A referendum on the new European Constitutional Treaty is what was assured in the manifestos of all three main political parties. The Conservative party is trying to hold Labour and the Liberal Democrats to their commitment.
The position that there should be a referendum on leaving the European Union, adopted by the Liberal Democrat leader, is dishonest: it fails to meet the centrality of holding to manifesto commitments upon which voters decide their votes. We, the people, made voting choices in the belief that our constitutional relationship with the European Union was subject to a referendum no matter which party we voted for and, thus we moved on to choices determined by other criteria.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have chosen different acts of dishonesty to cover their falsity to their manifesto commitments - not promises, not objectives - commitments.
Labour's pretence that Lisbon is not a fundamental alteration in the constitutional status of the United Kingdom, both internally and vis a vis the European Union, is the Big Lie technique. The Liberal Democrat technique is the Drive out the Better with the Unwanted Best manoeuvre.
We do not want a referendum on leaving the European Union while what is being rammed through Parliament by whipped votes and Blair's stolen majority is a profound alteration of our internal and external governmental relations. We want what was committed -to by all parties, and by our last elected Prime Minister, a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The concerned left of centre, who have passed from supporting Labour after its revelation as a corporatist, authoritarian, state regime, to supporting the Liberal Democrats, have now another party which can realise their wish for a social and compassionate governance that values our traditions and manages carefully the crueller results of changing economic and social circumstance. The Liberal Democrats should consider carefully too that those who have paused in their party as they flood out of the party of statist corruption will move on to a political party that keeps its word unless the Liberal Democrats keep theirs.
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6 comments:
You've got my vote, on the right to vote. Do we have to get that right the way we got the franchise in the first place?
The Birmingham Chartists were an admirable group - highly- skilled, independent, using peaceful means but effective and determined, till the violence of the Northern Chartists with their unskilled membership, and use of force and violence attitudes split the movement.
There were 200,000 assembled at Newhall Hill in the 1830s, makes Labour's scrappy meeting last week look what it was - apparatchiks only. But Brown is no Thomas Attwood, and the Birmingham Political Union was a Conservative initiative, despite modern day Labour pretending to the radical heritage.
Perhaps we should look to the Midlands for a democratic revival? And, dare one even think of it, a manufacturing revival.
Lot of Liberal clubs in the Black Country, and traditionally drinkers of mild ale. Tells you what we're like - no firebrands.
"the Birmingham Political Union was a Conservative initiative"
Not in any history that I was ever taught at my Grammar School - and that includes its original and later reincarnation. One of its main targets was always the Conservative controlled Corporation. Attwood was a Liberal MP. Where is the evidence?
As for the violence of the Northern Chartists - I think you will find that there was also violence in Wales, Bristol and London (to say nothing of the riots in Birmingham in 1839) - but perhaps it had something to do with hunger. And there were plenty of skilled workers in the Northern Chartists - remember that is where much of the work was at that time.
Grammar School, Reflection will show that those called Liberals in the 19th century would be considered Conservatives now. It is as misleading to associate those called Liberals now with anything to do with the historic Liberal party as it is to associate the New Labour junta with the Labour party of the first half of the 20th century.
Confusing the aims of a political organisation based on the skilled and artisan sectors of manufacturing industry with riots by the unskilled and unemployed doesn't help undo the false claims to all political and social radicalism advanced by New Labour's myth-makers either.
As S remarks, Liberals (the real thing) drink mild ale.
Whatever next - you'll be telling us that Eton has become the training ground for our revolutionary leaders.
S is not right about Black Country Chartists - they were the working class ones who believed in physical force while the Birmingham variety were middle class and belived in moral force (per Asa Briggs) - even though it didn't stop them rioting in 1839.
But this stereotyping of Chartists does hold up to much scruting e.g some of the Northern Chartists were even mill owners e.g Fielden who presented the first Charter with Attwood and introduced the 10 Hour Act - but listen to the modern day "liberals" howls when the EU and the Labour junta attempt a very slight updating.
BTW I love drinking mild - just that it impossible to find outside the North and Midlands.
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