard’s “barking cats” pieces, to which – in conceptual terms – neither he nor I can add very little. Leadsom and her ilk – including her Open Europe minders, say we must “reform”. I, and many others, say that “meaningful” reform is not possible and will never happen.

And those are the positions – fixed, unchanging. There is no debate, nor any possibility of debate. Disagree, and make the mistake of disagreeing too forcefully or too often, as you get “disappeared”. The other side do not want to know, any more than we want to hear the repetitions of their flawed, evidence-free and indeed ridiculous arguments.

From that, though, does not emerge a counsel of despair – simply a recognition that head-butting gets you nowhere. It seems to Richard – and I wholly agree – that a better strategy is to introduce new facts and ideas, which by-pass the blockage. Leadsom might want to bleat about “over-regulation” and “negotiating over tedious directives”, at EU level. We simply point out that the regulation is at dealt with at a global level and that is where the UK needs to be engaging.

On wind turbines, we can rehearse the arguments for and against until the cows come home and the macerated birds fall from the sky. But sell the idea that, if you buy wind, you get diesel, and pay an additional £1 billion extra for the privilege, and the argument looks very different. Similarly, take the claims of our influence inside the EU, and tell people we can’t even argue for our mackerel quotas and again the terrain looks very different.

But talking about the reality and sharing it with others who are not as well informed is why the opposition wants to control the flow of information. It does so mainly by ignoring new facts – by not discussing them, not debating them, not even recognising them. When, for instance, have you ever heard about Codex on Conservative Home?  Where have they added value or anything worthwhile to the sum of their readers’ knowledge?

Thus, we do not speak to the close-minded. It is a waste of time. The likes of Leadsom will go to her grave still arguing for “meaningful reform” of the EU, long after we have left the EU and it has crashed and burned. We can’t deal with that. This is the dialogue of the living dead.  The stake through their heart or axe through their head will be when reality – that thing they desperately ignore as they play party political games for a party political audience – bites hard.

What kind of dunces are they turning out of Eton?

This in today from the BBC…

Doesn’t Cast Iron Dave realise that the UK is not at the top table of a number of international institutions because British governments have handed our place over to the European Union to ‘speak for us’ as one of 27 nations with often conflicting interests and needs?  For an ‘instinctive Eurosceptic’ he does seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time parroting the EU’s line and encouraging us to be fully assimilated, paid up members of it.

Perhaps it’s because our glorious media prefers not to remind people about the independence this country has given away, and certainly doesn’t want to shine a light on inconvenient facts such as those that show countries like Norway and Switzerland have seats at the top tables of more international institutions than the UK, as members in their own right, speaking for themselves with confidence on the world stage.

It will only be a matter of time until there is an attempt to replace UK and French membership of the UN Security Council as permanent members with an EU seat instead.  What then for Cameron’s drivel about the UK’s place at the top table?

Cameron claims that Eurosceptics are in ‘denial’ when we claim that the UK could go-it-alone and succeed in the global economy.  The fact is Cameron is not only in denial when he claims that the UK cannot, he is deliberately and knowingly lying.  There is absolutely no need for the UK or any other nation to surrender control of itself when everything EU membership supposedly delivers can be achieved through simple cooperation between neighbours.

Actually, perhaps it’s not dunces that Eton and Oxford are turning out, but rather deceitful Europlastic quislings who argue that Britain is not sufficiently capable of speaking for itself on the world stage and not strong enough to manage its own laws, trade relationships or control its own borders when other smaller and less well resourced countries manage perfectly well.  Yes, that sums up Cameron to a tee.

Fag packet found, the EU renegotiation planning begins…

Arch Europlastic, William Hague is reported this morning as having defined the first element of the UK’s renegotiation wishlist – and as expected this ‘concrete’ proposal is a mish mash of tough talk and hollow content.

The former self professed Eurosceptic, who as Foreign Secretary is now Brussels’ cheerleader-in-chief for all things blue with gold stars, will declare in a speech that national parliaments, such as the House of Commons, should be able to overrule legislation proposed by the European Commission if enough legislatures call for it to be thrown out.  This is almost certainly a kneejerk reaction to the European Commission’s prosecution of the UK for applying rules that force EU migrants to pass a ‘right to residency’ test that doesn’t apply to UK citizens, before they can claim various benefits, which is illegal under the EU law the politicians signed us up to because it discriminates against other EU citizens on the basis of nationality.

While this is good pink meat for the Euroweenies who want a ‘reformed’ EU, in reality nothing would change.  The rejection of legislation by the UK would need a number of national parliaments to support the British stance.  So if insufficient parliaments back what Britain wants, then this country would be forced to adopt the legislation regardless.  The sum of the power repatriated to the UK therefore amounts to nil.

