Skip to main content

June 23rd: some reasons to feel very edgy

The phrase ‘strange bedfellows’ doesn’t really do justice to the oddballs lining up to support the call for the UK to leave the EU.

The eccentric and earnestly intellectual Justice Secretary Michael Gove teams up with Iain Duncan Smith – the self-styled ‘Quiet Man’ who had to be toppled as Tory leader some years ago in quite a noisy coup. They find themselves in the same camp as maverick Labour parliamentarian Kate Hoey, UKIP’s Nigel Farage and George Galloway, the former MP for Celebrity Big Brother.

If Boris de Pfeffel Johnson breaks his silence and say that he’s joining them, it would seem entirely fitting. The outgoing London Mayor would be the celebrity icing on the fruitcake.

Under normal circumstances, you’d have to bet that the campaign to ‘remain’ had a pretty good chance against this mob. Surely common sense will prevail and the public will rally around the mainstream politicians of all political parties who understand the importance of our involvement with the European Union?

But these are not normal times.

Last year, the Labour Party elected as its leader someone so desperately unsuited to the job that it finds itself languishing 14 points behind the Tories in some polls. Corbyn has opposed the EU and its precursor organisations at every stage of his career, so his Damascene conversion lacks any real credibility. This is reflected in his half-hearted contributions in which he bizarrely attacks David Cameron for failing to negotiate the transformation of Europe into a socialist utopia.

As a result of Labour’s incredible weakness right now, we are left in a frightening place. The best chance of a clear victory in the June 23rd referendum is if the public listens to David Cameron and follows his lead. Although I could never place my own confidence in a man of such patrician bluster and arrogance, polls do show that he seems to carry a lot of credibility with the public.

He has, however, made a big mistake by framing the referendum debate around the supposed ‘deal’ he’s managed to squeeze out of Europe.

We are not voting in the summer on whether the seven-year brake is a good thing or a bad thing. Neither are we deciding on whether we have been rescued from some mythical pressure to join the Euro. The vote is about whether the UK isolates itself from a world which is now completely interconnected. It is a choice over whether we want to retain influence or throw it away. And ultimately, it’s probably even a vote over whether we wish the UK to continue in its current form at all.

The piece of paper that Cameron clutches from Brussels can blow away in the wind. If it does, our economic and political future may take flight with it.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

After more than 30 years, I leave Labour at 11.46am tomorrow.

Barring some kind of minor miracle - on a par perhaps with CETI announcing first contact with the Vulcans or the Great British Bake Off returning to the BBC – Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected on Saturday as Leader of the Labour Party. The announcement is due at around 11.45 am. So after three decades or so of membership, my association with the party will end at 11.46. Yes, that’s all folks.  I’m afraid I really do mean it this time.  Party card in the shredder.  Standing order cancelled.  It’s goodnight from me. And it’s goodnight Vienna from Labour.  I threatened to quit when the Jezster was first elected, but people persuaded me to stay on in the hope that the situation could be rescued.  I wanted to go when Angela Eagle was unceremoniously dumped in favour of Owen Smith, but was told I couldn’t desert at such a critical moment and should rally behind the PLP’s chosen challenger. Stay and fight, my friends say.  But...
26 comments
Read more

Time for Red Ken to head into the sunset

Voice for 2012: Oona best represents modern Londoners Pin there, done that: Livingstone's campaign is a throwback to the 1980s Ken Livingstone may have lost his grip on power, but he hasn’t lost his chutzpah. The former London mayor was full of chirpy bluster a week ago in Southall, west London, when I popped over to listen to him debate with his rival for the current Labour nomination, Oona King. The contrast between two candidates couldn’t be more striking. Oona is chic, whereas Ken is pure cheek. She talks passionately about the threat posed by gang warfare which currently divides kids in her East London neighbourhood, while he waxes nostalgically about his working-class childhood in post-war council housing. It’s clear that Livingstone has been cryogenically preserved and then defrosted. The only question is when exactly the wily old geezer was put in the freezer. The mid-1980s would be a fair bet, which is when I remember him on a stage in Jubilee Gardens on the south bank ...
3 comments
Read more

Why Momentum's victory in Haringey leaves Corbyn exposed

If you want to see what a Corbyn government might look like, keep an eye on Haringey. The north London borough is set to be taken over by the hard-left Momentum faction, after moderate Labour councillors were deselected in a bitter dispute over housing. The respected and long-standing council leader, Claire Kober, has said that she won’t be contesting her seat again in May – probably forfeiting her own place on the council to another representative of the Corbyn fan club. She’s also effectively pulled the plug on her £2bn housing initiative – known as the Haringey Development Vehicle or HDV – by saying that the incoming administration can make the final decision on whether it proceeds. Part of the pressure on Kober came from the extraordinary decision of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee to weigh in on the issue. Thankfully, their intervention provoked a backlash from outraged councillors right around the country. Whatever they thought of the specific model for hous...
Post a Comment
Read more