Tomorrow could see the death of one of our major political parties. In an act of suicidal idiocy, Nick Clegg will order his MPs to abstain from voting on the Conservative amendment calling for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If any of the Lib Dem MPs obey his command they will never hold the position of MP again following the next election. In fact some may face pressure to resign before then. Tens of Lib Dem seats will be lost and the party will die.
If Labour manage to stop the referendum then they will lose and lose big in the next election. If they think the public don't care then they are more detached from reality than I thought. At the next election the people will be told that they have been cheated by Labour, they will be told that Labour denied them a referendum because they wouldn't have voted the way the government wanted. They will be told that on the 5th of March 2008 democracy died in the United Kingdom and that the blood is all over Gordon Brown's hands.
When the Lib Dems elected Nick Clegg as their leader, they opened their arms to welcome the Grim Reaper.
UPDATE: Ben Brogan reports on a Lib Dem cabinet walkout.
If Labour manage to stop the referendum then they will lose and lose big in the next election. If they think the public don't care then they are more detached from reality than I thought. At the next election the people will be told that they have been cheated by Labour, they will be told that Labour denied them a referendum because they wouldn't have voted the way the government wanted. They will be told that on the 5th of March 2008 democracy died in the United Kingdom and that the blood is all over Gordon Brown's hands.
When the Lib Dems elected Nick Clegg as their leader, they opened their arms to welcome the Grim Reaper.
UPDATE: Ben Brogan reports on a Lib Dem cabinet walkout.
UPDATE 2: Nick Clegg on Newsnight. If you are a Lib Dem supporter, you may want to consider your options after watching THIS. (17min 55sec into the show).
7 comments:
Oh, I do hope so. Is Cleggy some sort of ringer, sent in to bugger them up..... or is he simply too stupid to get it?
Alfie,
They are walking blindfold into the abyss.
They are largely irrelevant anyway - whom do they actually represent anymore?
James,
I've always seen the Lib Dems as the party to run the country when the country is perfect. Unfortunately it isn't and never will be, not in our lifetimes. They have a bubble mentality with no appreciation of the realities of life outside that bubble.
We would all like to live without nuclear weapons, but is it practical? The majority of us accept that we must have them, the Lib Dems can't see the danger beyond their bubble. It's the politics of wishing everyone was as nice as you are. They are not.
Their big selling point has always been that they are not the other two parties. While things are going reasonably well, or there are no big issues to be decided, being the home of the perpetual protest vote is very nice. However, it leaves you enormously vulnerable to voters who suddenly start demanding that you stand up and be counted on thee issue of the Day.
Blurted out during that Newsnight interview last night, 27:32 in, here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm
"Jeremy, am I supposed to be surprised that the Labour party, that has reneged on its commitment to a referendum, and doesn't want to have a referendum of any sort ... "
As the Lib Dem commitment was the same as the Labour party commitment, "logically" (to use one of his favourite words) this is an admission that the Lib Dems are also reneging on their commitment - notwithstanding all his sophistry about the Lisbon Treaty being very different to the Constitutional Treaty, not being the treaty mentioned in the Lib Dem manifesto because it didn't even exist at that time, etc etc.
Guys, I'm really interested of what comes of this. Will there be a referendum in Scotland? And would that be binding, i.e. would it be able to derail the Lisbon process?
EU-critical minds wanna know...
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