David Cameron, as quoted on the BBC News website today:
It looks like this treaty is no longer going to be a treaty, it looks like it is going to become part of European law and that is going to create a new situation.
Does David Cameron simply not understand how the EU works?
Every treaty that has gone before the Treaty of Lisbon has been dealt with the same way: Member States agree a treaty, they ratify it, and it becomes law. Simple. It’s not as if the fact that Vaclav Klaus today put pen to paper that changes the process.
Essentially there have been 2 clear outcomes here for some weeks, indeed since Ireland voted Yes to the Treaty of Lisbon on 2nd October. Either Klaus and Kaczynski would have held out until next year, or they would have caved in (which turned out to be the case). Any Tory Party policy on the issue would have had to contain ideas to deal with either eventuality.
Instead David Cameron today almost seemed surprised, shocked even at the state of affairs, saying to the BBC that he will announce the Conservative Party policy on the issue “later this week”. Later this week? Hell, he’s had about a month to get his eurosceptic rabble in order and come up with a line to take, and he expects us to just accept that he needs a bit more time?
Aside from his U-turn on the issue of whether there should be a referendum, can he not come up with anything better than needing a bit more time? It makes him look a complete idiot, a point not lost on eurosceptic Barry Legg.
Cameron should disregard the europhobic wing of his party and research Mra Thatcher’s role in the EU. First, despite the headlines, she did not “handbag” the other state leaders into submission – she argued her case (assertively) and what she won was won by persuasion, by convincing people of her case. Second, whilst she represented the UK’s interests in the EU, she was always considerate of the wider needs of the whole EU. As a result of her endeavours the EU was a much i;proved institution by the time she left office.
Paul Lettan has put it brilliantly. By chickening out of facing down the Europhobes, Cameron is looking more and more likely to turn an easy win into a hung parliament.
For one, he’s not done a Kinnock and taken on his militant right wingers. Europe is always going to be neuralgic for the Tories until someone does a Kinnock and kicks the UKIP and BNP fifth columnists out of a once great centrist party.
Two, nor has he had his Clause 4 moment. Maybe now’s the time? If the Hannans, Redwoods, Tebbits, Cashes and Leggs keep on like this, Cameron will be lucky to scrape a Minority government by next June. The Norfolk Tories’ treatment of Liz Truss shows that the living dead backwoodsmen have started to crawl out of their crypts.