Lobbydog...

Friday 1 May 2009

Wriggle it, just a little bit

When politicians say they won’t answer hypothetical “what if” questions it’s mainly because they know the answer will displease.

It’s also an attempt to avoiding committing to a position – leaving themselves a little “wriggle room” – in case they need to flip-flop later down the line.

That was what came to my mind when Cameron kicked off his campaign to get a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on Tuesday.

He wants a referendum now because he doesn’t like the agreement – but he won’t commit to pulling the country out of it on the first day of his premiership if the agreement has been ratified by all other European states by then.

My guess is that he won’t commit to it, because he won’t do it.

Britain’s withdrawal would be a bold move that might make the whole treaty collapse – I don’t think Cameron has the audacity to sour relationships with Sarkozy and Merkel so early in power.

Next week Minister for Europe Caroline Flint will also launch the What’s the EU ever done for you? campaign – an attempt to “mature” the British debate on the issue.

With battle lines being drawn before June’s European elections, you can bet she’ll say the Tories are divided and indecisive on the EU Treaty – Ken Clarke’s name will probably pop up.

How Cameron handles the situation will be a real test of him and how ‘repositioned’ his party really is.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is why people should be voting for UKIP at the elections.

Jive5 said...

@ Anon.... you must be so proud of your vote that you decided not to put your name down.

Catosays said...

Sorry to post this here, but my blog went up the Khyber..
Had to start a new one...
www.Catosays.blogspot.com.

Robin said...

Off topic - sorry - but this post shows it is in fact Hazel-nut Blears who can't get the message across - even though her department paid tens of thousands for the report of that very name:

http://bentsocietyblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/failure-to-get-message-across-who-hazel.html

Post a Comment