One of the most interesting aspects of this referendum campaign is David Cameron ignoring Harold Wilson’s precedent of sitting out an In/Out EC/EU referendum. The reason for the breaking this precedent might be that Remain doesn’t have anyone of the stature or relative popularity of David Cameron to front them.
Comments
50 hours 50 minutes 50 seconds
Does this mean you think that Obama's comments are insincere? I'm trying to imagine the President of USA telling Britain to vote to leave the EU...and then the reaction from other EU leaders!
Bagehot in the Economist:
Because as defeatist, paranoid and neuralgic as the hard-line Brexiteers are, their resolve seems strong and sincere. They have their excuses at the ready in the event of a Remain win. They will fight on, perhaps as part of a swollen UKIP, perhaps within a newly Eurosceptic Conservative Party, or perhaps as some new political force outside the existing party landscape altogether. Britain’s referendum throws many political realities up in the air. But one thing is for sure: whatever the outcome the Brexiteers will still be with us.
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21697259-diehard-eurosceptics-leave-campaign-national-liberation-movement-b-brexit?force=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/bforbrexit
I think most of those on the Leave side of the Tories expected the debate to be fought under the Queesbury Rules, which clearly hasn't happened. Oh to be Graham Brady's postman on 24th June.
Trump will have her on the ropes from Day 1 of the campaign portraying her as utterly corrupt, only interested in big money donors rather than the American people she claims to want to represent.
With 7 months to go the candidates and pacs have raised $1.1 billion. With firepower like that who knows what effect it may have.
If they say 'a significant majority of people are clearly unhappy with the EU. We will listen to their concerns', and make a convincing effort to address those concerns, they should be able to reconcile many of the Leavers to staying - not all of them, of course, but enough to relegate Leave to the fringes.
However, if the Remainers wax triumphalist, and the EU makes an immediate push for further integration, this will alienate those Remainers who believed they were voting for the status quo. Support for the EU would fall, and there'd be calls for another referendum pretty soon.
So, can we expect the leading Remain politicians to be magnanimous in victory or triumphalist? Conversely, will leading Leave politicians accept defeat graciously, or descend into a decades-long sulk?
With a tiny Commons majority and an easy route for MPs to call a vote of confidence, I can't see DC lasting past the summer unless the result is 70/30.
One assumes that Labour and UKIP are more interested in the locals for the next couple of weeks and will decode more engaged afterwards. Farage looks to have been completely invisible so far.
Most of this stuff is really not possible to triangulate. The main goal of leave people is to stop foreigners from other parts of the EU from moving around freely. This is a core goal of the EU. The EU isn't going to change it.
I don't vote Tory, but I did give Cameron some grudging respect as a man who believed in some of his more liberal policies and indeed, in the NHS (as far as politicians can be honest).
I suspect Livingstone has this right, though.
Cameron - the man of many faces (as in GoT)? He certainly believes in the EU, which means he lied to the voters last year when raising the possibility of being open to persuasion. Unfortunately, when part of your shtick is being honest, the fall is deeper. Just another lying politician, who says anything to get your vote.
Jezza may be a loon, but he's honest (ish).
Oh, and I've no doubt Remain will win. By hook or by crook. Just like 1975.
Trump is clearly intelligent, and will change/tone down the rhetoric as his focus changes. He's also now hired some political advisers rather than being a one man band.
Hilary is the ultimate machine politician, who has been able to shrug off a lot of the stories so far, but I wonder how that machine will get on against such an unconventional and unpredictable opponent?
AFAIK neither Trump nor Sanders have gone down the "Super Pac" route of raising money in the hundreds of millions, I wonder how many Sanders supports Trump will be able to attract based on them sharing the desire to get the money out of politics? Are the Amercian people as fed up with conventional politicians as someone watching from the outside half a world away seems to think they are..?
Cameron's real problem is just going to be his general lame-duck status. He can stay in office but it's going to be hard to get anything done and everyone's going to be busy maneuvring for the succession.
More polling on Obama's condescension would be of use.
Which Conservative MP's will vote against their own government in a confidence measure, little more than a year after securing an unexpected majority. Even Peter Bone has said if REMAIN wins then that's it warts and all.
