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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » LAB’s one big hope is that the Tories will tear themselves apart over the EU
The Tories have a long history of tearing themselves apart over Europe. Who can forget how in the weeks after John Major’s sensational election victory in 1992 huge fault lines started to develop in the party.
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What’s the post EURef blue team going to be like?
Much the same as the pre EURef team I'd imagine - as long as it’s a free vote for MPs.
1st.
If we Leave Cameron will scurry off with his tail between his legs and the Tories get a new leader, no idea who.
Then in 2020 the Tories and Labour will scrap it out as usual with the SNP winning all of Scotland and the Libs and UKIP being marginalised.
The referendum will alter the parameters of how we're governed, not change people's mind about who should be doing it. At the Euros and by elections people took the opportunity to vote UKIP then returned to the flock, nothing will change at General Elections.
I'm sure we all agree that's money well spent and that a bonus for these essential workers should be prioritised over spending on heath care, provision for refugees and aid for the flood victims in Carlisle.
55,000 people, the size of a provincial town, and otherwise rational people will be voting to remain part of it. I'm hoping the Inners on here will attempt to justify this criminal waste of taxpayer's money.
Summary: - The EU is profligate, lacks democratic accountability and on the whole pretty rubbish, but Scotland might leave the UK if we leave.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12064244/Why-I-will-be-voting-to-stay-in-Europe.html
It was rather reminiscent of Major's speech earlier in the week which sounds like a collection of weak reasons to stay and stronger reasons to leave, despite his intention.
"For me, there will be two other major factors, which have not yet featured much in the early jousting ahead of the referendum, but which cannot be ignored. One is that, amid all the clumsy bureaucracy and failed ideas, the EU has provided the structure and the standards for new democracies across central Europe to establish themselves after their many decades of tyranny and tragedy."
If that's all there is, it'll enrage a few senile kippers while everyone else just shrugs their shoulders.
Is your expectation that the translators & whatever shouldn't get paid at christmas? Or is it the 2.4% payrise that is so outrageous?
For somebody who writes such lucid articles your level of debate rarely rises above that of a teenager which I find surprising. I'm reasonably sure the front page of the The Times isn't targeting "a few senile kippers", but well done, you crowbarred it in.
The 2.4% was paid as a lump sum, it amounted to £74m, you clearly consider it money well spent, I don't, for reasons I've already pointed out.
He's a senior Conservative statesman, but now more of a party grandee and more Majorite than Thatcherite.
If ever an attempt at portraying yourself as a tough Northern lad backfired it was that, especially at a time when he used to roll around on a carpet with Seb Coe.
She want to subordinate Germany's national interests to the benefit a a endless sea of economic migrants to atone for Second World War guilt.
Hague wants to subordinate our national interests to the benefit of various emerging Central European Nations to atone for colonial guilt.
It's not just on the left that people are embarrassed to be British is seems.
Considering the size of its institutions and budget, the euro-civil service is a very reasonable size.
I don't know what you do for a job but I'll take short odds you work in the public sector.
Every member of the Shadow cabinet including Corbyn has signed up to Labours Remain campaign, and all but a handful of backbenchers. The only hesitation is if Cameron tries to water down workers rights (and he seems to have abandoned this) Labour wants to stay in on current terms, and does not agree with "renegotion".
Labour splitting on the subject is a bizarre BOOer fantasy. SNP, Plaid, the NI parties, LDs and Greens are all onside too. The only significant Outers will be the kippers under Mr Farage and about half of the Tory party.
I was with a director of Labour Leave, he takes the opposite view to yours, but I suppose he would. The union leader Bob Crow was vehemently anti EU.
This referendum is happening as a result of internal Conservative issues, and as we have seen in Scotland referendums are not very good at resolving those passions.
And that "free lunch", could that money be better spent elsewhere?
People generally talk about the lower paid and benefit scroungers when discussing an entitlement culture.
His No2EU left wing anti EU campaign group got insignificant support in the Euro-elections. There is no substantial anti-EU block on the left. Just the Kippers and half the Blues.
I really would like to hear more from cabinet ministers who've grown *more* eurosceptic in office.
It seems that, in Conservative circles at least, the party becomes ever more eurosceptic when in opposition only for the line to be redrawn as soon as an election is won, and no further progress or development in its thinking is made as soon as they take power.
That would not be good for Osborne, for instance.
The majority of the private sector does this, and the tax man even allows you to spend a certain amount of money tax free. The cost is absolutely minimal but can have a hugely disproportionate positive effect on staff morale etc. In short, thoroughly good value for money.
It needs to become a genuine mass-movement with cross-party and apolitical support.
Consider the headlines "Britain forced to accept 250,000 migrants due to Tory renegotiation stitch-up"
The applicant status of the remaining Non-EU countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe is a powerful driver towards democracy and the rule of law in those states.
We should be proud of our role in this transformation. John Major was always a supporter of a wider rather than deeper European Union.
He made the EU/The Euro the focus and the public weren't interested.
He took the view the Tories need to talk about other stuff.
But I do think he's become very establishment on the EU, and hasn't devoted too much real thinking to the subject since.
I see no reason why we need to remain a member to support the development of nascent Eastern European democracies.
You are speaking to the already-convinced and repelling the people who remain to be convinced. Sadly, it's the latter group you need to be talking to and attracting.
I can easily see how honourable, sensible and intelligent people could want to remain with no obvious direct advantage to themselves, just as I can see honourable, sensible and intelligent people wanting to leave with no obvious direct advantage to themselves.
