I'm guessing that won't come as a surprise to anyone given what you all know about me! But there's a story.
If you'd have asked me a while back about the European Parliament elections, I'd have whispered (in a strictly deniable way, of course) that like a lot of Conservatives there was a pretty high chance of me voting for Ukip. Simply because we wanted to make the point that the EU - and especially its purposeless and expensive 'parliament' - isn't in Britain's interests.
However, in the course of the campaign I've come to realise a few things - and these are the reasons why you should vote Conservative today.
1. Whatever we think of the parliament and its purpose, there's a job to do in Brussels (and peripatetically Strasbourg). There are constituents to represent, cases to argue that affect real people and their real lives. I saw this first hand with the attempt by a Labour MEP to ram through a de facto ban on e-cigs. And it was Conservative (and some Lib Dem) MEPs that took up the vapers' cause with some success.
2. The case for leaving isn't about Bulgarian chicken slaughterers or Romanian cleaners. Nor is it about border controls, Muslims or the shape of bananas. We need to leave because the revolutionary idea of European co-operation has evaporated and, as Kafka said, "left behind the slime of a new bureaucracy". However, people who support our continued membership are not traitors corruptly taking the Commission's silver to prosecute their personal interests - they're just folk with a different (and I think wrong) view on the European Union
3. It is a fact that, if you want out, the only game in town is to vote Conservative. No other party with a prospect of government proposes an 'In/Out' referendum. I know the Greens and Ukip offer such a choice but the truth is that neither party - and Nigel Farage acknowledges this - will be in government this side of hell freezing over.
I know lots of you want to have a kick at the government, to make the point about power to people in Westminster. And I guess if you do so not much harm will have been done. However you will have elected people who want the Europe debate to be about how "Britain is full up", who want to make people coming here for work unwelcome and who will make cheap capital (and as we found with Geoffrey Bloom, cheap laughs) from attacking gay rights and women working.
So I urge you to make two positive crosses - a vote for Conservatives in the European Parliament and a vote for a Conservative to represent you on Bradford Council.
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9 comments:
Truth is, Cameron would not be hinting at a referendum were it not for the pressure coming from the UKIP vote-risk - I say 'hinting' because it's never a done-deal with a slippery eel. Remember the 'cast-iron guarantee' ? We do, and we don't forget.
We shall be voting UKIP at every opportunity until we leave that wretched EU - no amount of slippery hints from a proven con-man will change that.
No other policy matters because we're not in control of anything important while we're trapped in the EU - not the economy, nor immigration, nor taxes, nor trade, nothing - they're all subservient to Brussels and we want out, then we can start to govern ourselves again after 40 wasted years.
It's nothing to do with liking UKIP or Farage, they are just the exit vehicle, and they're the only one we've got.
You waste your vote if you want to, mine is on a mission to save Britain.
52 years a front line Tory,but as far as I am concerned a vote for the Tories is little more than a vote for a ONE PARTY STATE.
They have totally failed to unravel 13 years of socialist regulation,,restrictions,laws,bans
and red tape.. Traitors and fellow travellers,carpetbaggers and freeloaders they gladly quench
at the wet liberal poisoned chalice
Time for change
I could go along with your thinking if I believed that conservative MEPs were as you say. Unfortunately, I do not believe it. Despite the soundbites ("Looking after Britain's interests, etc"), what I see is surrender to the elite, so much so that I doubt that some of them are actually conservatives.
Do you remember how Milton MP, former health minister, thought that the UK was 'legally obliged' by the FCTC? That is untrue from any angle you chose, but especially that the FCTC was signed by the previous government, and no government can bind a future one. Also, the FCTC is just a treaty, and thus no more than a temporary agreement.
Do you remember Soubry MP, former health minister, rushing off to Luxembourg to sign a 'directive' which she knew so little about that she believed that e-cigs had been withdrawn from the tobacco directive?
Oddly enough, I quite like the idea of closer integration of European countries, but done carefully and by mutual consent rather that a kind of totalitarian fascism.
Sorry I beg to differ, I will not vote for any of the mainstream parties. My reasons are as follows.
1. The EU has made its staff and commission immune from prosecution, from any wrong doing whilst in office or employment within the EU. With this major factor in mind, all the three main parties want the UK in the EU, therefore they agree in the EUs stance.
2. Not one of the three parties actually listens to normal people. They exist in a bubble of bullshit, and like to think they are better than we normal plebs.
3. With the expenses fiasco, which in truth 99% of them were tainted by, they have shown utter contempt for the people they are supposed to represent.
4. They (all parties) have proven they cannot be trusted with either the truth or to do the right thing.
5. The main parties have been in office countless times and never made any real difference at all. All we have had is more and more legislation, which causes problems, then more legislation to to stop the problems, until we are drowning in legislation!
5. It really is about time some one other than the main parties had a go, after all how could it get any worse?
As a lifelong Conservative voter - every election of every type from 1970 to 2005 - and a former party member ...
Hell will freeze over before I vote for the party of David Cameron and the vast majority of his front and back bencher career politicians.
Now, when they drop the infantile plans for plain packaging for tobacco, get rid of the guilt cupboards hiding the tobacco displays in shops, and promise to reintroduce some basic humanity towards, and respect for smokers, and enable us to rediscover a social life, then - but only then - might I return to the fold.
Until then, I will vote for the party that would do all of these things, and most of whose other policies I am wholeheartedly in agreement with too.
Can you guess who that might be?
Sorry. Too little and too late. UKIP is the only way to give the liars and stooges of the main parties the kicking they deserve - and by God they deserve one!
It's not even a question of policy. No party has a manifesto that I wholeheartedly agree with - even over big issues like the EU. That's inevitable, we all have to compromise on details. So I'm voting not for policies but for the ethos and emotional feel of the party that most closely matches my own ideas. Those of of small government, minimal interference, personal responsibility, free thought and speech that I judge provide the best chance of my having the liberty to live my life, in my way, in my own country according to its traditions and social structure. Currently that's UKIP.
So you trust Mr Cameron to deliver on his promised Referendum, do you? How touching.
I cannot bring myself to vote for a Conservative government that persists with policies that I consider to be the antipathy of conservatism (plain packs for cigarettes?!). UKIP will remain the only viable alternative for me until the Cons show some willing to put clear blue water between themselves and the Left on 'Nanny State' issues
Simon, you forget the fact that the Tories said they'd reverse the tobacco display ban but instead passed it once in office. They can't blame that on the Lib Dems because the Lib Dems also said they'd scrap it.
Since then, they've proposed minimum alcohol pricing and are now set to legislate for plain packaging against the will of the people and despite it being a (predictable) failure in Oz. And let's not even mention sweets displays at supermarkets and chocolate oranges.
No-one in their right mind could vote for that.
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