The Boiling Frog: The Tories Are Not Happy (The Told You So Edition)

Thursday 28 October 2010

The Tories Are Not Happy (The Told You So Edition)

From Autonomous Mind (hattip EU Referendum)

With each passing day David Cameron’s deceit becomes more evident and further vindicates my decision to resign as a councillor and leave the Conservative Party.

Cameron is an unprincipled and self serving politician of the worst kind. Those Conservatives who hoped when in office he would reveal himself to be a Eurosceptic have had their delusions shattered.

The simple truth is if you want the UK to be a sovereign nation that determines its own laws and regulations and is governed by elected representatives we can remove from office, then do not vote Conservative.

And from ConHome (my emphasis):

But, in reality, it appears that when Labour said our Eurosceptic promises were all hot air, they were right; that when Heseltine said that in government every Conservative Prime Minister is Europhile, he was right; that when UKIP said Conservatives were not to be trusted on Europe, they were right; that when I and others said that the Conservative Party had changed, and that Cameron and Hague were genuinely convicted Eurosceptics who understood what must be done and would not let us down, we were wrong.

There will be consequences.

Bollocks. No there won't. The Tories will do what they always do, bend over, pick up the soap and mutter under their breath; 'please make sure it doesn't hurt too much'.

Former blogger Daniel_1979 (I guess it's the same chap) has a great comment on Norman Tebbit's Telegraph article:

The Tory Party is a Pro-EU party; it has had ample chances to demonstrate otherwise in Governments prior and in coalition more recently.

EU-Sceptic Tories have for years talked about reforming the EU and staying in the party to keep it honest; what more is needed as proof that it will never happen?

I keep reading of EU-Sceptic Tories raising complaints about the Tory led Coalitions actions on the EU. The horse has bolted and the Tory Party helped lock the stable door. What are the EU sceptic Tories doing from within party that has tangible benefit to the getting out of the EU cause? Good and hard working people but I see no evidence that it is helping the UK get out of the EU nor securing any referendum, let alone the one that was promised.

EU Sceptic Tories have help keep EU Sceptic voters in the Tory fold, the Tory party sells out on the EU, and we all get screwed again.

I of course agree with your post, but these events are what I and many other ex-Tories knew would happen, that's why we didn't vote Tory and why the Tories failed to get a majority. The Tory party is historically a great one, but unfortunately a dying one for it is abandoning its members and pursuing its own agenda.

Quite.

Update: Budget 'capped'. That's all right then. Here we go:

And now the Daily Mail is running with it:

Despite demands the runaway bill be reined in, No10 has acknowledged it is powerless to prevent the budget soaring by at least 2.9 per cent - equivalent to an extra £429million from the UK - after failing to gain support from other EU members.

You can only pretend for so long that you run your own country when you don't.

8 comments:

Mark Wadsworth28 October 2010 at 16:27
Agreed. It seems counter-intuitive, but in practice, and over the course of decades, the Tories have shown themselves to be even more EU subservient than Labour.
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TheBoilingFrog28 October 2010 at 16:40
Exactly Mark, I'm not a Tory myself and I don't care how we remove ourselves from the EU - by hook or by crook - but the Tory party is clearly not the mechanism with which it will happen.

It's so hard to get through to Tory supporters that their party is not eurosceptic. You have to wonder how many examples they need. Perhaps now they may get the message but hopes are not high.
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Witterings from Witney28 October 2010 at 16:53
TBF, Can only echo MW's comment and to ask when will the people of this country wake up to the fact that Cameron has lied to us, had no intention of retaining our sovereignty and does not even understand the rules within which he has to work.

Even more disgusting is the behaviour of the Conservative MPs who are more interested in their personal careers than representing their constituents and the interests of the country.

With a few notable exceptions the present incumbents of the HoC should be removed to the nearest jobcentre!
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TheBoilingFrog28 October 2010 at 17:44
Couldn't agree more WfW, what will also be galling is that the Labour party will now take on a Eurosceptic role as is always the way with the opposition party.

Dan Hannan says: No party in power is ever eurosceptic.