Rebelling against the Paint Drying On The Wall (Bored To Death) Scotland Bill is one thing but bringing down your own government in a nuclear toys out of the pram moment is so far off the scale as to be considered in the same breath as SeanT saying he wants to be front of the queue to lick David Cameron's arse from here to eternity and pay good money to do so.
http://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/timing-trilogy.html
Not an academic exercise, as I'm writing a trilogy and self-publishing remains the likeliest option, so a moment to vote (whether on Twitter or in the comments) would be hugely appreciated.
I don't think the latest set of Bastards would go so far as to allow Mr Corbyn an audience with Her Majesty (long may she reign).
Obnoxious, isn't he?
If Remain win by his margin as now seems likely (and as I have always expected), there will never be another referendum about leaving the EU. The irreversible trend to ever closer union means that it will gradually become a United States of Europe (or EUSSR - take your pick) from which it will be impossible to resign, unless by some chance the organisation itself collapses, as the former USSR did in 1991. However, if the UK wishes to have a proportional influence in the running of the EU, then it has to participate fully and eventually join the Eurozone. Being a half-member is the worst of both worlds.
Talking to a younger relative last night, it is clear that the economic/co-operation arguments are particularly persuasive for Remain. I don't dispute the economic forecast that GO/The Treasury came up with last Monday - the economy will be larger in terms of total GDP in 2030 if Remain win, but only due to an additional 3 million immigrants - the GDP per capita won't be significantly different. Leave can't win the economic arguments or issues about trade agreements - they need to emphasise that a Remain win will lead to ever more dilution of Britain's character and increasing continental domination by Britain's traditional rivals (France and Germany) and ask people to consider these points when making their decision.
However, it is probably all over now bar the shouting and the actual vote.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/barack-obamas-views-betray-a-woeful-ignorance-on-the-impact-of-t/
They expected Cameron to roll over, but they had no intention of fighting fair themselves. IDS resignation was a pure act of spite, designed to inflict maximum damage on Cameron. Not the act of an honourable man.
Leavers claim Cameron is weak and supine, but really they are just pissed he refuses to follow an agenda set by Bill Cash.
Never expected this to happen myself and wanted Cameron to stay on post referendum. Not now. Like many others, I don't trust him anymore.
LOL. Yes of course that's going to happen.
/sarc
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3555819/DAN-HODGES-Air-Force-One-landed-right-Brexiteers.html#ixzz46j4Zp4Q9
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Well put.
The other argument is that what the establishment want, the Establishment get, so there's no point in another referendum. A political union is inevitable as surely as night follows day.
As for the Tory party ... I see problems ahead. Cameron's "I'm a Tony Blair kinda guy" has taken a knock. I can't pretend I was likely to vote Tory, but having my prejudices solidified makes it even more unlikely. Jezza isn't forever, he's just for Christmas and maybe the next one.
The LDs, despite having their tongues firmly up the EU's bum are picking up slowly, and the Remain vote can only help Ukip.
Broken, sleazy Tories on the slide?
Mr. Daodao, that's under pressure from the leadership, not a free expression. Besides, 131 is more than enough to do for Cameron, if they wish it.
Mr. Sandpit, that said, IDS' language was stupid and harmful to his own party. Not unlike a man who remembered to remove the pin from a grenade but forgot to actually throw it at the enemy.
They'll be much piss and wind over the coming months, and much of it on PB, but in the final analysis LEAVE will win, the government will wend its merry way, Jezza will continue the Labour suicide mission and OGH will further his takeover of the Belgravia Hair Century .... As night follows day.
But PB also holds these truths to be self-evident: that all PBers are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator - Mike Smithson with certain unalienable rights that among these are life with 50/1 tips, liberty to mock UKIP and the pursuit of ARSE happiness.
It was Brexit posturing, designed solely to wound Cameron. Luckily for Cameron, IDS was so inept he managed to injure himself in the process
Really Jack? LEAVE? Ha Ha.
(The problem with the Jezza insurance, is that he holds the cards not the Tories. Fingers crossed eh).
But I thought I'd give LEAVE hope ....
And so a day that began with Eurosceptic demands that the 44th President of the United States 'butt out' of UK policy ended with them angrily demanding he butt out of US policy too.
As their splenetic over-reaction to Obama's intervention graphically illustrated, they cannot believe anyone would have the temerity to disagree. Certainly not a foreigner. And, what's more, a part-Kenyan foreigner.
But like I say there probably won't be much EU-level treaty action for a while. These things take a decade at the best of times, and it's Schengen and the Eurozone that look like they need attention.
