Cameron admits U-turn on Lisbon.
It would appear that David Cameron has ridden his Euro sceptic luck as far as he is going to be allowed to ride it; and, now that the Lisbon Treaty is about to be signed into law (due to the forthcoming ratification of the Czech Republic), it really is time for Cameron to shit or get off the pot.
He's getting off the pot.
Mr Cameron said that his party would "do what we can to make good all our promises", but finally conceded that a chance to hold a vote on the treaty was fading rapidly. It is widely anticipated that he will soon formally announce that a Conservative government will not hold a referendum, despite giving the public a "cast-iron guarantee" in 2007 that they would be given a vote on the treaty.This is, of course, the cue for the Euro sceptics, the very people that Cameron has been toadying up to with this Lisbon bashing nonsense, to go bonkers. And, as always, they never disappoint."What I said is that we would hold that referendum on the Lisbon Treaty but it seems we are getting close to a point when it is part of European law," he said. "I had always hoped that President Klaus wouldn't sign but it seems that times are changing."
Mr Cameron's team are well aware that his refusal to answer questions on his party's future policy should the treaty be ratified is beginning to damage his credibility. "It is clear that times are changing," said a spokeswoman. "The ruling by the Czech court is obviously an important moment."
Ah, Bill Cash... We'd almost forgotten about him. The man who made John Major's life Hell. Indeed, Major had to resign as Tory leader and stand for re-election in the hope of making Cash's team of madmen "put up or shut up" whilst he was Prime Minister. If my memory serves me correctly this cunning ploy succeeded for about a fortnight before they were back in full throated opposition to all things European.Bill Cash, the Tory MP for Stone and a prominent Eurosceptic, called for Mr Cameron to hold a referendum with "no ifs or buts". He said that any move to replace the pledge with a promise to renegotiate some of the changes the treaty brings about would not be acceptable.
"As David Cameron has said, we need an association of member states. In order to achieve this, we cannot simply cherry-pick individual aspects of the treaty and call for renegotiation of those," he said. "We need a full referendum on Lisbon as we were promised and as we voted in the House of Commons. This is about the Government of the United Kingdom operating in line with the democratic wishes of the electorate."
The Bruges Group, a Eurosceptic think-tank popular among Tory backbenchers, also warned that simply renegotiating Britain's involvement in the treaty would be "incoherent, disingenuous and utterly unconvincing".
"What is the point in David Cameron upending one pledge on Europe but promising he'll offer us yet more European promises in his general election manifesto?" asked the group's co-chairman, the former Tory MP, Barry Legg. "Why will they be any more credible than the 'cast-iron guarantee' he has just broken?"
Cameron has kept them quiet because he has aligned himself with some of Europe's most extreme right wingers. But, now that even the Czech Republic are about to ratify, Cameron is hinting that he is about to come clean. He is not going to have a pointless referendum on a treaty which is already law.
Cameron's honeymoon with the Euro sceptics is now officially over. They will loathe him in the same way as they loathed John Major.
He kept them at bay by pretending that he could deliver them a Britain free from European influence. Now they see that he could not. They will now push, not against the Lisbon treaty, but against Britain's entire relationship with the EU.
Some MPs are now calling on Mr Cameron to live up to his promise for a referendum by giving the public a chance to vote on an even wider issue of Britain's involvement with the EU. Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, said: "I would like to see a referendum on our relationship with the EU. The public has been promised one, and I think it falls to us to give people some kind of say that they have been denied so far."From here on in, Cameron's life is utter Hell. He now will experience - full force - the madness that lies just under the surface of the British Tory party. It's called "Europe."
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