Douglas Carswell's Blog

It's not just about Europe, Matthew

Curious piece by Matthew d'Ancona in the Evening Standard.

He starts off with what one imagines to be a cheer leader piece for Downing Street (as he seems to often do whoever is in Number 10);  All is frightfully radical, and those naughty little backbenchers should just jolly well pipe down.  And, you know, be bally grateful .....

No hint that any of the disquiet might be precisely because the Coalition isn't being radical enough (deficit reduction? Borrowing is up.  Deregulation in the Freedom Bill?  what happened to the promises on recall and open primaries?  If we're localists, why keep the council tax?  What's changed with defence?)

Yet in painting "fractious" backbenchers as Euro-obsessives, Matthew mentions that since the election "Brussels has continued to accrue power".  And despite the way the "Conservative manifesto explicitly promised that key powers would be taken back from Brussels to the UK".

He points out how "Clegg declared that “we are not going to reopen this issue of the repatriation of powers. We are not proposing to go backwards”.  Then seems to have a pop at backbenchers for taking him "at his word".  

Indeed.  Matthew even quotes "one normally loyal Cameroon" for saying "Isn't it a bit odd that we are planning a referendum on constitutional change this year - but on the bloody irrelevant Lib-Dem issue of AV, not on the European question, which hasn't been put to the British people since 1975?”

Far from being something for Euro-obsessives, surely all this cuts right to the heart of the new politics?

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