Oh Calamity!

England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 
Gaunt - Richard II

THIS NEED NEVER HAVE HAPPENED; and it was through David Cameron that it did happen. It was a great misjudgement on his part to enforce a three line whip on his parliamentary party over a mere debate that carried with it no threat to his government. If  the government was facing a vote of no confidence; or facing defeat on a piece of  important legislation vital to his government’s survival; then it would have been shit or bust time and the nuclear option would have been seen as the only option left open to him.

            But 81 conservative backbenchers called their leaders bluff and voted for a referendum. This has left David Cameron’s leadership of his party weakened and prone to future rebellion (and not only on Europe). His defeat surpassed any suffered by John Major, and will have whetted the appetite for more defiance on issues that the Lib Dem part of the coalition demand that the Tories support; issues like, for instance,  European human rights legislation and the subservience of our own judges to it.

            Yesterday the revolt was about giving the people of this country the chance to vote on our continued relationship within or without the European Union. Tomorrow it will be yet another aspect of European interference in this country’s independence. Our sovereignty such as it is, has been almost given away via treaty after treaty; and the British people have been bypassed on each occasion.             The political elite sitting in conclave in London by means of the dinner party circuit have dared not ask the opinion of our people on anything regarding our relationship with Europe. Both the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties were acceded to without so much as  nod to the people who elected them. Instead the people were treated to the usual political flimflammery of their leaders.

            Vital to the continued existence of  our sovereign nation state, both Maastricht and Lisbon were dismissed as a kind of mere technical adjustment that did not require a referendum. But other members of the EU saw things differently. Ireland voted against the Lisbon Treaty, but were asked to vote again; and they agreed to its implementation. One wonders whether, if they had continued their defiance, they would have been asked to continue to vote until they came up with the ‘correct’ answer?   

            We, as a Eurosceptic people, have been ill-served by our politicians and the liberal establishment generally, regarding the EU.  We have been treated like the family’s embarrassing little secret that has to be locked away in the attic, for fear of causing offence to our neighbours sensibilities. We have been patronized and condescended too; we have been treated like the proverbial mushroom, which, you no doubt know, is kept in the dark and fed on bullshit: and when it comes to Europe there is bullshit aplenty to be spread around.

A PRIME EXAMPLE of such fertilisation was the rather limp appeal made by Cameron and his various ministers, who sought to salvage something from the referendum debate by suggesting it was the wrong time for any such consideration of our membership of the EU, considering the perilous state of our economy and the wholehearted concentration required to help bring it into balance.

            Everybody knows that our plight is inextricably linked to that of the euro and the European sovereign debt crises. The euro went ahead despite  having been forewarned of the minefield that such an arrangement presented to those who, through European idealism, proceeded with the project.

            The euro zone is in crises and we are, despite our determination to oppose and then withdraw from such a disaster, still part of its collapse. Yet our political leaders ,even after they have been found out, still seek to mock our intelligence by suggesting that this country’s economic crises is in some way separate from a debate on a referendum on Europe.

            We are pouring billions of British taxpayer’s money into the euro zone crisis; either directly or indirectly through the IMF; yet we are still expected to believe that a vote on Europe would be  ill-timed and a distraction. This thankfully did not, and will not wash with the British people; and now the vote is over, will no longer wash with David Cameron and those of his acolytes who deployed it both before and during the referendum debate.

            Tory leaders continue to spoon-feed us the euro- sceptical rhetoric in order to gain and then hold on to power. The Tory membership and the vast majority of  Tory voters are among nature’s Eurosceptics and are no longer so easily beguiled by their leaders oratory and promises made in opposition. The referendum vote will create ripples extending far beyond Westminster, and far beyond the Tory Party.

            The Labour Party will still need the working class vote, if they wish to secure a majority at the next election. It is true that New Labour abandoned the working class for the electoral fruits of large scale immigration. But Ed Miliband seeks to rekindle the historical relationship as he seeks to return the party to a more Left-leaning and ‘progressive’ path.

            What remains of the working class are, on the whole, small ‘c’ conservatives who, in many cases, live in areas plagued with crime and are tormented nightly by ASBO proud feral youths. They see criminals receiving what they would call ‘a slap on the wrist’ for ruining their lives; they see judges whose hands are tied by European human rights legislation, handing down inappropriate sentences.

            These people will never vote Tory, but UKIP is a different matter if Europe becomes a major concern by the time of the next election. If the Labour Party truly supported the British people as they say they do; then they would have been obliged, whether they support the EU or not, to have voted for a referendum and not brayed on about this being the wrong time for such a referendum… like the Tories.

            By parroting the Tory leadership, all the Labour Party leadership has done, is to convince the people once and for all that we are being  steered condescendingly toward a Federal Europe. What this debate and the current sovereign debt crises in the euro-zone has done, is to make it clearer than ever that the whole of the British political establishment are combined to bring our 2,000 year history as an island nation to an end.

            Why they are frightened of a referendum, has little to do with timing and more to do with the result of such a referendum. The leaderships of all our main parties support ever closer political and economic union. They believe, like their colleagues on the continent, that there is some kind of historical imperative at work which draws them hypnotically toward the abandonment of the nation state.

            David Cameron, Nick Clegg, and Ed Milliband have all behaved, up until this referendum debate, like unelected ‘we know best’ Eurocrats. But what they all need to be reminded of is that they were elected to do the bidding of the people who elected them. Their authority is limited by the ballot box; they are not EU commissioners whose authority is unchallengeable; they are where they are because of the electorate and not the gravy train.

THE PEOPLE OF this country need a referendum on our relationship with Europe. Not since the 1970s has the British people been given any kind of say on Europe. Our politicians have woven deceit upon deceit in their attempt to keep us quiet; knowing as they do how a proud people of a proud nation feel toward any treachery that seeks to dismantle the foundations of our nation, and incorporate the remnants into a United States of Europe.

            Rather than give our nation away, we should fight to keep it. We should demand a referendum and distrust all euro-sceptical rhetoric from the leaders of all our parties. I believe that a referendum will have to be allowed eventually, simply because the sovereign debt crises within the euro-zone will continue to ferment into a global crises.

            Those 81 conservatives who defied their party whip were, I believe, the tip of the iceberg. There were many on the Tory benches who sympathised with their actions, but put government loyalty before their feelings on the issue. They justified themselves by parroting the official line - this was not the time for such a vote and the economy should be the one and only priority.

            Now whether they believed this or not matters little; in the event sufficient numbers defied the whips and challenged their leader.

            If a referendum is allowed and the result favours continued integration within Europe, then so be it. The will of the people would have been tested and would have approved of  the formation of a United States of Europe. As long as the people voted for it, then so be it. Those Eurosceptics like myself would remove ourselves from the battlefield and get on with our lives – but we must have a referendum!