We often like to style ourselves of commenting of the political classes across Britain and Europe. The really good stuff however, the revelations, come not from here [yet] but from the people over at EU Referendum. With that in lets have a look at piece written by Andrew Grice in the Independent.
Rarely has a comment been so factually inaccurate with regards to public opinion and political response to tough questions raised in parliament, whichever it might be. Mr Grice starts of with this line
"Mr Cameron would demand Britain's withdrawal from the EU social chapter of workers' rights. That would swiftly be rejected by all 26 other member states."
I am not sure if Mr. Grice has fully comprehended the extent to which British voters are truly sick of the EU. When they finally do impose the working hours directive (you cannot work more than 48 hours a week) on these islands they will effectively be guilty of murder, take surgeons who cannot possibly work under those conditions or the police officers etcetera... Not to mention the average worker who just wants to put a bit more money into the household. Mr. Cameron's demands will be quickly rejected by the EU, but how on earth do they think that will reverberate back here in the UK? They EU is not exactly popular over here (84% want a referendum on 'In' or 'Out'). When the EU starts to reject Mr. Cameron's demands they will be building upon the pressure to have that referendum. In concert with this the LibDems will most likely start the pressure train by adding in their manifesto precisely that referendum - the beginning of the end some might say (I do not really think so but it certainly spells a new high for euroscepticism).
Thus they can and will reject all demands, but the popularity of the EU (already abysmaly low) will drop down dead like a man who has had too much to drink.
Mr. Grice goes on...
"There is bemusement here in Brussels about Mr Cameron's decision to take his party's MEPs out of the mainstream centre-right group in the European Parliament, the European People's Party (EPP), after elections to it in June. It is too federalist for his tastes, and he believes it is dishonest to say "one thing in London and another in Brussels".So the supposedly modernised Tories will walk away from the parties of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to form a new gang with a motley collection of Eurosceptics. The only two members signed up so far include an anti-gay rights Polish party, one of whose MPs warned that a Barack Obama victory would mean "the end of the civilisation of the white man", and a Czech party whose founder describes climate change as a 'global myth'."
Lets have a look then who is in the EPP shall we? (that said we are not condoning the statements made by the Polish party as for the climate change myth see further down). Again Mr. Hannan must be thanked for his excellent research into the EPP, he is an MEP so understandably his research would belittle any produced by ourselves.
- There is a party in the EPP which ran for general election in Italy with the poster "Daddy and Papa? This isn't the family we want!"
- There is a party in the EPP whose first minister called for deportations "We have too many criminal young foreigners... Germany has had a Christian and Western culture for centuries, and foreigners who don't stick to our rules don't belong here".
- There is an austrian party who called for the banning of burqas "If we allow consultations to be held in Turkish, we will one day become Turkish ourselves".
Mr. Grice also said this, which he must have though was awfully clever of him "It's a bit odd for Mr Cameron to expend so much energy on erasing the Tories' "nasty party" image at home, only to join the nasties in Europe." I am sure that is rather obvious now who did their homework and who did not which begs the question why do these people get to write commentaries?
As for the climate change "global myth" echoed by, I believe it was Czech president Vaclav Klaus (feel free to correct me on this) well we are not going to jump on the bandwagon because everyone else believes it is fashionable to do so. When there are so many prominent scientific authorities out there who clearly reject the claims made by the globa warming lobby, not to mention the rescent snow falls..., we're not going to look the fools just because we were not clever enough to have an opinion of our own (and by this virtue accumulating the arguments of both camps) - unlike Mr. Grice.
"The British public may not love Europe but they don't want to pull out of the EU. The financial crisis has illustrated the need for governments to act together. Mr Cameron accepts the need for EU co-operation on climate change. Recessions, too, do not respect borders."
The poll mentioned above have it that 55% do indeed want to pull out and this figure (this figure fluctuates between 35% and 65% neither a vindicating figure for Mr. Grice). As for acting together, well I am sure Iceland has a thing or two to say about that in response to Mr. Brown and eventhough their economy is not in the best of sorts at the moment they still do not want to join the EU much to the dismay we must believe to the EU apparatchiks seeing as they wont get those massive fishing zones currently controlled by Iceland. Or why not mention who pretty much every goverment in the EU despises Brown's economic stimulus plan - indeed great cooperation.
"Close allies predict Mr Cameron will concentrate on the economic problems he will inherit and let sleeping European dogs lie. But Europe could still rise up and bite him."
At this point I must agree with Mr. Grice but he is again forgetting that the in or out referendum is building momentum as we speak and any negative news coming from the EU will only alter the pace of that momentum for the better. Mr. Cameron may not bite hard but you can as hell that the Labourites and LibDems will make short work of him if he does not deliver upon his manifesto, they know that EU wont go away and they know that it will tear the tories to pieces if they do not get their act together on this explosive question.
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