The Europe-Sized Hole Buried Deep in the Tory Heart ; Mr Cameron Promised a Referendum He Can't Deliver: Now We Need to Know How He Will Deal with the Eu
Evening Standard - London › November 04, 2009
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Summary
TWENTY years ago this month, the Czechs provided one of the highlights of a historic year when the Velvet Revolution in Prague drove the Communists from power. Now Prague has shaped the fortunes of Europe rather less entertainingly, but again decisively. In grudgingly ratifying the Lisbon Treaty yesterday, Vaclav Klaus has caused his spiritual ally David Cameron a Europe-sized headache.
The odd thing about the British Conservative position is that it does not seem to have calculated the consequences of its own stance with any accuracy. Mr Cameron pledged a referendum but he must surely have known he might well be unable to deliver it. It's no good, really, blaming Tony Blair for his volte face on a promised vote, or the Irish for finally voting "yes", or the Czech courts for being disobliging and declaring the treaty legal. This was an unambiguous promise: it did not come with small print and a lawyer from the Turks and Caicos.See the full content of this document
Extract
The Europe-Sized Hole Buried Deep in the Tory Heart ; Mr Cameron Promised a Referendum He Can't Deliver: Now We Need to Know How He Will Deal with the Eu
True, it has been effectively dead since the party conference, when Boris Johnson had the bad manners to ask for a referendum the leadership knew it could not deliver. But Mr Cameron is spookily like Mr Blair in a tendency to make grand commitments which he then slips out of, citing a c...
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