So much for reform.

Move over, Cast Iron Dave, because there’s a new Eurosheriff in town!  Concrete Willy is his name, and he has found an old fag packet and angrily scrawled the first empty repatriation of power demand on the back.  Brussels can breathe easy as Britain’s place under the EU jackboot is safe in Hague’s carefully manicured hands.

This plan first surfaced in 2002 courtesy of Gisela Stuart during the constitutional Convention. It has thus already been chewed over many times and completely rejected.  It’s a non starter.  As such this announcement represents mere game playing on the part of Concrete Willy, who is giving little titbits to the lumpen media to distract them from the fact there is no renegotiation plan, much less any exit plan. The Europlastics, carefully steered by the Foreign Office’s europhile quislings, will do all they can to ensure it never gets that far.

EU ‘relationship’ Bullshit Bingo

For those avid players of Bullshit Bingo, we have had a plethora of bovine turd flooding the airwaves and column inches today from a number of Tory tribalists which would have enabled many of you to shout ‘Chateau! at your game cards.  Taking the topics in turn…

Trust in politicians

Gavin Barwell led the way in today’s game with his appearance on BBC Radio 4 Today where he said he would be voting for the amendment to the Queen’s Speech.  His rational was that the vote:

… isn’t an issue about Conservative MPs trusting David Cameron.  It is about using the legislative process to convince the electorate that the clear commitment he gave in his speech in January is going to happen. What we need to do is convince the sceptical electorate that we actually mean it. I think a very effective way of doing that would be bringing forward legislation, so we can go back to our constituents and say look, if you vote Conservative at the next election, here is a guarantee that we will get a referendum.

Presumably little Gavin was out of radio contact when Cast Iron Dave dropped his promise for a referendum on the Lisbon  Treaty, and again in 2010 when Cameron was asked about holding a referendum and opened his response thus:

I do not believe in an in-out referendum for many reasons. I think we are better off in the European Union…

Well Gav, what’s not to trust?

Cameron gets results in ‘Europe’

Tory MEP Martin Callanan, speaking on BBC Radio 4 PM this evening, argued that David Cameron is right to try to renegotiate the UK’s ‘relationship with the EU’ and that Lord Lawson’s claim that any deal Cameron might strike would be ‘inconsequential’ was wrong.  Referring back to the Trust in Politicians line taken by Barwell, he tried to suggest people didn’t trust Labour or the Lib Dems, while pretending Cast Iron Dave had not dropped his own promise to give voters a say on the Lisbon Treaty.

Callanan’s evidence that Cameron could renegotiate a good deal with the EU?  To paraphrase… apparently Cameron has shown he can get results in ‘Europe’ because of his success in reducing the EU budget.  Stop laughing at the back.  Yes, that’s right, this is the same EU Budget coup Cameron supposedly pulled off, that is about to be circumvented as EU finance ministers prepare to vote through extra contributions anyway.  As an EU official succinctly explained last week:

Britain cannot get a blocking minority of countries to stop the first €7.3 billion (£6.2bn) tranche of the €11.2bn the European Commission needs.

There is nothing the British government can do about it as the annual budgets are agreed by majority voting.

Yet despite this being common knowledge, Callanan deceitfully attempted to maintain the budget deal myth to talk up Cameron’s ability to get things done when dealing with the EU as part of the effort to hold the line on the faux renegotiation scam.

Callanan also took the new line rapidly being adopted by Europlastic Tories that if a referendum was being held tomorrow he would likely vote to leave, shamelessly trying to convince us he would vote himself off the gravy train and out of his luxurious Brussels pad! As if.  Clearly the plan of the Eurosceptics is to declare they would leave tomorrow, so in the event of a Cameron-led renegotiation that resulted in nothing of any benefit to the UK, they could all rush to declare a fundamental change and that we should remain firmly in the EU.

‘Breaking off’ the ‘relationship’ with the EU

The UK remaining firmly in the EU is the stated wish of one half of the Axis of Weasel, Barack Obama.  In between Barwell and Callanan’s appearance on BBC Radio, we were treated to the fortune cookie wisdom of the Chicago community organiser.

While graciously acknowledging that it was for the British people to decide the matter of EU membership – which is more than the other half of the Axis of Weasel, aka Cast Iron Dave, has been prepared to accept – he went on to lie that being subsumed into the EU and denied our own voice in international affairs and trade negotiations, is an “expression” of the UK’s global influence!  Doublespeak is alive and kicking in the White House.  Obama observed his view that Cameron’s:

basic point that you probably want to see if you can fix what is broken in a very important relationship before you break it off – that makes some sense to me.

