'Oh, so that's who Richard Morris is..." Lord Hattersley on The Daily Politics

'An influential activist' - The Guardian

'Iain Dale, without the self loathing' - Matthew Fox in The New Statesman

'You are a tinker...' - Tim Farron

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Labour and Tory's position on Europe? Still no clearer


After 'the speech' today you might think both the Tory and Labour party would have made their position clear on Europe.

They failed.

Tories

If the Conservatives win an outright majority at the 2015 election they will bring forward an in/out referendum.

If they don't win and end up in coalition there will still be a referndum - 'if I am PM' - according to Cameron. But of course, if they fail to win a majority, he probably wont be PM. Which brings the whole thing into question.

But let's say he does win a majority. He will then negotiate new terms of our membership. If he is succesful, he will campaign for us to stay in the EU. if he is unsuccesful, he will not (according to Andrew Neil).

So what are the definitions of success? He won't say.

Clear? No?

Labour

 Labour seemed clear: Look what Ed M said at PMQs today..


But now Labour HQ have, ahem, clarified, Ed's position. That's the policy of the party today. But that policy change between now and 2015. It's not what it may say in the manifesto. And it's not necessarily what Labour would do if they were in government.

Clear? No?


They are both hopeless.
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. Matthew Rees23 January 2013 at 14:17

    Positions change as circumstances change - I've known the Lib Dems drop a pledge or two. The law says that if more powers devolve to the EU we need a referendum and Labour is holding to that. Without such a change there is no point in an in/out referendum so only a fool would offer one. And he did.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard Morris23 January 2013 at 14:20

    But that hardly clarifies things. That sounds like Labours position should be, if a Tory PM successfully changes our terms of membership there should be an in/out referendum. But if he fails to do so, there shouldn't?

    Not really too clear?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)