The Tory Euro threat exposed

Many a truth told in jest: This Labour advert was withdrawn after claims that it was in bad taste (although this could be said equally well of the television programme it references) - but it accurately summarises the Conservative approach to the European Union and our place in the world.

Many a truth told in jest: This Labour advert was withdrawn after claims that it was in bad taste (although this could be said equally well of the television programme it references) – but it accurately summarises the Conservative approach to the European Union and our place in the world.

Here at Vox Political it has come to our notice that some of you are still thinking of voting ‘Conservative’ in the European Parliament elections. This would be a mistake.

The Conservative Party is trying to hoodwink you into thinking it has a host of great ideas dependent on having a large number of MEPs after May 22, but its own manifesto tells a different story.

Here are just three examples:

1. The lynchpin of the Conservative campaign is the pledge to hold an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. The party’s European manifesto states, “The British people now have a very clear choice: if you want a referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EU or leave, only the Conservative Party can and will hold one.”

This has nothing to do with your vote on May 22. It is a General Election promise involving the UK Parliament, not the Parliament of Europe. It is Westminster MPs who would push through the Tory plans for a referendum during the next UK Parliament, not MEPs in Brussels.

The suggestion that the proposed referendum – which is heavily promoted in the manifesto – has anything to do with these elections is a flat-out lie.

Long-term readers should not be surprised that Conservatives are lying again, but this may come as a surprise to Tory adherents. To them, we should say: “Wake up!”

2. One of the “key changes we will fight for”, listed on page seven of the manifesto, is “National parliaments able to work together to block unwanted European legislation”. If this seems like a good idea to you, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is a key feature of the Lisbon Treaty, that was signed by the last Labour government in 2007. That’s seven years ago!

It’s called the Ioannina Compromise, and it means that, if Member States who are against a decision are significant in number but still insufficient to block it (1/3 of the Member States or 25 per cent of the population), all of the Member States must commit to seeking a solution.

It seems likely that the reason the Conservatives are even mentioning it is that this part of the Lisbon Treaty is only due to come into force this year – 2014.

Tories have ‘form’ in this kind of legerdemain, having recently convinced the British public that they had imposed new rules on benefits claimed by immigrants, when these were in fact already enshrined in UK law.

3. One change the Conservatives are determined to impose is the removal of your ability to defend your human rights.

The manifesto states that they will “Undertake radical reform of human rights laws and publish a detailed plan for reform that a Conservative government would implement immediately: we will scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act, curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK and make certain that the UK’s Supreme Court is in Britain and not in Strasbourg.”

Conservatives hate human rights laws because they forbid slavery, servitude and forced labour – such as the Tory-led government’s ‘mandatory work activity’ schemes; they provide a right to a fair trial – currently being removed in the UK by the Tories’ restrictions on Legal Aid; and most importantly they oblige nation states to “prevent foreseeable loss of life” such as that caused by the assessment regime for disability benefits, imposed by the current UK government.

You can read about these, and more, in a previous Vox Political article here.

The European Court of Human Rights is – as everyone should be aware – nothing to do with the European Union at all. It is part of the Council of Europe, which is composed of 47 European nations. The Conservative Party does not need a majority of MEPs to withdraw from it.

However, such a withdrawal would represent a betrayal of the Conservative Party’s great Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the man who is considered most directly responsible for the creation of the Council of Europe and the court. Dedicated Conservatives should consider this point well. None of the people currently running the Conservative Party have anything approaching the stature of a Churchill, yet they are taking it upon themselves to cut Britain off from his legacy – and they are lying to the public about how they need to do it.

In fact, let’s face it, the Tory European Manifesto for 2014 is a pack of lies.

The Conservatives currently have more MEPs than any other UK party, but any unbiased examination of their claims will lead to the conclusion that they deserve to have none at all.

20 Comments

  1. wrjones2012 May 16, 2014 at 12:36 pm - Reply

    I trust the first paragraph wasn’t directed at me Mike!lol

  2. wrjones2012 May 16, 2014 at 12:44 pm - Reply

    Not even in my wildest nightmares.lol

    • Mike Sivier May 16, 2014 at 12:50 pm - Reply

      That’s a relief!

      • wrjones2012 May 16, 2014 at 1:02 pm - Reply

        I’ve always got a story to tell!

        I’d been shopping a fortnight ago and walking home I noticed a Labour activist friend of mine delivering leaflets in the next street to where I live.Of course I go home and noticed a UKIP leaflet had been delivered.I put two and two together and get five and contact Susan Elan Jones(my MP) asking whether ******* had defected to UKIP?

