Thursday, November 03, 2011

It's time for a real referendum on Europe (but not at the moment obviously...)



Now there's a thing. First we had the personally signed pledge on Tuition Fees in opposition (remember that?) which was abandoned in office as part of the grubby coalition.


And now we have the "It's time for a real referendum on Europe" u-turn.

This one is compounded by the fact that the Libdems actually collected a petition from people who, like them, demanded a referendum.

"We the undersigned believe the Government should give the British people a real choice on Europe by holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union"

Wouldn't it be interesting if 100,000 had sent the little slip back to Cowley Street? What if it was the same 100,000 who allegedly signed the online petition which resulted in the debate in the House of Commons about whether we should have a referendum on Europe now and which in a complete volte face, the LibDems voted against last month?

So the LibDem campaign mantra now runs something like this....

What do we want? A referendum on Europe!
When do we want it? Now! It is time! Oh, hang on, how about at a later date, to be confirmed? You see when we said "It is time" what we really meant was "Let's see if we can get some Tory and UKIP supporters to come over to us, because they will vote for any party who gives them a referendum on Europe. It doesnt matter if they would vote in a different way to us, they just want a referendum and we can say we will give them one. Frankly we will say pretty much anything to anyone if it gets us more votes."

This is what Nick Clegg said over last month's debate.

"I have always advocated a vote on Europe if there is a proposal on the table to transfer significant chunks of sovereignty and policy from our country to Brussels – but it's not on the table. We should stop tilting at windmills about threats and challenges which simply aren't there right now."

Does sound the same to you as the statement on the petition above? No, not to me either. No wonder politicians have a bad reputation with voters.

(I dont think we should have had a referendum either, in case you were wondering)

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