Lord Willoughby de Broke in the Daily Express

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Lord Willoughby de Broke in the Daily Express

A fine fighting piece from Lord Willoughby de Broke in the Daily Express. He and I have agreed to disagree on whether a referendum is a good thing at this stage and the piece does not mention that the Motion for the debate suggests a referendum of three parts, which makes it even less likely that those of us who want to leave that political construct would get much support.

However, he does have a point that, possibly, the debate on Monday [the Express sub-editors should have changed that in line with the new decision] will cover such important issues as to who actually legislates in this country and where most of our regulation comes from. Whether the MPs will actually speak about this or whether they will drone on about the need to consult the people, nobody has been asked for generations, blah-blah, remains to be seen.

Nor will the referendum be exactly now with legislation being introduced, if the Motion is passed, in the next Session, which will not open till the spring.

I did, however, like these paragraphs:

My own family has had the honour of sitting in Parliament on and off since 1290. In all that time, despite wars, famines and pestilence, this country has never been led by politicians who felt we would be better governed from abroad.

Our political class forgets that it does not have the right to throw away our liberties. They are freedoms that the peoples of these islands fought for over centuries. They are our forefathers’ gifts for us to enjoy and build upon so that we have something to give to our own children and grandchildren.

They are in many ways simple things. The right to vote for and remove your government. The expectation that you will be protected from arrest and deportation to foreign lands without evidence. The right to think that your taxes are spent here in Britain for the benefit of your people, rather than have them thrown away to prop up the failing euro experiment.

Every word of that is true. It's just that many of us think that this Motion is designed to prevent those developments to take place.