        Of course it was not the case and in fact the UKIP leaflet was delivered by the Postman!

        • Mike Sivier May 16, 2014 at 1:11 pm - Reply

          By the postman?
          So, not only has the Royal Mail been privatised (badly) but posties have defected to UKIP!

  3. hstorm May 16, 2014 at 12:48 pm - Reply

    And all while making this silly, dishonest show of anti-EU ‘national pride’ (really just trying to reduce the authorities they have to answer to), the Tories neverendingly preach about how “We’re Better Together” when discussing the idea of Scottish Independence – a subject for which they have another bottomless bucket of lies to tell about what would follow if the Scots went their own way.

    One of the longest-running and worst hypocrisies of Toryism is its split personality disorder on the subject of who rules whom. It’s okay for the English Aristocracy to control others, and to tell grotesque lies in order to keep that control, but it’s unfair for outsiders to rule (or even to play a role in governing) England. This was one of the most abhorrent mindsets of the British Empire, and as we can see, it still exists in truncated form today.

  4. wrjones2012 May 16, 2014 at 1:24 pm - Reply

    Speaking of UKIP I did a somewhat valiant effort of carrying the fight to the enemy on the Daily Express Website after their apparent scoop entitled;”Benefits Claimants receive £85,000″ earlier this week.

    Of course the Express is not without its UKIP activist readers,believe it or not!I gave up the fight after a couple of days,I’ve always struggled arguing with people who believe water runs uphill!

  5. nataliejaneg May 16, 2014 at 1:46 pm - Reply

    They don’t make me think they have a host of great ideas. I read through the leaflet and found more than half their ideas were diametrically opposed to my own views.

    • Mike Sivier May 16, 2014 at 1:57 pm - Reply

      I’d be interested to know which ideas those were.

  6. sdbast May 16, 2014 at 2:30 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on sdbast.

  7. beastrabban May 16, 2014 at 3:03 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
    Mike here dissects the Conservative promises in their leaflets for the EU elections to show how they’re irrelevant, already been done by Labour, or – in the case of removing the authority of the European Court of Human Rights – are actually downright sinister. They despise the Court of Human Rights because it acts as a check to nasty, exploitative legislation. It forbids slavery and other forms of exploitation, for example. One example of just how much the Tories hate being told how vicious their policies are by an international body could be seen in the fury with which they reacted to the Brazilian UN commissioner for having the temerity to criticise Cameron’s austerity policy. Long, long ago during Thatcher’s administration one Tory MP described his feelings against the EU’s Social Charter, guaranteeing certain rights for the poor and employees. This is what is motivating them, as much as abstract claims about national sovereignty.

  8. seachranaidhe1 May 16, 2014 at 3:41 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.

  9. jess May 16, 2014 at 11:23 pm - Reply

    Part of the ‘problem’ convincing people of the validity of human rights legislation is they have no concept, or memory, of what things were like before such things began to be regulated. Or the fight it took to force such legislation through Parliament.

    This small book, ‘Memoir of Robert Blincoe’, now online, courtesy of Malcolm Powell’s Northern Grove Publishing Project
    http://www.malcsbooks.com/resources/A%20MEMOIR%20OF%20ROBERT%20BLINCOE.pdf

    “The Memoir….” was first published by Richard Carlile in his journal ‘The Lion’ in 1828. It was republished as a pamphlet the same year, and then re-serialised in ‘The Poor Man’s Advocate’ later the same year.

    The pioneer Trades Unionist, John Doherty republished it in 1832, with the co-operation of Blincoe and additional text. Caliban reprinted Doherty’s text in 1977. For some reason it was not mentioned in Burnett, Mayall and Vincent (Eds) Bibliograpy (of) The Autobiography of The Working Class

  10. A6er May 17, 2014 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.

  11. […] you thought the Tory manifesto was a deceitful joke, or the row over UKIP’s policies was damaging, have you seen what the Liberal (?) Democrats […]

  12. Sheogorath July 13, 2014 at 5:12 pm - Reply

    “We will undertake radical reform of human rights laws and publish a detailed plan for reform that a Conservative government would implement immediately: we will scrap Labour’s Human Rights Act, curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK, and make certain that the UK’s Supreme Court is in Britain and not in Strasbourg.”
    The above statement contains more verbal legedemain. Check out the evidence.

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