Thursday, January 24, 2013

UK: Cameron the political animal

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru


David Cameron, or his advisors, have just earned him the epitaph of a political terrorist of monstrous proportions. His speech early today on Britain's relationship with Europe has probably already guaranteed his Conservative Party an absolute majority in the forthcoming elections in 2015.

Feeding on a moment of Euro-skepticism in the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party's Prime Minister David Cameron has brought Europe to centre stage, promising an "in/out" referendum on condition that the Conservative Party gets a majority in the next Parliamentary elections in 2015. By doing this, he will garner the support of the UKIP voters, the second political force behind Labour in opinion polls on European issues, and the Euro-skeptics within the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party, plus all the floating voters who do not like Brussels dictating how British people should run their affairs.

He will also garner the support of all those whose hearts and minds are set against the way the European Union has been imposed in a top-down wholly undemocratic and cynical attitude in which the populations of few countries were asked if they wanted to adhere to the new super-State and when they were allowed to and said no, then the vote was repeated ad infinitum until the "No's" gave up.

While the European Union deserves it and while all Prime Ministers of all member states should show the same mettle, the fact that Cameron has linked the opportunity for the British people to, for once, have a say in matters which directly affect their standard of living, to a majority vote in the forthcoming election in 2015, is paramount to calling his electorate donkeys.

In short, David Cameron is dangling a carrot in front of the British people, goading them into voting for his unpopular Conservative Party because he is afraid that he hasn't a hope in Hades of winning the next election if things stand as they are, upon which what will happen?

In taking this decision he has effectively neutered the popular United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and rendered their vote redundant, he has exposed his coalition partners the Liberal Democrats as being Europhiles in a Europhobic nation (watch the Lib-Dems implode into oblivion) and has left the main Opposition leader Ed Miliband (Labour) a hot potato in his hands: balancing the rational and informed Britons who wish to remain in the EU but not on these terms and those whose gut reaction is a knee-jerk response to years of interference by Brussels, by cheese-eating surrender monkeys, onion-chomping Continentals riding around on bicycles wearing hooped shirts and black caps, who drive on the wrong side of the road, don't know what a proper breakfast is, don't drink tea with milk and hide the poor quality of their meat under sauces.

David Cameron is more than a PR man - he is a political terrorist of monstrous proportions who has got it all right for all the wrong reasons. By doing what he has done, he could enter the annals of British history as the hero who took Britain back to its Commonwealth and those of the European Union as the pariah who tolled its death knell.

On the other hand, he also runs the risk of being labeled as a lightweight and a fraud, especially if Scotland decides to pull out of the UK before the UK can pull out of the EU and if he then reneges on his promise to hold a referendum.

I mean...erm... hasn't he said that before?

Were Ed Miliband more astute, he would immediately have said "OK vote for us and we will do the same thing" and Labour would have countered any advantage Cameron hoped to have gained within seconds. Until Miliband does, it seems more than certain that Cameron will be the Prime Minister of the UK at least until 2020.

Politically, brilliant.