LORD Tebbit will tonight call for a referendum asking whether Britain should quit the European Union........
Baroness Thatcher, 83, is expected to be a guest at the event hosted by the Tory Euro sceptic Bruges Group in her honour. Lord Tebbit will say: “I hope that the Conservative Party will set out a negotiating brief that the next Conservative government will take to Brussels early in its next term, and that it would within two years of the next election, present to the British people the outcome of its negotiations.
“Then in a referendum the British people would decide whether to accept what was on offer – or simply to leave the union.
It's a useful political test actually. I've long argued that there are two groups in politics. There are those who pursue a specific idea or ideal. Then there are those who are more tribal.
Those latter we know about, those who would only ever vote Labour or Tory. In a way they're not so much interested in ideas as in it being their tribe doing the ruling.
I put myself in the former group.....and I think that most of my fellow members of UKIP are as well. It isn't so much that we should be running the country, that our tribe should be on top. Rather, we're united by the idea that Britain should rule Britain.
And the usefulness of the test here? This idea is being proposed by a Conservative, yes, but is it a good idea? Would I support it? I can only speak for myself of course, but yes, I'd support a call for an in or out referendum whoever it came from.
Yes, even if it were Richard Corbett calling for it, which I think shows my attachment to principle, doesn't it?
1 comment:
Well said. I think Tony Benn uses a similar analogy to describe MPs - weathercocks and signposts. THe former react to focus groups and drift - so pragmatic to have no direction whatsoever, whereas signposts remain steadfast over the yesrs sticking to their beliefs.
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