Thus conversely no party in opposition is ever pro-EU.

We need some fairground organ music to accompany the farcical change of government:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtA7sshtQZk
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Daniel197928 October 2010 at 17:46
Hi Boiling Frog

Yeah that was me, I had resisted months ago getting yet another new login for the Telegraph when it last changed it comment form (my fourth in three years now I think) yet some one already has "daniel1979" so am now “daniel_1979” on the DT.

I am getting tired of hearing from so called Tory EU Sceptics; like I say good and hard working they may be but their Party is absolutely pro-EU and that will not change. Their presence in promoting a Pro-EU party whilst making public overtures to the contrary is entangling us further and further into the EU.
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TheBoilingFrog28 October 2010 at 18:07
Thanks Daniel

Your last paragraph is absolutely spot on.
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Autonomous Mind28 October 2010 at 22:14
I concur with all of you, and thank the Boiling Frog for his kind link to my humble blog.
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Anonymous29 October 2010 at 02:34
Politicians are all the same when they get onto the gravy train. They forget why they are there and with a few honourable exceptions (who are always on the back benches) they concentrate on building up their own power and glory. Van Rumpoy, Ashton, Barosso are just the most visible symbols of the undemocratic, self serving, parasitic nature of these EU elites.
It will all collapse when austerity bites the people of the EU and they decide thay have had enough. In my experience of global corporations, remote money-wasting HQs inflating their own importance suddenly disappear when shareholders realise they are being robbed. Authority is once again delegated to management in the front line where it should have been to start with.
The same will happen with Brussels, but to trigger the collapse it needs a Thatcher-like character with guts to tell them where to get off and simply not pay the money any more.
What are they going to do, invade us?
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EU quotes

"[There's no way Britain could accept that] the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody"
(British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in response to the Schuman Plan 1950)

"Parliament must...resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp."
(Lord Kilmuir, advice to Edward Heath, December 1960)

"We should frankly recognise this surrender of sovereignty and its purpose."
(Edward Heath, Hansard, 17 November 1966)

“America would welcome it if Britain should apply for full membership in the [EEC], explicitly recognising that the Rome treaty was not merely a static document but a process leading towards political unification.”
(George Ball Under-Secretary of State for JFK 1961)

"The single market was the theme of the Eighties; the single currency was the theme of the Nineties; we must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity".
(Romano Prodi, 13 April 1999)

"Let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join, but once you're in it you can't say let's play rugby". (French foreign minister Laurent Fabius)

"We perform the duties of freemen; we must have the privileges of freemen ..."
(Chartists 1836)

"The [Lisbon Treaty] is indeed a tidying -up exercise, it sweeps the rest of our sovereignty under the Brussels carpet".
(Lord Pearson)

"The Government’s guiding principle was...to swallow the lot and swallow it now."
(Sir Con O’Neill, the British diplomat who led the UK’s negotiations for EEC membership under Heath)

"I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe."
(Kenneth Clarke, Conservative Chancellor in International Currency Review Vol 23 No 4 1996)

"The EU is the old Soviet Union dressed in Western clothes"
(President Gorbachev)

"Europe's power is easy to miss. Like an 'invisible hand', it operates through the shell of traditional political structures. The British House of Commons, British law courts, and British civil servants are still here, but they have all become agents of the European Union implementing European law. This is no accident."
(Mark Leonard co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank)

"We need to build a United States of Europe with the [EU] Commission as government".
(Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner 2014)

"A supranational union is a multinational political union where power is delegated to an authority by member states".
(Wikipedia)

“A coup d’état by a political class who did not believe in popular sovereignty”.
(Tony Benn on the European Communities Act 1972)

"Once [WWI was over, countries] went back to rules & customs of parliamentary democracies. I felt out of my depth".
(Jean Monnet, Father of EU')

"EU Parliament is incredibly responsive to lobbying institutions, but is unresponsive to public opinion".
(Gisela Stuart, Labour MP 2009)

"Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises".
(Jean Monnet, Father of EU')

"I have lived in your future ….and it doesn’t work".
(Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky on the EU)

"Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe".
(Treaty of Rome 1957)

"This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union..."
(Maastricht Treaty 1992)

"This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe".
(Lisbon Treaty 2007)

"Never out on principle; never in on principle [regarding EEC membership]. It depends on the terms and whether it is best for Britain".
(Labour leader Harold Wilson, May 1975)

"Now we've signed it - we had better read it"
(Douglas Hurd, former Foreign Secretary on the Maastricht Treaty)

"The supremacy of Community Law when in conflict with national law is the logical consequence of the federal concept of the Community"
(H P Ipsen, 1964 - 9 years before the UK joined)

"[Norway] held a referendum [on the EU] that went the wrong way"
(Douglas Hurd, former Foreign Secretary on the Maastricht Treaty)

"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals we dare not present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and diguised"
(Valery Giscard D'Estang. on the Lisbon treaty)

"The Tories have been indulging in their usual double talk. When they go to Brussels they show the greatest enthusiasm for political union. When they speak in the House of Commons they are most anxious to aver that there is no commitment whatever to any political union."
(Labour MP Hugh Gaitskell, October 1962)

"It means the end of a thousand years of history."
(Hugh Gaitskell - 1906-63, on a European federation; speech at Labour Party Conference, 1962)

"The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State."
(Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister)

'If it's a Yes we will say "on we go", and if it's a No we will say "we continue".'
(Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Council)

“The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact.”
(German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the Lisbon Treaty)

"I have read some of [the Lisbon Treaty] but not all of it."
(Caroline Flint, former Minister for Europe)

"The primary reason why Britain entered into [EEC] negotiations was political, political in its widest sense."
(Edward Heath, lecture at Harvard, 1967)

“They must go on voting until they get it right.”
(Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission)

"If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union."
(Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky)

"The European Union is a state under construction."
(Elmar Brok, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs)

“I have never understood why public opinion about European ideas should be taken into account at all,”
(French PM Raymond Barre)

“I believe neither the French nor the Dutch really rejected the constitutional treaty.”
(Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg)

“Let’s be clear about this. The rejection of the constitution was a mistake that will have to be corrected.”
(Valéry Giscard d’Estaing)

“The 'no' votes were a demand for more Europe, not less.”
(Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission)

"I don’t want an ‘in or out’ referendum because I don’t think out is in Britain’s interests.”
(David Cameron, who won't hold a referendum because he thinks he'll lose)

"...there are constitutional innovations."
(Mr Patrick Jenkin, former Tory MP during 2nd reading of European Communities Bill 1972)

"In Brussels one says "member state". You may imagine it means the same thing as country or state, but "member state" does not. Note that adjective. Member modifies state. Like "wooden" modifies "leg". The noun stays the same, but the essence of the thing is gone."
(Mary Ellen Synon, Bruges Group Annual Conference 2013)

"No government dependent on a democratic vote could possibly agree in advance to the sacrifices which any adequate plan for European Union must involve. The people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences, not asked…"
(Peter Thorneycroft, former Tory MP)

"[Bailouts are] expressly forbidden in the treaties by the famous no-bailout clause. De facto, we have changed the treaty."
(French Europe minister Pierre Lelouche)

"The transfer by the States from their domestic legal system to the Community legal system of the rights and obligations arising under the Treaty carries with it a permanent limitation of their sovereign rights... against which a subsequent act incompatible with the concept of the Community cannot prevail"
(ECJ Case 6/64)

"[The EU Constitution represents] a visible move in only one direction...from intergovernmentalism to supranationalism...and this should be explained to the people of Europe"
(Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus)

"European integration is fortunately a train moving too fast for anyone to stop it."
(Vaclav Havel, Czech Politician)

"The European Parliament is a caucusing body that is incredibly responsive to lobbying institutions, but it is completely unresponsive to public opinion."
(Gisela Stuart, Labour MP June 2009)

“Millions of people in this country will feel as I do, that legislation passed in this way, with no consent, cannot command the assent of the country and would lack moral and constitutional validity."
(Douglas Jay MP during 2nd reading of European Communities Bill 1972)

