Odds On for Ratification

The spread-betting magnate Stuart Wheeler (pictured) has just lost his case in the High Court which aimed to compel the Government to hold to its manifesto commitment and have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The EU (Amendment) Act got Royal Assent on 19 June but has the case held up its commencement until now. There is also the small matter of the Irish voting pretty solidly (53.4% to 46.6%) against the Treaty. In theory the 'Dublin says no' vote should mean the Treaty has been holed below the water line. However the Government remain pretty tight-lipped not wanting to be the first country to admit the 'bleeding obvious' that the rest of the EU will gang up on the Taiseoch, Brian Cowen and mak them vote again until they get it right. Our local MP Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) made this exact same point after Foreign Sec's statement last week. None of this sits terribly well with Yurp lecturing Zimbabwe, China and Burma about our superior democratic principles.

In any case people prefer to vote no on these matters. Even Euro stalwarts Holland and France gave the last Treaty the finger. The electorate will find any tangential issue as an excuse, apparently in Ireland up to 10% of the 'no vote' were motivated by scare stories of Brussels forcing a change of law to allow abortions. Utter twaddle of course. A referendum in UK would be bring out every headbanger sceptic in some vast unholy alliance of loons and conspiracy theorists. Nevertheless the back rooming dealing by the euro leaders seemingly overriding the will of the people simply re-enforces the view it is a self-serving organisation for the political elite.

The Art of Resigning

Our local man, Bob Spink (Castlepoint) resigned from the Conservative Party during the Budget but still only made only a ripple of news. He elected to join UKIP but what else could he do? Resign his seat as well? David Davis (above) has made the curious and almost unprecedented decision to resign his seat in response to the opposition's defeat over 42 day's detention. He wants to stimulate a national debate about authoritarianism over libertarianism. Or so he says. The resignation speech was delivered outside Westminster's St. Stephen's entrance as Mr Speaker had ruled (perversely) it would 'revisit controversial issues' - so what if it did?

The speech included a long litany of Labour Government's "relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms (sic)". It read like a fairly convincing string of rationalisations, cleverly obscuring the underlying motivation. One suspects the spark was Davis's stated commitment to repeal the 42-day detention legislation. It would appear Cameron, as ever, was not willing to be explicit about his Party's future legislative programme. Davis, frustrated by his impotence, took the only action he was able by petulantly resigning his seat. It's like the child at teatime who in a fit of temper declares he is not going to eat his tea. In other words Davis is the only likely loser in this. The early predictions were for him to win very easily or even have a walkover. History suggests he will lose, the public in Humberside may like his 'no nonsense-speak-as-I-find' approach but the electorate don't like voting unless there's a good reason. At present only Kelvin 'Page 3' MacKenzie is considering running but any high profile Independent could slay Davis.