This of course is complete manure.  Nothing is broken.  The EU is functioning exactly as intended, accumulating ever greater control while neutering nation states and dismantling every vestige of democratic accountability and avenues for people to influence and dictate the direction of government.  And of course, ceasing to be ruled from Brussels does not mean the UK and other member states would cease to trade, cooperate and support each other.

The language is purposely designed to give the impression that leaving the EU signals these isles would figuratively move away from the continental land mass and float off into the Atlantic, exiled and isolated.  Independence, it seems, is to be feared and dismissed for our own good…

Throwing in the Towel

With the odor of dung hanging heavy in the air, it was over to Cameron himself to add to the pungent aroma of stage-managed theatrics.

He called the position held on EU withdrawal by former cabinet ministers Lord Lawson and Michael Portillo ‘very, very strange’.  Presumably he feels every Tory should be in lockstep behind his efforts to bribe voters with a stitched up referendum if only they will consent to him remaining in Downing Street for an additional five years of inactivity, inertia, handwringing, excuses, mismanagement, patronage, debt, erosion of liberty and expansion of state power.

Cameron accused Conservatives wanting to leave the European Union of ‘throwing in the towel’ before negotiations had even started.  Only the most ignorant and delusional of people could kid themselves that they alone can reform the EU and reverse its essential core pillar – that of ever closer union, which entails ever more power surrendered by member states to the Brussels bureaucracy.

One would have thought that on the eve of the extent of Cameron’s impotence being revealed to all, when the EU finance ministers torpedo his supposed victory over the EU budget, he would show a bit more humility and re-engage with reality.  But the great con must go on.  The act must be played out to its conclusion and events in the real world must not be allowed to shatter the illusion that he has carefully created within the political bubble.

Media collusion

We can’t cover these steaming piles of bullshit without a special mention for the other enemy within, our fearless media.

Not once has any journalist pointed out the yawning chasm of difference between the EU and the single market, which are conflated by the europhiles as being one and the same – despite the fact leaving the political union does not automatically mean the UK cannot be part of the single market.

Not once has any journalist asked for an explanation about why it is necessary for national sovereignty and political power to be given up in return for ‘benefits’ that can be enjoyed just as easily through simple treaties.

Not once has any journalist mentioned Article 50 or explained its significance, much less asked for Cameron to explain why he won’t invoke it and makes no mention of it.

Not once has any journalist challenged Cameron to justify his tag of being an ‘instinctive Eurosceptic’ when he is desperately opposing every eurosceptic move being made to bring forward a referendum.

Anyone would think they are being careful not to challenge the politicians too hard in case ordinary people start to, you know, think there is an alternative to being ruled with no good reason by the BBC’s Brussels-based benefactor.

Rodney Leach – Tory, Baron and pro-EU quisling stooge

The shape of a new Europe therefore writes its own script – a neighbourly alliance, partly federal, partly by treaty between independent states, in which those who want to share a currency and economic sovereignty and those who just want co-operation would be equally welcome. Only trade, the bedrock of the original Common Market, would be universal. In truth, it is not the eurozone that is the “core” of Europe – it is the single market.
–  Baron Leach of Fairford (Rodney Leach)

Actually Rodders old chap, the core of ‘Europe’ (by which the lazy Lord means the EU) is not the single market.  It is the goal of political union.

Everything the EU does – and everything it has done in its previous guises – is and has been designed to further the federalist ambitions of creating a super-government to rule the entire continent.  The single market was just a construct designed to enable politicians like Edward Heath and Harold Wilson to lull their electorates into a false sense of security as they signed away the independence of their country thinking they were just joining a trading bloc.  Leach knows this but won’t say it for fear of frightening the horses.

Yet this is the man in charge of the supposedly eurosceptic organisation, Open Europe, which tries to deceive people into believing that they share the same values and aspirations as those who want the UK to leave the EU, while working actively to keep the UK firmly inside the EU.

If Leach’s cannot be relied upon to be honest in describing the objectives of the EU how can anyone rely on anything he says?  Leach is clearly not a eurosceptic and nor is the organisation he chairs.  For the avoidance of doubt, in the paywalled Times article – laughably titled ‘The sceptics have won. Now for a new Europe… This is the perfect chance for Britain to work out how to loosen its ties with Brussels’ – from which the quote above was re-produced by ConservativeHome, Leach also said that the voice of:

moderate sceptics, who want to stay in the EU but might want “out” if the Government can’t negotiate a changed relationship… is too seldom heard.