"It is an illusion to think that [EU] states can hold on to their autonomy."
(Hans Tietmeyer, head of the Bundesbank 1991)

"...within ten years 80% of our economic legislation, perhaps even fiscal and social as well’ would come from the EU."
(Jacques Delors, President of EU Commission 1988)

"The huge cost of the Common Agricultural Policy to taxpayers and consumers far outweighs any benefit to them..."
(Memo by MAFF to House of Lords European Communities Committee 1995)

"...we must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity."
(Romano Prodi, President of EU Commission 1999)

"The day of the nation state is over."
(Roman Herzog, German president, 1996)

"The European system of supranationality comes at the cost of democracy."
(Lord Leach of Fairford)

"The [EU] Council of Ministers will have far more power over the budgets of member states than the federal government in the United States has over the budget of Texas."
(Jean-Claude Trichet, current head of the European Central Bank)

"One must never forget that monetary union, which the two of us were the first to propose more than a decade ago, is ultimately a political project. It aims to give a new impulse to the historic movement toward union of the European states"
(Giscard d’Estaing, who drafted the EU Constitution 1997)

"The process of monetary union goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand, with political integration and ultimately political union. EMU [economic and monetary union] is, and always was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe"
(Wim Duisenberg, first president of the EU Central Bank)

"Once the interlude of [WWI] was over, [countries] all went back to the rules and customs of traditional parliamentary democracies. I felt out of my depth."
(Jean Monnet 'Father of Europe')

"We need to build a United States of Europe with the [EU] Commission as government."
(Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner 2014)

"We had imagined a political 'grand design', a new international order..."
(Jean Monnet 'Father of Europe')

"I like the English style of life. I feel more at home here in London"
(Tintin creator, Belgian born Herge)

"We are not forming coalitions between States, but union among people"
(Jean Monnet, 'Father of Europe')

"The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world of tomorrow."
(Jean Monnet, 'Father of Europe')

"That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European super-state was ever embarked on will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain . . . should ever have become part of it will appear a political error of the first magnitude."
(Lady Thatcher, Statecraft)

"There is no question of Britain losing essential national sovereignty”
(Ted Heath)

Euro quotes

"Euro has done more to enforce budgetary discipline in rest of Europe than any number of exhortations from IMF or OECD".
(Nick Clegg, 2002)

"We're happy to give the Greeks anything, just not money".
(German MEP Markus Ferber 2010)

"The Euro has been a rock of stability... Joining the single currency would be a major step".
(Labour MEP, Richard Corbett, 2009)

"The single currency... marks stability and growth and is crucial to high levels of growth and employment".
(Tony Blair 1998)

"Britons will come round to the idea [joining the euro] once they’ve handled euro money".
(Adam Boulton Sunday Times, 2001)

"Staying out of the Euro will mean progressive economic isolation for Britain".
(Peter Mandelson, 2003)

"The European Union must take a decisive step towards a federal economic government, with common fiscal policies and a larger budget, if it is to save the euro".
(Andrew Duff Lib Dem MEP 2011)

"A European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs".
(Hans Tietmeyer, head of the Bundesbank, 1991)

The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community: the decision is of an essentially political nature".
(Felipe Gonzalez, a Spanish former PM, 1998)

"The euro area now represents a pole of stability for those countries participating in it by protecting them from speculation and financial turmoil. It is strengthening the internal market and contributing to the maintenance of healthy fundamental figures, fostering sustainable growth".
(European Council conclusions, 2001)

"We must enter the euro with a clean sheet on all the criteria".
(Then Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Papantoniou, 1999)

"The reality of the euro has exposed the absurdity of many anti-European scares while increasing the public thirst for information. Public opinion is already changing…as people can see the success of the new currency on the mainland".
(Kenneth Clarke MP, 2002)

"The euro is a great success, and in today’s global economy, the pound is no longer an important currency. If we are not careful, we could become like Iceland in the next financial crisis".
(BT Group Chairman, Sir Michael Rake, 2009)

"I think the eurozone has turned the corner".
(Then French Economy Minister, Christine Lagarde, 29 January 2011)

