Tuesday, November 03, 2009

No Vote On Lisbon

As widely expected David Cameron has announced that there won't be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty now that it is in force. I always thought this was obvious because it would weaken him greatly if he lost and even if he won it would over shadow his government for at least a couple of years as he tries to negotiate a fresh arrangement.

I still think he should find some EU related topic to have a referendum on in order to satisfy the eurosceptic wing of the party* and the public.

* Within the Tory party probably everyone under the age of 55 is some kind of eurosceptic at least relative to 15 years ago, even if there is a divide between those who want to leave and those who simply want to pull back a bit. There is no longer a substantial body of opinion in favour of ever deeper union.

4 comments:

Matthew said...

It is quite worrying that now he can't give the eurosceptic wing a referendum he'll do something really silly, like John Major's Big Teenage Sulk.

Ross said...

I quite liked it when Major boycotted the EU.

Matthew said...

I see Cameron resisted the temptation for a referendum on anything, although this sovereignty law sounds suspiciously like a written constitution. I wonder if he'll call a referendum on his referendum policy - you'd think it'd be necessary?

My main memory of the beef ban was the revelation that our 'kith and kin' had banned it years previously.

Ross said...

My main memory was a letter in Viz demanding that Europe open their Beef Curtain.