The BBC has been leading on this all day…
Tony Blair says EU vote plan would cause economic chaos
But nothing about this….
Markets spooked by threat of Labour-SNP coalition, economists warn
The prospect of a coalition being formed between Labour and the Scottish National Party after May’s election has frightened financial markets, economists have warned.
But back to Blair and Miliband on Europe.
Last week Miliband told us he was on the side of Big Business and would not have a referendum on Europe….ignoring the electorate’s wishes….
Miliband: EU poll is ‘clear and present danger’ to jobs
The Labour leader has outlined his party’s business manifesto, which includes a promise to “return Britain to a leadership role” in Brussels.
To reinforce Labour’s business message, the party also took out a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times, setting out its determination to “put the interests of Britain and British business first rather than risk an EU exit”.
Now having listened to the BBC reports on this and Blair’s intervention and read their efforts on the Website there’s a rather large hole in their reports, an elephant not in the room…this is a Labour Party that insists it is the Party of the people and is there to defend the ‘people’ against the predators of Big Business….Miliband is now saying that actually, no, what you the ‘people’ think is irrelevant, what really counts is what Big Business thinks. Curiously nowhere in the BBC ‘analysis’ do we get to hear that accusation of utter hypocrisy from Labour….a Labour Party that has made a huge play of being anti-Business now turns around and dumps the ‘people’ for the Fat Cats.
Instead we have Nick Robinson telling us how brave Miliband is for having the guts to stamd up to pressure to have a referendum….
‘Admiring successor’s resolve’
The former prime minister knows that Ed Miliband came under sustained pressure to match the Tory promise of an EU referendum.
He was told “you can’t afford to oppose giving people a say, you’ll never face down the pressure from the press, a referendum’s inevitable” and more besides.
All the more reason, he believes, for admiring his successor’s resolve not to follow suit and for being contemptuous of David Cameron who has.
The BBC quotes Blair attacking Cameron for allowing a referendum when he, cameron, wants to remain in Europe…
“And the oddest thing of all about having this referendum? The PM doesn’t really believe we should leave Europe; not even the Europe as it is today,” he said.
“This was a concession to party, a manoeuvre to access some of the UKIP vote, a sop to the rampant anti-Europe feeling of parts of the media.
“This issue, touching as it does the country’s future, is too important to be traded like this.”
Isn’t that what Democracy is? Regardless of your personal opinions the issues are put to the vote….Blair seems to think it is up to the self-serving elite to make the decisions for us…’us’ who are too uneducated and too easily swayed by the vulgar Press to be trusted with the decision…perhaps Blair wouldn’t like to hold elections at all and just be pronounced, annointed, King? What has the Labour Party come to?
Here’s what the Telegraph said…
Tony Blair: public can’t be trusted to make ‘sensible choice’ on EU
Guido’s take…
The Mail…
Blair’s toxic embrace: Election intervention backfires on Ed as ex-PM says the people can’t be trusted with EU vote
Remember this from Blair way back when…
The People’s Pledge, which campaigns for an EU referendum, have dug out the quotes from Tony Blair’s 2004 pledge to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. Then he seemed rather keen to trust the British public to decide what’s best for them. Now, not so much:
This is what Mr Blair said in the House of Commons:
“Once agreed – Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say.”
Guess not anymore….and the BBC are being very reticent about bringing such hypocrisy to the ‘people’s’ attention….and fail to mention Blair again u-turned…reneging on that promised referendum.
Here’s Nick Robinson not being very informative…just the usual knock about stuff we come to expect…he wraps up with this….
On 7 May this issue alone means the country faces a very significant choice because the two men who want to be your prime minister have themselves made two very different choices about how to handle calls for an EU referendum.
And isn’t that, ladies and gentlemen, one of the things voters say they want?
He’s telling us we get a referendum on Europe because we can vote for a party that wants one or a party that doesn’t….but that of course is rubbish because the General Election is about many issues not just Europe…so no, the General Election is not the same as a separate referendum about Europe….Nick is talking out of his backside…again….and the BBC is being less than open in its analysis, or lack of, of Miliband’s slippery and unprincipled volte faces.
