Come on Iain, let’s start anew, ’cause scrutiny is hard to do
Ever since Nick Clegg’s poll-topping performance in Thursday’s Prime Ministerial debate, the Tories have been calling for greater scrutiny of the Liberal Democrats’ policies. There is obviously a feeling that those old right-wing dog whistles of crime, immigration and Europe may provide the ammunition that Dave needs to kill the beast that Clegg has become to those Tories who can’t understand why the election result hasn’t already fallen into their laps.
So it was to be expected that Tory blogger Iain Dale would turn his fire on us. This morning he published an article entitled: Why Have LibDems Abandoned In/Out Referendum Promise? and also tweeted a link.
Some of you may remember that the LibDems got themselves into all sorts of tangles over the Lisbon Referendum. Eventually, they ended up proposing an IN/OUT referendum. However, when it came to a vote in the House of Lords they abstained on their own policy proposal!
Question: If they formed the next government of the United Kingdom is it still their policy to have an IN/OUT referendum? I see no reason for them to have abandoned this policy in the light of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty as it was not linked to it.
And yet there is no mention of it in the LibDem manifesto.
Why have they abandoned this promise?
What a good question, you might ask. Why have the LibDems abandoned their previous policy? The answer is very simple – they haven’t. A look at the LibDems’s manifesto, published last week reveals the following:
The European Union has evolved significantly since the last public vote on membership over thirty years ago. Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU.
It appears that Iain’s wish to scrutinise the LibDems’ policies isn’t quite as keen as he thinks. Half an hour after the above post, he removed it and added a footnote in tiny print to the next post:
Note: Earlier I posted, asking why the LibDems had apparently abandoned their commitment to an IN/OUT referendum. I read the Euro section of their manifesto three times, but missed the sentence where the commitment is repeated. As soon as I realised my error, I removed the post.
Not so easy, is it Iain? But it’s a little bit easier if you check up by using a searchable PDF.
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- Are you drinking what he’s drinking?
- Guardian sniping may prove the coalition’s popularity
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