There it is again.  The europlastic ploy of the hijack and redefinition of the term ‘eurosceptic’ to make it fit with the interests of the political class.  Now it seems the mood music being played by the Tories is that being a ‘moderate sceptic’ means wanting to stay in the EU if things change a bit. What does that mean, exactly?  Leach helpfully explains by saying these supposed moderate sceptics want to:

limit Brussels’ involvement in areas such as policing and crime, fisheries, farming, employment law and regional policy

Loosening the ties, as the now clearly identifiable EuroLeach puts it.  In other words, they only want some powers back but otherwise want to leave Brussels in overall control of government of this country and its affairs. And they push this line despite the raft of evidence that the pick n’ mix approach EuroLeach and co are pushing is a fantasy option that is rejected by the ‘colleagues’.

So it’s clear the only purpose of the changed ‘relationship’ with the EU that EuroLeach and his cohorts at Open Europe advocate is to make continued membership of the EU and government from Brussels easier to take (hence their effort to suggest being a member of EFTA leaves a country like Norway with no influence over EU trade measures resulting in rebuttal by Witterings from Witney, Boiling Frog and EU Referendum, and a certain amount of embarrassed Open Europe backtracking of the claims).  It has nothing to do with the UK taking control of its own affairs again.  Yet these are the go-to people for the media seeking ‘eurosceptic’ viewpoints on a range of EU-related stories.

Far better to describe EuroLeach and Open Europe for what they are… the enemy within.  They are unreconstructed pro-EU quisling stooges.

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.

EU withdrawal showdown – not a matter of if, but when

Adding weight to what we keep saying on this blog, that David Cameron is engaging in fairytale politics with his pledges to ‘renegotiate’ Britain’s ‘relationship’ with the EU, is an intervention from the French president, Francois Hollande.  As the Telegraph reports:

The French President, Francois Hollande, declared that Europe is not “a la carte” like a menu from which member states can pick and choose their powers.

He issued his rebuke to the Prime Minister as Mr Cameron insisted he would fight for a “better deal for Britain” and seek to take back certain powers from Europe.

The idea of a pick and mix EU is a non starter and now we have not just an EU bureaucrat offering that assessment anonymously, we now have a head of state of a major EU member doing so.  The commitment of EU member states is to ever closer union, but Cameron’s non-existant fairtytale option of taking some powers back but leaving other areas under EU control flies in the face of that.  The option is simply not on the table and the EU knows allowing it would result in the unpicking of the acquis communautaire.

Cameron and the Europlastics need to understand EU membership is a binary condition.  You’re fully in or you’re completely out.  Just as a woman can’t be a little bit pregnant, a country can’t be a little bit of an EU member – even though both conditions originate from having been screwed.

The drawbacks of membership and increasing recognition of the loss of self determination in this country are strongly outweighing the retailed positives, resulting in a growing number of Britons saying they would like to leave the union.  The number will only increase as more people come to recognise Cameron and the Tories have been telling tall tales, and that recognition will dawn as more interventions from the likes of Hollande are publicised.

That means there will eventually be a showdown and the battle will be the in-out question. It’s not a question of if, Hollande has seen to that.  It’s now a matter of when.  The EUsceptics will need to be on their game to defeat the wreckers of the Tory Europlastic tendancy.

Reality bites for Tory fairytale EU renegotiation option

Here’s one in the eye for David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Open Europe, the Daily Mail, Telegraph and a host of other EUphile fantasists who keep presenting the British people with a fake and non-existant option of renegotiating a ‘looser relationship’ with the EU…

We have been saying this for years.  Now the EU home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, has reminded the Tory fronts that other EU states would be able to block the UK from accessing the powers it might choose to opt back in to, a clear diplomatic message that power has been ceded to the EU and it will decide what goes.  Malmström is quoted in the Financial Times:

“Negotiations haven’t started yet as we don’t know what the UK wants to opt out of but, of course, we will have to analyse their choices with our legal experts because, of these 136 laws, many are very connected.”

In typical Tory fashion, denial was the immediate response.  With clear parallels to the false statements from the government about Starbucks and the tax rules it should be following, Tory MP, Dominic Raab, said Britain had “every right” to cherry-pick which laws it wanted:

“The commissioner is quite wrong to insist we give Brussels democratic control in order to engage in operational law enforcement co-operation,” the MP added. “It is that kind of arrogance that corrodes public confidence in the EU.”