Why should anyone believe a word that Blair says? Almost everyone I talk to, and they people that they seem to know, think he is toxic.
Also, why do lefties talk about the EU in a binary kind of way. Either its EU or nothing?
It isn’t… just over there is a trading block with some of the worlds faster growing economies within it. What is that one called… oh, its the Commonwealth!
Agree absolutely-Tony Blair is in my book a traitor to this United kingdom, who is a mouth piece only to the elite that control Europe. There is very little chance that the conservatives will be able to abide by their claim to give the UK a referendum in 2017, by which time in any event it will be too late-if by some miracle UKIP gain a position that can influence an earlier referendum date, & only if a majority Vote for OUT-Britain may be saved from a continuance of subjugation & its population from starving as the EU demands more and more money to support its declining fascist regime.
There is very little chance that the conservatives will be able to abide by their claim to give the UK a referendum in 2017…
A worse outcome is possible. The Tories are scheming with the LibDems to offer a referendum where European migrants and ‘children’ have a vote. They’ll do anything to stay in. BBC propaganda will be on a scale never seen before. If we end up with a vote to stay in, it will be far worse than no vote at all. That’s where we’re headed.
When the scheme plays out, the Tory party may split. But if Dave weasels out of a vote, it will definitely split and may never recover. For that reason, I think he will offer what Douglas Carswell calls a ‘pretenderendum’.
“The Tories are scheming with the LibDems to offer a referendum where European migrants and ‘children’ have a vote.”
I think you’re right, the ranged weapons of the enemies of democracy and freedom will come fully to bear. The scheming, lies and propaganda will be relentless and it will be pumped out of every orifice the elites can muster, mainly their parties and the media. But the point of democracy is making your voice heard. If this EU referendum comes (and I really hope it does), it’ll be a hell of a fight and it will change everything. Right now, the world is in a huge state of flux anyway and the never-ending struggle against tyranny is reaching a new pitch. The EU has to fall (it will fall anyway but the sooner rather than later) so let’s get ready to kill it.
Of course like you I want to see a referendum, however the depending factor will be the amount of true & relative information is provided to the public voter by the government & its bureaucrats-let’s hope that enough will have the intelligence to fully comprehend the values appertaining to such a massively important factor. Personally after having spent years studying this subject & having lived & worked in Europe I am for OUT-
I personally think that if Dave does get control again of the levers of power, and has the time, we may see him offer a referendum… However it will be biased biased, and full of lies. They will pull out all the stops to con the plebs to believe the EU is a good thing and to vote to stay in. Thanks to the appalling level of education and completely biased and corrupt media … They will be able to engineer a vote for the uk to stay in, however this does not and will not shoot the UKIP Fox. UKIP is here to stay.
Strewth….dragging up this demon after millions displaced, disabled, dead and buried in the Middle East!
It is Blair again using his persuasive power, in my view, that must take a lot of blame for radicalising some British Muslims to Jihad, reaping the results of the vacuum he helped to create, now filled by a Caliphate, a direct result of this LABOUR Charlatans deliberate lies, following a lunatic US President with deceit and going against the biggest demo ever EVER on the streets of this country.
Blair’s radicalisation of Muslims is not taken as seriously a crime as it should be in my view. It certainly is part of the mix, just listen to one of the guys who chopped the head off Lee Rigby in a London street:
“Describing himself as a “mujahid” or jihadist fighter, Adebolajo said he blamed Tony Blair for the death of a schoolfriend who had been killed in the Iraq war.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/09/lee-rigby-murder-accused-adebolajo-religion-is-everything
Dragging up Blair on EU, (remember he wanted us to join the Euro as well), must mean Labour definitely knows it is finished as a party of the people and in terminal decline!
I always had reservations about the misguided Iraq invasion and the Bush and Blair team. Iran was and is a much more serious and committed enemy of the West than was Iraq under Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush standing on that aircraft carrier and proclaiming that the war was won was a fine example of US blundering in its foreign policy (much as I love the US and its people).
But I don’t think we should give too much credence to the claim by Islamic terrorists that their terror is justified because of the West’s action in Muslim countries. We should keep in mind that the Islamist aim is a worldwide caliphate – i.e. Islamic domination over the entire planet – and whatever the West does or doesn’t do will not impact on that aim.
