FOR THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS, our nation's media will be snorting referendum cocaine; they will be on a perpetual crazy high until next June, the public will eventually have their say. Our media is split on politically tribal lines, and on every political issue. We have pro and anti-EU newspapers; and we have a supposedly neutral BBC: but it is an institution that garners finances from the EU and is therefore ill-equipped to profess objectivity in any consideration of our membership.
The BBC is a liberal institution. An institution that not all and every taxpayer wishes to be conscripted into, but are forced to on the threat of imprisonment: our people are being asked to support this pro-European institution through a payment of a tax known as a licence fee. There are 28 million BBC taxpayers who are forced by law to pay for its liberal services. But the millions of licence-fee payers who do not share the BBC's liberal outlook have to suck it up and pay anyway.
Now the campaign has begun those who intend voting to leave should study the BBC's coverage with an evangelical-like scepticism. ITV and Sky have to be objective or would lose subscribers who are not required by law to pay their subscription: they also need advertisers whose products could take a dive if the channels they are advertising with were perceived as bias. But because the BBC has a guaranteed income, it has no such worries, and can put two fingers up to those who complain a liberal bias in their news coverage.
SO LET THE BATTLE begin, in a campaign whose outcome will determine the following: (a) whether we vote to leave, in which case we will retain our sovereignty and nationhood, and all that this means in terms protecting our borders; our parliamentarians passing our laws that cannot be undermined from Brussels: or (b) we vote to remain which will take us on a journey where ever more laws are passed which we longer have any control over; laws that bring about ever closer political union until a federal union finally emerges. Not only will this happen, but it has to happen if a European federal bureaucrat utopia is to see the light of day.
The British people, thankfully, have always had a healthy cynicism toward their domestic politicians. This cynicism arises from being let down by so many promises from whomsoever governs us and from whatever party. The people's cynicism is a healthy state of affairs going back to the 19th century when Charles Dickens was a parliamentary reporter. Any reference to the parliamentary species in his novels is, to say the least very, unflattering. Like today's voters, Dickens never trusted the political species.
Cameron has been the EU's Grima Wormtongue; who promised the voters he would persuade the EU of his case for genuine and extensive reform of the EU, especially on migration (but deviously, and for the sole purpose of trumping Ukip, who were garnering Tories to its cause). If it had not been for the threat from Ukip in the last European elections we would not even be having a referendum in June. Cameron's decision to give the British people a vote on their destiny was given under political duress from Ukip.
Our prime minister did whatever he felt he had to do to remain a prime minister. It was just cynical flim-flam. Cameron's word cannot be trusted on Europe: and I do not care if he is the prime minister. He supports the EU a hundred per cent. He has always believed in this institution – in fact, it is the only genuine political belief he wholeheartedly and genuinely believes in; all else has been a pattern of disparagement of anything that threatens his ambition.
CAMERON, EVEN before he took these reform 'negotiations' on with Europe; declared that whatever the outcome he would still promote the cause to remain part of the EU. It was like deliberately exposing your poker hand before you needed to. This sent out the message to the great unelected of Brussels that they could just go through the motions with Cameron. The great European reform agenda he once promised in fear of Ukip; was now salted down to a period of time before migrants could claim benefits.
What you have to remember is that Cameron cheated you of the genuine reforms needed and did so deliberately on the issue of trust. He was trusted by his own Party and enough Tory voters to secure a working majority in 2015. Perhaps the possibility of an Ed Milliband government changed the minds of many traditional Tory voters in order to give Cameron a second term. These voters were caught between a rock and a hard place. They were distrustful of Cameron; yet preferred him to Labour and even the liberal democrats.
In 2015 Ukip garnered nearly four million votes; but because of the first past the post system this only gave the party one parliamentary seat: just one MP. Cameron is not a Eurosceptic; he is as a profound disciple of the European project, just as are Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine; as once was Edward Heath. Like those whose political careers came before him; Cameron's attachment to a United States of Europe is cemented into his conscience.
IF THE TORY PARTY wishes to continue; it must now split between Conservatism and a modern liberal variant (once championed by One Nation Toryism) that has little ideological prescience with traditional Conservatism. David Cameron is not a Conservative. He is a social democrat that seeks to transform the traditional conservatism of his party into a social democratic entity.
Cameron has handled things very badly and has done so on the basis of his own career of wishing to brand himself as a great prime minister by history; as all prime ministers are seduced into by their own self-belief.