The problem for Raab is that Brussels already has control.  The UK signed a variety of treaties against the wishes of the British people and it is another fairytale for Raab to pretend the UK has control in areas it has given up.  In the same way Danny Alexander is trying to channel public anger at Starbucks for acting lawfully and within the rules, because he doesn’t like the outcome, Raab is trying to shift the public focus on the EU acting lawfully and within the rules the UK political class agreed to, because he doesn’t like the outcome.

As Malmström has explained, any decision concerning the UK’s opt-in choices would not be up to her but would have to be agreed by all other member states. Them’s the rules, whether Raab, Cameron, Johnson, Open Europe et al like it or not.  Those are the treaties they have to accept to remain members of the EU.

The only reality is this, if the UK wants to determine laws and regulations for itself then it needs to be a sovereign, independent nation state.  It is not, and never can be all the while it remains a member of the EU.  Membership is incompatible with the vision Cameron & co are painting, and their vision is not possible within the structures they are determined to remain a part of.

Solution?  Invoke Article 50 by stating the UK intends to leave the EU.  The UK would regain full control of its ow affairs, while forcing the EU to the negotiating table to thrash out agreements on free trade, movement of people and capital and the other matters essential to protecting our economic interests.

 

Media lead story: No change on referendum about EU membership

Yawn.  Once again we are subjected to spectacle of the media getting moist about what it perceives as a major political story.  The Sunday Failygraph gives space to the Vacuous Unprincipled Cameron (Vuc) to waffle inanely with meaningless verbiage, leading to the BBC and others diving in to paint this as Vuc the Europlastic paving the way for a referendum on EU membership.

But as always you have to ignore the sub editor’s hype and instead read the words on the page.  When one does so, one will find nothing has changed.

Cameron clings to his narrative about ‘getting what is best for Britain’.  Read Vuc’s quotes dating back several years on this subject and he has made clear time and again that he believes EU membership is what is best for Britain.  No change.  Vuc will fight tooth and nail to keep Britain firmly inside the EU.  Cameron goes on to say:

I am not against referendums in our parliamentary democracy. Parliament is elected to make decisions and be accountable, but when powers are transferred it is right to ask the people.

It is enough to make one lose the will to live.  From the moment Vuc the Europlastic slithered into Downing Street the government he leads has transferred a raft of powers to the EU – even quicker than the Europhile Labour administration – and the people have not been asked once if they approve.  We have a Prime Minister who resides in a realm of fantasy where he waxes lyrical about power transfer and referendum locks, in spite of the evidence.

Having openly declared his firm Europhile position, our ‘practical Eurosceptic’ / ‘instinctive Eurosceptic’ / arch Europlastic continues his voyage of delusion with talk of our supposed ‘relationship’ with the EU.  We do not have a relationship with the EU.  It would be nice if we did for that would signal that we are not part of it.  It is not possible to have a relationship with something of which you are constituent part.  But his ludicrous assertion continues to be treated by the media as an uncontestable truth and Vuc is allowed to get away with this blatant deception.

After yet more Vuc babble that just isn’t worth your while reading, we get to the Vuc quote that has prompted orgasms at Failygraph Towers:

Nevertheless I will continue to work for a different, more flexible and less onerous position for Britain within the EU.

How do we take the British people with us on this difficult and complicated journey? How do we avoid the wrong paths of either accepting the status quo meekly or giving up altogether and preparing to leave? It will undoubtedly be hard, but taking the right path in politics often is.

As we get closer to the end point, we will need to consider how best to get the full-hearted support of the British people whether it is in a general election or in a referendum.

As I have said, for me the two words “Europe” and “referendum” can go together, particularly if we really are proposing a change in how our country is governed, but let us get the people a real choice first.

Richard North over at EU Referendum has on more than one occasion patiently dissected and deconstructed the notion of Britain being able to engineer for itself a different position within the EU to other member states in the way Vuc puts forward.  That Vuc continues to spout such idiotic nonsense confirms that he is either a determined liar, or an incompetent with no understanding of how the EU and its mechanisms work.  Either way, he is deceiving the British people.

But while he may be deceitful he is surrounded by advisers and influencers who are capable and cunning.  Hence the deliberately vague language about how people might be given an opportunity to signal their wishes in respect of the EU.  But note, he has already made clear an in/out referendum is not to be put to the people.

So a binding democratic decision by the electorate about EU membership is a non starter and in the unlikely event there is any form of referendum, it will be based on a fallacy and will ask the people if they want to have a different relationship with the EU – which is virtual impossibility.  Nevertheless, we will hear for days fevered speculation from the talking heads in the Westminster bubble about the shape and timing of a referendum that still has not been commited to and even if it did come to pass is even less likely to ask the question people want to answer.

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.