eurealist.co.uk

Excellent description of what should happen Part one and then in part two what does happen, I hope Helen Szamuely will do part three how we can put it right.

EU Referendum: “The legislative process as it is and as it should be #1

To argue our way through what is happening to our legislative process, we need to understand how it is supposed to work and why it is not working in that way. The form may have survived but the substance is no longer there.

To get a couple of misunderstandings out of the way first: legislation is not passed by the House of Commons alone; it is also important to remember, as the media rarely does that the Second Reading of a Bill in either House is not the end of the process. The Second Reading is almost invariably passed but the real work starts at Committee stage.

The Legislative Process as it should be:”

John Redwood in the Telegraph Sunday thinks UKIP supporters should return to the fold of the Conservative party, and threatens a federal government if they do not,

“But they can either make a lame protest, which will guarantee a federalist government, or they can join us and make a difference”.

Other than the basic mistake of considering all UKIP supporters are ex-Conservatives, Mr Redwood also makes the mistake of assuming a residue of trust still exists for the Conservative party in the country.

He is totally wrong in that assumption, it is the very lack of trust we have in any of the main political parties to produce policies on the EU, that will really be effective in returning power to Westminster, so that the parliament we elect, will be the final arbiter of laws that are passed in Britain, that is the very bedrock of UKIP support.

In his attempts to undermine the UKIP case, he assumes that simple promises and EUsceptic rhetoric will attract people away from their set course.

He said “UKIP voters were “intelligent people who care desperately about democracy in Britain”. He urged them: “Come the general election, the only sensible course that you and I can follow is to vote Conservative.”

Unfortunately those who were Tory supporters have done that too many times in the past and have been sorely disillusioned to find that Euro sceptic noises do not make effective policy.

Mr Redwood said, “The Tories wanted to deal with their worries. We will get rid of the threat of losing the pound and repatriate important issues that ought to be settled here.” A future Conservative government would take back fishing policy, if necessary by legislating unilaterally to do so, together with other areas. “We have already stated we need more control over our overseas aid distribution, more control over social matters.”

Yes but when the other 24 countries reject their proposals which they will, what are the Tories going to do?

On tax Mr Redwood comments that “It is desperately important that the Conservative Party only promises what it can deliver. People are sick and tired of politicians misleading them over taxation”.

Does Mr Redwood not understand that the people he is trying to woo are also completely fed up with politicians misleading them over the EU? If the Tories are not going to promise something they cannot deliver on taxation, then why are they doing so on the EU?

Inconsistent thinking will not help to clarify any situation, on the previous Tory leader, Mr Redwood says ”that while Mr Duncan Smith might have been a tax-cutter by instinct, “during those two years there was no firm, positive statement by how much taxes would be reduced”. When it was pointed out that the same could be said, so far, of Mr Howard, he replied quickly: “I would say: watch this space”

Well quite, how often do we here that the Tories cannot give tax details at this stage because it is too far from the election, this seems to make sense, yet he accuses IDS of not declaring his intentions in the first two years, even now we do not know.

On UKIP Mr Redwood says “Of course I understand their worry about the advance of Brussels power, and I share their view that the currency is not right for Britain. I share their view that the constitution is not right for Britain. I share their view that we don’t want a foreign policy directed by a European foreign affairs minister. I share their view that we don’t want a European public prosecutor. I share their view that fishing would be better under British control. We agree about a great deal”.
“What I don’t agree with is their tactics of setting up a single-issue party and saying they want automatic unilateral withdrawal, and that of course is dishonest because they can’t get elected and they won’t do it and they would have to negotiate anyway.”

This is where the Tories are failing to see the weakness in their case, or hoping we will not notice it, the power lies in Westminster to withdraw, a party which states it will not use that power to ensure their promises can be kept, are making empty promises.

As the Tories see that their policies are not attracting the UKIP voters, they will be forced to make more promises and more anti-EU policies, my feeling is that if these concessions have to be dragged out bit by bit, then they are worthless, because obviously the intention of the Tory party is to remain in the EU come what may.

Remaining in the EU will not return democracy to this country, unless the EU itself, is totally dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up based on democratic principals, and as that is just not going to happen. We then have two choices stay in and give our remaining sovereignty to the EU or leave, there really is no third way.

For any policy to succeed a government have got to address the position of the British Constitution; if the sovereignty of the people were returned to them, and governments powers limited to only making laws within the confines of the British Constitution, then the EU and its problems do not have any significance, because it is illegal and treasonous for that power to be used to force foreign laws on British people, or for government to give away its powers.

Telegraph | News | Christopher Booker’s Notebook: “The invisible official campaign”

With only a month to go before the North-East’s referendum on an elected regional assembly, the disastrous result for the Conservatives at the Hartlepool by-election again highlights the curious decision by the Electoral Commission to designate as the official ‘No’ campaign a group known as ‘North-East Says No’ (Nesno), run by the Tories.

Last week Neil Herron of the rival and long-established ‘North-East No’ campaign - which, to the surprise of local people, did not get the designation - received a telephone call from the Electoral Commission in London. The caller had been told to travel north to hand over the commission’s cheque for �100,000. He had searched for ‘Nesno’ on the internet but all the resulting references had led him to Mr Herron’s ‘North-East No’ campaign. So could he please be told how to contact the now-official ‘No’ campaign?

Mr Herron naturally obliged. But many people would like to know how the Electoral Commission came to give taxpayers’ money to an organisation so inept that it offers John Prescott his only hope of winning the November 4 referendum - and so obscure that even the commission has difficulty in finding it.”