And we should also remember that Muslim terrorism began long before the invasion of Iraq – something the BBC seems to ignore almost completely.
True. Islamic terrorism is as old as Islam itself.
Mr Blair is a collectivist, as are all communists/socialists.The EU is a collectivist construct so naturally he and his ilk will say and do anything to keep us in; another characteristic of socialists/communists is that the end justifies the means. Normal people are more concerned with the individual and in past times that is what lead to our success and general national prosperity.
Has the BBC asked Nichola Sturgeon or any SNP if they would prefer an independent Scotland even if it could mean that Scotland could be impovereished?
They asked the the equivalent of. Nigel Farage .
It’s a hypothetical question maybe .
( Talking to an Old Timer , he asked how Ireland fared after independence , his take on it that they were poorer and shouldn’t have strived for independence . My take is that it’s up to them , and they live with the consequences as they are adult and thers a possibility , probability, that they would be better off )
The EU and it’s enforcers will do absolutely anything to stop us leaving up to and including imprisonment and force. This has always been clear. We go it collapses.
So be prepared for a rough ride.
They know that it is a body that flies in the face of English history and belief in individual freedom.
We had a discussion about freedom earlier on another thread. This is what is at stake.May Blair and his like go to hell.
Who cares about big business.? The nation is something over and above such things.
Dead right-enforcement by stealth or by other means as you point out-but no big business will turn from doing business believe me-business is business never mind the politics.
When Blair first stood for Parliament, Labour policy was to leave the EU, and he supported that.
Strong support today for the Blair position on Europe and for Miliband’s non-dom nonsense from the BBC’s sole expert Robert Peston. Then what else would one expect from the son of a Labour peer? Where is the counter view to balance this predicatable bias?
he is just like a bad smell is tony blair,here is the same man that launched and illegal war against the christian state of serbia when they was defending there lands against the islamists killing over 3000 innocent civilains in belgrade,then he does the same thing by invading iraq and then inviting millions of islamists from all over the muslim world to live in the uk who no doubt wanted revenge for the iraq war and we are here where we are now with isis and there supporters in every town and city in the uk.,blair is insane,just plain insane if he thinks he can deny us a democratic vote whether we want to stay in or pull out of europe,the mans a lunatic.
If people fully understood how the European ‘Parliament’ worked and if the BBC ‘educated and informed’ by doing an honest comparison with our democratic parliamentary system, most would be gobsmacked that we are ruled, in effect, by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats i.e. the Commissioners.
But I think there might be something about the situation the BBC rather likes because, just like their Common Purpose, 28gate, Hope Not Hate, UAF, Hacked Off etc. pals, they are positive proof of an unelected elite who really know what’s best for us and stuff democracy.
Still don’t understand news then? Trying reading a book.
Please sign this petition to abolish the TV licence. Maybe then we can get on with our lives in peace.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/end-the-bbc-licence-fee
PS Over 76,000 signatures already!
During the years of the Second Intifada, well over a thousand Israelis, 70% of them civilians, were slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists on buses, in cafes, restaurants, clubs, in their homes and in drive-by shootings. The silence from the BBC and other lefty media was deafening, naturally, as was the silence from European leaders. As I recall, it was only Tony Blair who came out strongly against the barbarism of those Palestinian attacks.
Now I understand that he has been a disaster for the UK, that the insane Labour policies he helped implement have damaged the country practically beyond repair and that the anger against him is fully justified. But I will always remember that one moment of courage and decency, when so much of Europe, by its silence, made it abundantly clear that it was backing the Palestinians.
Moody’s this morning said that the uncertainty around an EU referendum is the single biggest threat to the UK’s credit rating. Like it or not dangling this as a sop to his right wing and the Kippers is Cameron’s biggest f***-up. He knows it, Osborne definitely knows it.
BTW – it’s not a responsible “democratic” policy any more than giving the public a referendum over tax and public spending would be (clue: we’d be bankrupt in a week).
Everything that puts power into the people’s hands is democratic , even if to some the people make a mistake .
Running a country for anything other than for the people in it is wrong .