The picture Dan Hannan paints is one of considerable cheer. You may have noticed that Boris Johnson today made a stirring - and funny - speech to the Conference and called for the British people to get their referendum on Europe (nb not specifically on Lisbon) Cameron, instead of looking solemn at this, the cameras which were focussed on Cameron, saw him applauding vigorously and being the first in the hall on his feet at the end.
But Hannan is spot on about the media. They’re planned a row, ‘a split’. and they’ll have one even if its not there,
They are aided by the foolish UKIP mob who are screaming their heads off with idiot sloganeering. They are getting masses of the blame in Ireland amongst the ‘No’s for doing more than anybody to wreck their cause. They’re trying it here now.
For heavens sake don’t these extreme UKIPpers and other sceptics ever think before they emote ?
Christina
TELEGRAPH Blogs 6.10.09
Euro-row? What Euro-row?
By Daniel Hannan
The media are continuing to run the story of a Euro-sceptic insurrection against David Cameron on the issue of the Lisbon referendum. Hang on: I think that if there were such an insurrection, I’d know about it. In fact, I’ve spoken to plenty of Euro-sceptics over the past 48 hours in Manchester – “the most notorious Euro-sceptics” as the BBC would say – and we have all independently reached the same view, viz:
1. Cameron is genuinely working to deliver a referendum on Lisbon, and may very well succeed;
2. If he’s too late to stop it, it would be silly to have a referendum narrowly on the Lisbon Treaty, in which the best we could hope for would be a return to the status quo ante – in other words, where we are now;
3. Far better to push for a wider repatriation of powers from Brussels to Westminster – not just the rights surrendered at Lisbon, but those surrendered at Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice;
4. Paradoxically, such a demand would be easier for the other member states to grant, since it would involve unilateral British opt-outs rather than a change in the institutional structure for everyone else;
5. Such a deal should be put to the British people in a referendum;
6. There are reasons to be hopeful that all this will happen under the next Conservative government;
7. David Cameron earned the benefit of the doubt when he took Conservative MEPs out of the EPP;
8. If we’re wrong about all this, we’ll have the argument then, but there are good reasons to be optimistic.
I’ve said these things to many of the media, as have other MPs and MEPs. But one or two broadcasters refuse to be deflected from the story they want to run . There was a delicious example yesterday when I gave an interview to Sky News. I was, I said, quite happy with the existing policy. Yes, of course I felt there should be a referendum – I was four years old when the last one was held – and I was cautiously optimistic that we would get such a referendum from David Cameron. The presenter, Jon Craig, then turned to the camera and told viewers that they had just heard how “angry” we Euro-sceptics were about Cameron’s failure to guarantee a referendum!
I’m beginning to realise something. When media types say “Cameron is under pressure from the Euro-sceptics”, they’re not really talking about the referendum. They’re not even talking about Europe more generally. What they really mean is: “Look: all those ghastly Right-wing extremists are taking over the Tory party”.
Read this perspicacious article by Sholto Byrnes – a LibDem supporter – in the Independent. As Sholto puts it:
“[Labour's] propagandists are salivating at the opportunity to paint the Tories as divided once again on Europe, with “hardline” – code for near-lunatic extremist – right-wingers cast as the pantomime villains. “Behind you, Dave!” they call, less to warn him than to make the public aware of the grotesques with whom he chooses to associate. And there it is, that old calumny that to be Eurosceptic is to be right-wing, not just in a free-market sort of way, but in a hang ‘em, flog ‘em, and – whisper it behind closed doors – a “wogs begin at Calais” sort of way. Cameron can’t be trusted, is the message, not when he is in hock to these mad Eurosceptics, a label which is now used to imply opposition to virtually every piece of progressive legislation from Catholic Emancipation onwards.”
In a strange reversal, it is considered extreme to want to preserve parliamentary democracy, moderate to embrace a revolutionary plan for the unification of an entire continent under an appointed technocracy.
One closing thought. Why is the Irish referendum result a headache for Euro-sceptics? Isn’t it more of a headache for those who keep putting off the day when they will eventually have to consult the British people?
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