In response to Andrew Cadman: The EU is intrinsically Tory. So Dave will fight to stay a member of the ultimate gentleman’s club, BSO wrote:
I watched Kwasi Kwarteng’s lecture on Palmerston yesterday – as you do. Not being a member of the Conservative Party, I had never heard of him. I was impressed. I say this because I simply don’t know the dynamics inside modern Toryism – the factions, groupings and tensions. For example: I would vote Conservative and possibly join the party if Daniel Hannan was leading it. I know he is an MEP, of course, but I have no idea what support he might garner.
As it is all I see is a useless liberal Home Secretary that makes Charles Clarke look competent, a shallow Chancellor and economic policy (why rebalance the economy when a mini housing boom will do), a Prime Minister who above all thinks making a speech is sufficient for the world to conform. I take the view that this is a socially liberal almost left Conservative Party leadership with no real Eurosceptical credentials at all. If we wait long enough, Cameron will renationalise the railways, not because it is the right thing to do, as it probably is, but because the Bennite Marxist calls for it.
No longer in Coalition there has been, as was obvious, no radical rightward move. Global Warming Hoax, Feminist Gender pay Gap Hoax, Living Wage with no consultation with business (so unless councils are given more money this one measure will capsize the threadbare social care system in one go), getting ready to overthrow Assad (while claiming it is ISIL) to please the Saudis and Qataris, but most of all totally clueless on and in Europe.
The biggest thing missing is a national mission. The idea that the natives of Britain, whatever their colour, come first over any person trying to come into the country regardless of free movement. We are no longer a nation but a federal enclave of Greater Germany. In so many areas we appear to be adrift and mediocre.
The only thing left to make the Conservatives look right wing are vindictive and technical changes around payment of union subs in the public sector (yawn) and real cuts in working tax credits. But this latter one is clearly a set up to allow further offsetting tax cuts and to embarrass the Labour/Feminist/Marxist Party.
I don’t want to be a European. I want to be a British subject who holidays in Europe. Trade yes, unelected dictatorship no. I am coming to the conclusion that the Eurosceptics inside the Conservative Party are also as Mr Cadman says: Happy to stay in their gentlemen’s club, their safe seats and bleat, but do very little about Europe. I conclude with a quote from Palmerston, the clubbable Tories’ Tory:
“It is only from England, and from the exertions of England, that any hope can be entertained of the extinction of the slave trade, and of the ultimate abolition of slavery throughout the world; because it is England alone that feels any deep and sincere interest in the matter.
“England now holds a proud position among the nations of the earth, and exercises a great influence upon the destinies of mankind. That influence is owing, in the first place, to our great wealth, to our unbounded resources, to our military and naval strength. But it is owing still more, if possible, to the moral dignity which marks the character and conduct of the British people…
“Those who desire to see the principles of liberty thrive and extend through the world, should cherish, with an almost religious veneration, the prosperity and greatness of England. so long as England shall ride preeminent on the ocean of human affairs, there can be none whose fortunes shall be so shipwrecked…”
How the mighty, however flawed, have fallen.