"I believe that, within the next twelve months, we will have averted contagion and stabilised the eurozone".
(German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, 30 December 2011)

"We cannot be members of the single market without being part of the single currency, the euro...In life, fighting for a minority view is sometimes dangerous and painful. But when you know you are right, and when so much of our national prosperity depends on it, we should expect our political leaders to act".
(Virgin Group Chairman, Richard Branson, 2000)

"We are writing to make clear our concerns about the implications for business if the Government rules out membership of the euro for the lifetime of this Parliament. Such a decision would be damaging for British-based businesses, British employees and the British economy as a whole".
(WPP Group CEO, Sir Martin Sorrell, et al., 2003)

"A single currency, introduced at the appropriate time, will reduce costs for businesses that trade or invest across Europe...More investment in growing
businesses means more employment".
(Then BP Chairman, Lord David Simon, 1997)

"Joining the euro would increase our incomes and thus our standard of living...Now the countries of Europe have taken one more step towards making a truly unified market, using only one currency. If again we delay joining, we again risk falling further behind".
(Former Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, former CBI Director General, Lord Adair Turner, et al., 2002)

"Staying out of the euro will mean progressive economic isolation for Britain. It will mean fewer foreign businesses investing here, fewer good jobs being created and less trade being done with our European partners".
(Former Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, 2003)

"Britain should join the euro within the next few years in order to enhance British power and influence".
(Centre for European Reform Director, Charles Grant, 2001)

"Joining EMU would offer multiple benefits...The euro would be good for jobs".
(Then TUC Secretary General, John Monks, 2003)

"As time goes on, people will increasingly see that there is a price to be paid for remaining outside the euro".
(Former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, 2002)

"The euro may well come to be regarded in the coming years as part of the answer to saving the City from permanent decline. It was easy to dismiss the fledgling euro as a ‘toilet currency’ before we realised our own economic growth was built on sand".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"Obviously joining a currency that everybody in Europe - including soon all the new European Union members - are using, a currency that American and Japanese and overseas businesses understand, has to make sense".
(Then UK Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, 2003)

"The euro, despite gloomy predictions from anti-Europeans, has proved to be a success".
(Former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, 2002)

"In reality the economic integration between Britain and the Continent is so close, and we have confirmed this because we all belong to the common market, that it can't be good in the long run to stay out of such a cardinal element as the currency union".
(Then German Finance Minister, Hans Eichel, 2002)

"There are no real benefits and some real costs to the UK of monetary independence... it makes sense from a financial stability perspective for the UK to contract out monetary policy to the ECB".
(Citigroup Chief Economist, Willem Buiter, 2007)

"Taking part in EMU would improve policy and performance enough to eliminate many of the strains that sceptics predict would emerge without the safety valve of devaluation".
(BBC Trust Vice Chairman, Diane Coyle OBE, 1997)

"The euro is like a breastplate that will become more and more resistant. The stability of the currencies within its area is without question".
(Then EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Yves Thibault de Silguy, 1998)

"The strict rules attached to the euro could emerge as one of the best ways to persuade the markets that we will put Humpty Dumpty back together again, put the public finances in order".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"The question of entering the euro is worth a lot more to Britain than the wild anti-federalist fantasies peddled by those who think Britain should have nothing to do with Europe. Nobody of any consequence in Europe wants to create a federal super-state".
(Former Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, 2003)

The British Government Knew The Consequences In 1971

Foreign and Commonwealth Office 30/1048 - 1971

...the transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes within the member states and effective Community regional economic and social policies will be essential.

Parliamentary sovereignty will be affected as we have seen. But the need for Parliament to play an increasing (if perhaps more specialised) role may develop. Firstly, although a European Parliament might in the longest term become an effective, directly elected democratic check upon the bureaucracy, this will not be for a long time, and certainly not in the decade to come. In the interval, to minimise the loss of democratic control it will be important that the British Parliamentarians should play an effective role both through the British membership in the European Parliament and through the processes of the British Parliament itself.

Test

Thursday 28 October 2010

The Tories Are Not Happy (The Told You So Edition)

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