You will not benefit from Britain leaving Europe

Run, David, run: UK Crime - sorry, Prime - Minister David Cameron has found a reason to be in America while his party tears itself apart over Europe. Nice one, David! We all thought the Tories were turning their Lib Dem Coalition partners blue but in fact, they've turned you yellow!

Run, David, run: UK Crime – sorry, Prime – Minister David Cameron has found a reason to be in America while his party tears itself apart over Europe. Nice one, David! We all thought the Tories were turning their Lib Dem Coalition partners blue but in fact, they’ve turned you yellow!

Look at all this political theatre over Europe. It’s for the entertainment of you, the voter – even though you won’t actually gain a thing from staying in or leaving the Brussels-based bureaucracy.

The Conservative Party is going into meltdown about it, certainly – but that’s because individual Tory MPs fear losing votes to UKIP at the next election, making it possible for their party to lose the only thing that matters to them: Power.

UKIP wants out because it is composed – or was, back when it began – of businesspeople who believe that they are being over-regulated by the European Union. They want the freedom to sell inferior products to you, without being penalised for it.

The Tory amendment to the Queen’s speech is nothing but a performance, put on for the benefit of the plebs. It’s a pantomime, with the British public urged to shout “Look out behind you!” at David Cameron’s Widow Twanky, whenever we see the Eurosceptics creeping up out of the shadows.

Note that, in this scenario, Education dunce Michael Gove and damp squib Defence sec Philip Hammond play the ugly sisters; they say they want out of Europe, but they won’t actually do anything about it. Straw men.

The amendment, which condemns the Queen’s speech for failing to include a bill preparing the way for a referendum on whether we stay in the EU, is not only pointless but dangerous. As mentioned previously on this blog, amendments to the Queen’s speech are traditionally taken as confidence votes. The fact that this is a Conservative Party amendment suggests that the government no longer has confidence in itself. If the amendment succeeds, the Prime Minister should resign and the government should fall.

Perhaps I am mistaken. This is not pantomime – it’s farce.

And the amendment is certain to be defeated, according to the pundits, because all the Liberal Democrats, most of Labour and a significant proportion of the Conservatives will vote against it. This means that even the question of confidence in the government can be avoided because nobody will be able to raise it as an issue.

That’s why I said, elsewhere on the internet, that Labour should abstain.

On the Huffington Post site, I wrote: “Labour’s best move is to abstain, let the Tories defeat their own government with the amendment, and then see if Cameron follows Parliamentary convention and resigns. It’s possible he’ll say that a vote on the Queen’s speech is no longer a confidence issue because of his Fixed-Terms Parliaments Act, which defined a ‘no confidence’ vote for the first time, but this may be countered by saying that, if Parliament does not support the planned legislative programme, then it does not support the government or the Prime Minister who leads it.

“If the PM ignores the resignation issue, then we can all say he is running an outlaw government and nothing he does from now on should be considered legal; if he resigns, then the amendment won’t matter because it won’t go forward.

“And let’s face it, if Labour can abstain on the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill, there’s no reason not to abstain on this!”

If the amendment succeeds, we can have a proper debate on whether this government is fit for purpose – at a time when people are still coming to terms with the first death directly attributed to the imposition of the Conservative Bedroom Tax, which itself follows the deaths of thousands due to the Conservative-employed Atos firm’s mismanagement of Employment and Support Allowance assessments.

It won’t, and we’ll be denied our chance to have that debate.

But just remember – despite all the swagger and show – you’re being denied the chance to have a proper debate on Europe as well.

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13 Comments

  1. beetleypete May 13, 2013 at 11:22 am - Reply

    Nice stuff Mike. I still want out of Europe though. Not for the UKIP, and other Right Wing reasons. I never wanted it in the first place, and have never supported the idea of International, or European Capitalism, at any price. NATO, who needs that? Nuclear weapons, same thing. There are other good reasons why we need to get out of the EU, it is not all about business and The Right. Regards, Pete.

    • Mike Sivier May 13, 2013 at 11:28 am - Reply

      Maybe not, but those are the only things that count for the Tories and UKIP, I think.

    • yorkie May 13, 2013 at 9:00 pm - Reply

      I never voted for it either, I still say that it was for trade purposes only, now it seems like a friendly war with Germany as it is only benefiting them.

  2. Little John May 13, 2013 at 11:40 am - Reply

    With each passing day the LibDems bury themselves deeper into the merde of this sociopathic Conservative Government. No Parliament is fixed term. If the ‘Liberals’ lost 20 seat tomorrow to Labour the Tories would fall. The only thing proping up this bunch of Bullingdon Bullies are the LibDems and I hope the electorate remember this whenever the General Election is called.

  3. Debbie Wenn May 13, 2013 at 11:50 am - Reply

    WE HAVE NO RIGHTS NOW HERE IN BRITAIN WITH A CONSERVATIVE, LIB DEM GOVERNMENT LEAVING EUROPE WILL ONLY MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE AS WE WEILL ALSO LOOSE OUR HUMAN RIGHTS !!!! WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING FOR GOD SAKE HAVE WE ALL GONE MAD !!!

  4. Finn McCann (@successcvs) May 13, 2013 at 12:11 pm - Reply

    Tory Eurosceptics – the entire cabinet, led by Neo-Con Gove don’t creepThey parade in their Murdoch suits across BBC Tory-ised studios, bellowing crass lies in clawssy English. Will somebody tell all of them that they are stuck in benefits, sponsorships & MP & cabinet salaries paid for by us.

  5. Finn McCann (@successcvs) May 13, 2013 at 12:14 pm - Reply

    IDS a liar – unfit to govern. Maybe I should give him a fool’s pardon

  6. Jed Bland May 13, 2013 at 12:34 pm - Reply

    I wonder how many of those in the Government or UKIP have connections with the City of London. Nigel Lawson certainly seemed to be motivated by the idea that the EU would set out to control the excesses of the finance houses in gambling away this country’s future.

  7. leonc1963 May 13, 2013 at 1:49 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Diary of an SAH Stroke Survivor.

  8. guy fawkes May 13, 2013 at 2:00 pm - Reply

    Debbie Wenn

    This government is trying to repatriate human rights laws anyway without exiting Europe. women have seen their pension age increased via the eu court of human rights, Cait Riley fought to work in the job she was trained for and lost.

    Our civil and human rights are being eroded day in and day out and Europe isn’t doing much about it, but it would be even worse if the con/dems had free reign to it after repatriation.

  9. Thomas M May 13, 2013 at 3:59 pm - Reply

    The Lib Dems will suffer when the next election comes.

  10. Kevin Leonard May 13, 2013 at 4:52 pm - Reply

    No matter who calls for a referendum one will never be forthcoming as none of the three main political parasite parties will engage in true democracy, they prefer the semi dictatorial style of government we currently have where you or I may vote for our preferred candidate only to have them lose their balls once inside the Westminster whip system which is in total control of the political elite sitting at the top trough.

  11. guy fawkes May 14, 2013 at 2:28 pm - Reply

    hear, hear Kevin Leonard.

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