The interesting rhetorical departure is the Great Man theory of politics which is expounded too uncritically. David Cameron is not a God-given supergenius of politics nor is, er, Jim Messina. The prime minister is about as popular as most prime ministers, just lucky to win office twice with the support of one-third of voters - precisely because he was the least-worst option. For example, if Corbyn becomes prime minister, it will tell us that he is actually more popular than we think he is today, and if he wins after the next boundary changes, he will surely have been at least as popular if not more so than David Cameron. In particular, to spin the Scottish referendum as a victory for David Cameron is bogus: who would have predicted four-in-nine votes for departure given the recent record of the SNP?
I know Cameron is beloved by the author and many readers here, but the narrative of this post about storing up long-term problems and unsustainable hubris might be better applied to the problems building up for dry-economic, socially-tolerant Conservatives. Eventually, someone with a bit more of a total-dry Thatcher profile will be less worse than Cameron, and then their party and its current guiding ideology will be led into the wilderness once again. Or maybe the total-dries will triumph.
The lead runners are a radical green and a far-right gun fan.
The two established parties candidates aren''t even close
Not surprisingly Mrs Merkel's immigration policy is the hot issue.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/arm-und-reich/lebensmittel-fuer-beduerftige-deutschlands-grosse-tafelrunde-14182789.html
Indeed yes. it's reason why LEAVE are so angry. Having secured a referendum that they thought would probably never happen, they genuinely believed they had a chance.
The truth is they never did. Cameron is a ruthless politician and just as with AV and SINDY he was prepared to use all the tools available to a PM to secure his objective. As I indicated years back - whilst Cameron was PM the UK would never leave the EU.
Cameron necessarily dangled the referendum carrot and then made a stew of LEAVE, who let's be frank have willingly put themselves in the pot, turned on the cooker, taken in the heady smell of a fine meal and suddenly realised they were the main course on the menu.
Hope is a wonderful thing until it's lost and LEAVE have lost.
More generally, if the Remainders do indeed win it will be through the votes of women, Celts and Londoners. Quite why white males in the English shires should want to be told what to do by those groups is beyond me.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3555698/Has-Obama-busted-Boris-stinging-clampdown-Johnson-s-biographer-President-exposed-Brexit-leader-bogus-unlikely-PM.html
I sense a theme here.
I'm guessing he's pre-recorded a message for Hollande to use in 2017.
Like the immigration issue, it was raised by Donald Trump, who paradoxically has a greater percentage of delegates than votes.
Alas, the Conservatives appear in want of a Heraclius.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36120560
Did Leave want a foreign leader to stay silent so that they could continue to offer a non-option?
Or is he just too arrogant... loquacious... though none dare call him "uppity"?
What a sham is "sovereignty" when the associated promised policies are contingent on the will of the United States!
Farcical -Merkel flies to Turkey and tells Syrian refugees they must stay in Turkey and not come to Europe .
Turks tell Merkel that if Turks don't get visa free access to the EU the refugees will be moving on.
And just to help the visa issues it is revealed the Turkish government has sponsored 1000 imams to go to Germany saying what a good guy Mr Erdogan is.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/besuch-im-fluechtlingslager-merkel-macht-syrern-kaum-noch-hoffnung-auf-deutschland-14196132.html
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/kritik-an-regierungsnaehe-tuerkei-hat-970-prediger-nach-deutschland-geschickt-14196192.html
You plonker ....
I'll get my worm ....
I was interested to see that within a couple of years of the last Brexit referendum in 75 (won 2:1 by Remain) that opinion polls showed support for exit in almost exact reverse 2:1. Significant support for the EU only returned in the eighties. As a nation we are certainly fickle.
It would not surprise me at all that within months of a Remain win polls show a massive lead for Leave; or if Leave win then a massive lead for Remain.
Certainly if Remain win then I expect a nineties style blood feud in the Tories. The unspeakable in pursuit of unelectability, and the seppuko of the tories complete.
Thatcher rammed the Single European Act through parliament in very quick time.
The blueprint for both the single market and an evermore integrated political system.
They say she later regretted it, obviously there are no regrets from the current PM, and why should they be if he believes , what he negotiated is the best deal for Britain.
I hope he is magnaminous in victory, and does not rush out the morning after to announce new reforms, as he did after the Independence for Scotland referendum.
Manuel Phocas
Auto Phocas