However the dominance of the Leave campaign by people such as Farage and the Owen Patersons of this world is likely to push these voters into the arms of Remain.
My own betting position is on Leave at 4/1 from last year, that was where the value was. As the odds shorten I expect to back out of that position.
Lots of non-political people of my acquaintance have no interest in the campaign, probably wont follow the stories on the TV much, and will decide, if they haven't already on the basis of inter alia, the relative strengths of their internationalism vs their indignation about "what is happening to my country"
Hence many people will rely on what the media tells them and particularly the personalities involved.
For many people it'll become a question of who they trust most: e.g. Cameron or Corbyn versus Farage.
In many minds the answer to "Whose country is this anyway" is "Not Mr Farages!", particularly those on the centre and left of the political spectrum.
Of course if we are talking about private sector managers and directors, nothing is too good for them, remember they are a higher caste and must be catered to lest they leave the country and we are impoverished. Let them eat huge bonuses.
From a blue perspective only, it'd be better for Leave to win. More unity that way.
If Remain wins, as I expect, it'll be interesting to see what lessons the PCP has learnt from both their own recent history and contemporary Labour strife.
Cameron could act as a useful lightning rod for discontent (useful because he's off soon), or it might be a case of the issue dominating the ensuing leadership campaign to the detriment of the party. Ultimately there are only two courses: stay in, or leave [the latter requiring another vote]. Endless bitching within the Conservative Party would only create division.
Leave, or leave not. There is no whining.
The other issue is job security, to quote Jim Hacker: "You're in no danger of the sack.
In industry if you screw up, you get the boot. In the civil service, if you screw up, I get the boot!"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35166310/jenson-button-splits-up-with-his-wife-jessica-michibata-after-year-of-marriage
I've said all along that 'leave' would be better off with no Farage involvement.
Every bit of EU idiocy in the next decade, and you can be there is a bath full of it being kept quiet until after the referendum (all sorts of embarrassments and cock-ups will have been kept under wraps for a year or so), will be dropped on the Tory leaderships lap by both the press and pissed off activists.
If there is some important business decision that happens to our detriment because we are outvoted by the Eurozone, or worse a mandatory quote for migrants, all hell is going to break loose and the finger is going to be pointed firmly at the Dave & George Show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35165720
If you're Scottish and want independence, the EU vote could be seen in the light of a new independence referendum.
If you're English and were less than thrilled with the bleating of the SNP (especially the ridiculous claim the pound could be kept within a currency union), it might be seen as a chance to help them out.
Die-hard pro-EU types are always going to vote for the EU. People who see themselves as very British are the likeliest to be changed by the prospect of the UK splitting, but they're also very likely to dislike Brussels as well.
I think that's a marginally helpful intervention for Leave. It won't shift too many votes, but I think most that do change will be to Leave.
Edited extra bit: forgot about the Borders [is it capitalised?]. They'll shift to Remain, if they shift at all, because a split would bugger up business and everyday life.
They did seem a good couple, and I'm a bit surprised.
Mr and Mrs TwoPointFourKids in Acacia Avenue will probably vote Remain because they are not that interested, and that nice man Mr Cameron came on the TV and told them everything will be okay and they can trust him. They are not Tories, although they will probably vote Tory because they are repelled by Corbyn and Farage for differing reasons.
Those same sort of quiet suburban voters, largely apolitical, small 'C conservative, community based people, are going be absolutely furious if the UK gets forced by the EU to take a huge load of economic migrants (or any of a number of actions that looks like the country being screwed over by the EU) and are going to blame Dave for lying to them, and most of the newspapers (irrespective of their IN or OUT stand will line up to say the same thing)
My own view is: ''If we leave the EU it will break up the UK and destabilise Europe - I'm out.'
A perhaps trite way of pointing out that the 'negatives' many Inners like to parade are in fact features not bugs for many others of us.
The UK, the second richest member of the EU, is on the verge of leaving, some polls make it too close to call, and yet the ability of our politicians to get any sort of concession from the EU on the most trivial of matters has been close to zero.
How do you rate our chances of getting any sort of concession from the EU the day after Remain win the referendum ?
Consider political leaders we have now: Cameron, Corbyn, Farron, Sturgeon, Farage.
Corbyn's a wretched socialist, Farron's anonymous, Sturgeon does have an air of competence but limited appeal [geographically, she's more likely to irk than entice English voters to back her], and Farage drives away more votes than he attracts.
Cameron can reach beyond the Conservative core and isn't a nationalist voice. And he's been PM for the last 5 years (6/7 when we vote).
If he shifted to Leave, that would throw the vote wide open. But I cannot see that happening.
In Christmas terms: that's crackers
The whining victim culture of the BOOers is very similar to the whining victim culture of the Oxford statue protestors.
So who is going to pay for your NHS when half the finance industry decamps to the Eurozone?
Emails from both parties get deleted rather rapidly after a quick perusal ...
And do me a favour and get off your high horse I've been regularly abused and insulted on here (including by you) and never complained, stop whining like a little girl.
http://www.scottishconservatives.com/2015/12/7905/
1. Is he to be the PM who presented such a poor deal with the EC that the voters rejected him and left the EC? Or
2. Is he to be the PM who kept us in the EC but broke his party apart through his "loading the dice" against the eurosceptics?
Currently he just seems to be worrying about how to Remain and get Osborne as his successor. History may not be kind to him with those aims.
I never understood why they did not just split the difference and live midway between the two places; neither had strong ties in the areas they were working.
There's nowt so strange as folk.