PC 6: Let the People Vote?

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

I am pleased to support the only vote that should matter when it comes to the future of our currency, an in/out referendum on the Euro. What this issue boils down to is sovereignty, and while Labour may wish to run away from the difficult conversations and the factional right of the party may wish to ignore any votes that don't align with their narrow-minded ideology, the Conservative Party will deliver a sovereign vote for the sovereign people of this United Kingdom.

[Will Frost]

In my article in the Sun, I confirmed that the Conservative Party would table a motion demanding the Government either rule out Britain adopting the euro all together, or end the uncertainty by empowering the British people to determine their destiny via a referendum. Tonight, we have kept our promise. Our Shadow Foreign Secretary has just tabled Motion 2 before the House, and delivered a compelling argument in favor of protecting the pound and dispelling with the prospect of Britain adopting the single currency once and for all. Not only do the Conservatives believe that the euro is bad for Britain, but we trust that the British people have come to the same conclusion. This is their future on the line, the sovereignty of their country, and the future of their economy. They know what is best for their businesses, their communities, and their families.

It's time we trust that the British people will get this right, and if the Government won't do it now, allow them to decisively reject the euro.

[Sir Dylan Macmillan]

It is absolutely imperative for the future of our nation that the Government back the letter and intent of Clarice's Motion released earlier today in the House of Commons. Uncertainty, as has been created by four years of Labour bickering back and forth between the two most senior men in the land, leads to loss for all our citizens. It is time to create certainty out of uncertainty and support a very sensible referendum on the Euro rather than leave the issue kicking around for another half a decade while Labour work out which focus group they should follow.

[Sir Jack Anderson]

The government will take no lectures on division from a party that is currently locked in vicious briefing wars, on uncertainty from a party that has admitted it won't have an official policy until those briefing wars are over and on giving people a say when it refuses to give its party members a say - moments after pledging to do so.

The Leader of the Opposition told the country he wanted the government to put a referendum forward to 'move on from the issue' and to 'break the deadlock.' It's clear he isn't talking about the issue or deadlock in the country, but the one in his own party. This government refuses to hold the economy hostage to a currency it's ill prepared for just to bail him out.

[Owain Jones]

The Tories have now changed from calling for a referendum before any decision on Euro by the government to now calling for the referendum to be held after the government makes a decision. The Tories keep changing week to week on their European policy.

[Barclay A.A. Stanley]

My sentiments on what has been a disastrous performance from the Conservative Party in a largely avoidable debate that they themselves created. What were they thinking? I have access to their HQ and the shadow cabinet chat and I don't even know. A lesson to everyone here, at the expense of the Tories, is that sometimes it is better to wait and see than to jump out and be first. Sure, there are other times wherein it is important to be first; but in this case, everyone should recall that there has already been jostling on this issue before the round started, and parties have already basically established their positions. In fact, the pre-round summary told you that the Tories took a definitively Eurosceptic position in the last election and did incredibly well with it. Likewise, the Labour Party wrote in their manifesto, clearly, that the Euro was always going to go to a referendum. So the strategy here is perplexing, to say the least. The ensuing seven pages of press comments did very little to clarify the strategy from that point of view.

To whit: the discussion didn't begin so badly. Tories coming together to discuss the important point they thought they had to make. I can understand that, so far: Mary MacAndrews, the new Prime Minister, is known for being pro-Euro so why not try to score a political point about it? Well, this is where my previous comment about waiting to see comes into effect. Had the Tories chosen to be a little more conservative in their assault, perhaps by asking the question of the Labour government, then they would have realized that the government's position was simple: once the "five tests" are met, we will hold a referendum on whether or not to join the Euro. That shifts the discussion, and pulls the rug out from under the Tories hard who, somehow, never considered this possibility. The discussion is no longer whether there should be a referendum, but when the referendum should be held. Once this was done, there was no longer a debate to be had on whether or not to hold a referendum (at least from the respective front benches). The Government were smart here (or, rather, the Tories were incredibly hasty and not so smart) because it takes a major issue that has the promise to win a lot of points and turns it into a technocratic debate on what the best public policy decision is. And who is better at technocratic public policy debates than New Labour?

You see, the Tories were prepared for a vast, philosophical debate about the importance of a referendum. They were not, of course, ready to have that debate with their own members but we will get to that later. What they did not expect (but should have) was for the Labour Party to essentially say "yeah, we also will have a referendum; only, we won't have the referendum until we think it is safe for the country to adopt the Euro, should the referendum result suggest that we do it." Essentially, the Labour Party took the wind the Tories thought they had right out of William Croft and Dylan MacMillan's sails and made them look foolish and reckless. In that sense, this is not a win for the Labour Party so much as it is them stealing a win from the Conservative Party.

So why did the Tories lose so hard? Because then comes the Monday Club brigade to say "no, our leader is wrong; we shouldn't have a referendum." That, in and of itself, is not a big deal. Backbenchers have differences of opinion. No big deal. But then the Tories decided to give them more air time. Another lesson: when your backbenchers express their opinion, just shut up. Say nothing. Don't talk about it. KEEP ON MESSAGE. When you let the backbenchers who have a difference of opinion from you control the narrative, you have already lost and you've looked incredibly weak while you're at it. Now, this is the second or third time that William Croft has allowed a backbencher to set the agenda and the parameters of the debate: the first two were with then-backbencher Dylan MacMillan and now with Cosette Beavis-Butteridge.

Ultimately, nobody's performance in this shone like the sun, but CBB did gain, personally, with +1 XP; and the Monday Club has also managed to convince some of the more hardline Eurosceptics in the NTB to shift over, meaning that the Monday Club gained 10 additional MPs at the expense of the NTB. Likewise, the Conservative Party has lost 8 momentum points from this whole sordid affair, and Labour has gained 2.