As predicted Gordon Brown is a step closer to his eventual EU commissioner hood. He has ridden roughshod over democracy to force the Lisbon Treaty down the nation’s reluctant throat.
Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg was interviewed last night on Sky News 24 on the 19:00 slot.
They were mostly asking some difficult questions about his sacking of the only honourable members of his shadow cabinet/front bench team, the ones who had voted for a referendum.
The presenter was interested in if he was going to punish any of the other Lib-Dem MPs who had defied the party whip imposing his will, in order to vote as their manifesto had promised they would.
He blustered a bit, but tellingly when they asked what he thought people would think of the way he forced many Lib-Dem MPs to vote against their consciences he suggested the Conservatives had somehow been ‘mealy mouthed’ in trying to make acceptance dependant on a referendum. He said as closely as I can recall “If the Conservatives had their way it wouldn’t change things for one moment”.
He seemed to be acknowledging that even a no vote in a referendum wouldn’t stop, or even delay, the European project, or the constitution – and in this he is probably right. The previous no votes haven’t made a jot of difference, so why should a referendum result?
He is wrong though and it says something detrimental about his character that he thinks this way. Not necessarily wrong about the eventual outcome, but wrong about the futility of standing up for what you believe in, even if you may be doomed to ultimately fail, there is still a chance you could make a difference.
This is something he apparently does not understand. It is to their credit that some of 'his' MPs do.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)