Wednesday, November 04, 2009
NO PROMISE FROM ANYBODY IN THE LAB/LIB/CON PARTY CAN EVER BE TREATED AS TRUTHFUL
Cameron has given a speesch saying he won't keep his promise over the EU treaty but promising lot os new promises about how we will get a referendum next time which are much less credible than the promise he has just broken.
His speech is here in full
I have put my response on Iain Dale's blog here but I want to place it here as well:
He did make a "cast iron promise" (in his own words) that we would have a referendum on it (which to my mind means a referendum on continued full membership but am open to alternatives). There were no weasel words on not having it if it passed.
The new promise seems impossible secondly because, unless Britain adopts a formal constitution which I would like, a promise to bind future governments is non-binding if they vote not to be bound (as with the cynical guarantees that the government of 2100 will ban fire). Primarily it is impossible because this constitreaty contains rules as to how to change itself so that if it is simply impossible to have a referendum on it then it is simply constitutionally impossible to reject future centralisation using those rules.
I am still interested in what the constitution of the Conservative party is. Is it indeed, as Cameron seems to feel, that nobody else has any rights to say what the party stands for today & completely reverse it tomorrow again. Even Stalin didn't, at least in theory, have that power & I find it difficult to believe the Conservative party is more dictatorial.
On a previous occasion MPs issued a personal manifesto on the EU. That should not be necessary this time. They need only state that they adhere to the current & I believe legal position of the party, that we are entitled to a referendum, until its membership decide to change it. I assume the large majority of MPs & almost all members wish to keep the promise.
We are in the situation where all 3 of the major parties have quite deliberately lied to the voters on a matter of major constitutional importance. This cannot be excused as "no new taxes" sometimes can if circumstances change. There are NO unforeseen circumstances forcing any of them to break their word.
If this stands it means there are no circumstances whatsoever under which any representative of any of the 3 major parties can ever be assumed, without strong supporting evidence, to be telling the truth, or in which any promise any of them make can be taken as trustworthy. That being the case democratic government is obviously impossible.
Labels: British politics
