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.