I faithfully attended Parliament in the last session to support Mr Wharton’s private member’s bill to give us a referendum on our membership of the EU . It was stopped in the Lords by Labour and Lib Dem peers.
In this session I attended to vote for Mr Neill’s private member’s bill. This was an identical bill. If it passed the Commons it could become law under the Parliament Act without the Lords being able to stop it. Instead, this week, the Lib Dems in the Commons refused to support the necessary motion for it to make progress as a Bill.
I am most disappointed that the Lib Dems have stopped us legislating to give British people what they want, an In/Out referendum on the EU. The Lib Dems in the last Parliament officially called for an In/Out referendum. Now they are in a position to bring one about they have changed their minds and prevented us from passing the Bill this Parliament.
It will now become a General Election issue, where only the Conservatives of the 3 major parties in Westminster will offer the public an In/Out referendum in the next Parliament.
October 29, 2014
If we have a hung parliament, we’ll have another 5 years of the wretched Liberals.
October 29, 2014
I hate the LibDems; their hypocrisy has no limits.
I have no problem with them being pro-EU. They can campaign for that. But their determination that the people should have no say is disgusting.
October 30, 2014
I should imagine precious few voters will know about it.
After rt hon Mr Cameron’s brush with a jogger where it is as customary as it is common to say “Oj” and wave ones hands if the jogger has earphones to avoid the obvious, I mentioned in passing with pedestrians in my town ( I live in a town where everyone unlike the PM is accustomed to communicating ) about his common touch. They had not heard about it, not one.
Our people our almost totally disengaged from politics. TV news and discussions give the impression of a nation taking part in a democracy.
Unregulated and blind immigration has awoken many from their slumbers. Some can be quite tetchy first thing.
October 30, 2014
So that is boundary changes, English votes for English legislation and EU referendwarrant, your coalition partners have blocked. What urgent legislation needs to be enacted before May that is preventing the dissolution of Parliament and a general election.
An election now may give the electorate a timely say on EU membership, the arrest warranScottish devolution, EVEL, immigration and the £1.7 billion performamce fine. Surely that is a good thing.
Reply The legislation that blocks an early election is the Fixed Terms Parliament Act which the Lib Dems do support!
October 30, 2014
Surely there is a lib dem sponsored government bill due to come before parliament soon that can be turned into a confidence issue by Conservative and Labour back benchers keen to canvas the electorate.
October 30, 2014
Lib Dems have yellow as their Party colour, I wonder why ?
October 30, 2014
It is remarkable that an MP can argue for the sovereignty of our democratically-elected Parliament on the one-hand, while also suggesting that Parliament is unqualified to make a decision.
Mr Redwood, do you no longer believe in representative democracy? Or is your fondness for a plebiscite perhaps limited to those (sadly now rare) issues on which your fellow representatives refuse to to be swayed by populist xenophobia?
Reply I have not argued that Parliament is unqualified to make a decision. What are you talking about?
October 30, 2014
As ever, the LibDems are neither Liberal nor Democratic, due to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
October 30, 2014
The conservative promise of a referendum depends on getting a majority. This is most unlikely. Another hung parliament is the most likely outcome. It means nobody will be offering a referendum. Unless… we get a strong UKIP in coalition with the conservatives. But this must be without Mr Cameron.
October 30, 2014
‘It will now become a General Election issue, where only the Conservatives of the 3 major parties in Westminster will offer the public an In/Out referendum in the next Parliament.’
I’m glad you used that particular qualification today John, as my post of yesterday in which I said that UKIP could also deliver if people voted from them in sufficient numbers, didn’t get used. Nor did the recent reply to our Dutch friend that blew his pro-EU case out of the water.
And I thought we were essentially on the same Eurosceptic side and wished to demolish the Europhile argument. I’ll try to keep my posts shorter in future, but if we wish to win the arguments conclusively, our counter needs to be comprehensive out of sheer necessity.
Tad Davison
Cambridge