Saturday 16 August 2014

Cameron: Being Less Than Candid

Witterings from Witney back in June requested a meeting with his MP - David Cameron - in order to try to take him to task on being less than candid on matters EU.

Yesterday WfW had such a meeting with his MP. Time constraints meant, due to the involved subject matter, a verbal meeting would be inadequate to cover the issues sufficiently, so instead a dossier was handed over to Cameron in person to reply to in writing.

The contents of the full dossier submitted to Cameron can be found on WfW's blog, where, in themes familiar to us, questions have been asked about the "veto that never was", the "European budget cut that never was" and that "Norway is not governed by fax".

Interestingly WfW notes (my emphasis):
I only spent just over 5 minutes with David Cameron as I did not wish to give him the opportunity of providing a short verbal response, wishing him to commit himself to a written response. Skimming through, he repeated that he had vetoed a treaty and cut the budget; although he made no mention of negating any bailout. The section on Norway appeared to ‘stop him in his tracks’...
A couple of interesting points emerge here. Cameron is happy to reiterate inaccurately to a constituent that he vetoed a "non-existent" treaty yet at the time in 2011 he could not make the same commitment to the House of Commons.

On a slightly more optimistic note, having spoken to WfW last night, it appears that the arguments against the "Norway governed by fax" may have come as something of a surprise to Mr Cameron. It leaves us wondering whether he has been poorly briefed on this matter.

Sometimes it shouldn't be underestimated how ignorant most MPs are about the EU and how much they are susceptible to a meme that is well established and doing the rounds by those with prestige.

The view that ignorance not conspiracy is often the cause is understandable particularly when we consider that the eurosceptic movement is not immune to this either, as illustrated by the continuing nonsense over November the 1st.  The below graphic is doing the rounds on Facebook:
Thus if Cameron has been poorly briefed he might subsequently have a "Pauline Conversion". We suspect not of course and his written responses will be interesting. But one thing remains true - thanks to WfW Mr Cameron can no longer deny he wasn't told...

9 comments:

  1. I wonder if Mr Cameron would benefit from watching the two DVDs that were produced by Richard North and Peter Troy?

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  2. Jeez, I didn't know about needing majority approval to have a referendum at all. At some point we may have to ignore "the rules".

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    1. We don't, the picture is part of the "November 1st" nonsense currently doing the rounds, its assertions are complete rubbish

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  3. All and sundry are recommended to take the time to follow the link to WfW. This is a fine example of the forensic dissection of the ConLibLab position which should be being provided by Farage.

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  4. ...'Thus if Cameron has been poorly briefed he might subsequently have a "Pauline Conversion". We suspect not of course and his written responses will be interesting.'...

    Cynical as I am, I would put money on him attempting a gambit along the lines of this:-

    ...' (Prominent Norwegian Europhile politician of choice) .. assures me that this isn't the case at all'....

    ...and with one bound, convinces himself that he's free. It won't help him, naturally.

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  5. I've always been convinced that we have the "And with one mighty bound they were free" school of thought of leaving the EU to thank for the Nov 1st nonsense. I can't think of any other reason why this piece of transparent nonsense should prove so persistent.

    There was never any prospect of a referendum and exit via Art 50 before Nov 1st and afterwards they can spread the canard that exit via Art 50 is no longer possible, so it has to be repeal the ECA and that's that.

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  6. Yes but if it took Witterings to go to him, he's at the very least disingenuous.

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  7. Richard North seems to be the only person of learning who has looked the the UK secession form the EU in any detail at all, and he thinks it will take fully 2 years to leave, at the shortest. Only completely ignorant fools are quoting "November 1st", so it's fair to assume it came from within UKIP.

    As for Cameron, I think he genuinely believes what he says on the EU, and of course, he and other ministers advise the monarch. If you want to see how government works, watch any - and preferably all - episodes of Yes, Minister. That's exactly how we are where we are, re: the EU.

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