Euroscepticism
A Triumph for David Cameron
That’s the blog post I would like to write – not because I am a cheerleader for the Prime Minister but because it would be a challenge. But, despite Dan Hodges’ best effort to explain why Ed Miliband has blown his chance (Times, pay wall), it doesn’t seem possible to explain how this week’s EU referendum [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 15 May 2013 at 12:02 pm
Ed Miliband on Europe
The next question is whether Ed Miliband will match David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on EU membership by the time of the 2015 election. He could have pre-empted Cameron’s promise, which was advertised several months in advance, but he chose not to. I suspect that there was a vigorous debate with Ed Balls, who [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 3:01 pm
Tory Bennism on Europe
Tory Bennism takes hold: the Sunday politics news is all about which Conservative minister says what precisely about Europe. Labour fell victim to litmustestism in opposition in the 1980s, when the precise number of top “monopolies” to be taken into public ownership mattered deeply to nerds. But to do it in government is unusual: it [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 12 May 2013 at 12:22 pm
David Davis on a “mandate referendum”
No, I didn’t know what it meant either. David Davis explains it well in this transcript of his interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Sunday Politics. But it is the politics of fruitcake and David Cameron will, of course, have nothing to do with it. Politely.
AN: Joining me now from his Altrincham constituency, former [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 5 May 2013 at 9:12 pm
UKIP Chairman Endorses Theresa May on Abu Qatada
I scored an unexpected Blairite victory on Voice of Russia radio today. We were discussing the Abu Qatada case with David Coburn, chairman of UKIP London, who wants the UK to decide who it keeps and who it chucks out, with Abu Q in the second category. Obviously, he want to repudiate the European Convention [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 29 April 2013 at 4:36 pm
Eastleigh: all the wrong lessons
Too many Conservatives are sure to take the wrong lesson from third place in the Eastleigh by-election, which is that they should be more Eurosceptic, tougher on immigration and should never have legalised gay marriage.
The right lesson, of course, is that they should have supported the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum. It wouldn’t have [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Friday, 1 March 2013 at 9:20 am
Cameron on Europe “turned a trap into a tryst with destiny”
David Hayes has a lovely long essay on Britain’s history with Europe in Inside Story, an Australian website. He sees the crisis of the eurozone as a big moment in this long story, which “makes the prime minister’s referendum démarche on 23 January all the more intelligible, and his craftsmanship in turning a political trap into [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 February 2013 at 5:39 pm
When Blair wanted an “in or out” EU referendum
Tony Blair was on the Andrew Marr show this morning, interviewed by Sian Williams. She did a good job of asking some quite hard questions, although not getting much by way of answers.
On the extension of the “war with terrorism” to north Africa, she asked if the “Islamist ideology” of which he spoke really is [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 3 February 2013 at 2:18 pm
Cameron’s Public Plot to Stay in the EU
David Lidington, the Europe minister, was on BBC1 Sunday Politics yesterday. The BBC sends transcripts to journalists but doesn’t put them on its website, so here it is.
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Monday, 28 January 2013 at 8:33 am
Cameron on Europe: right, wrong or … political?
We Sunday columnists are divided over the Prime Minister’s speech on the European Union.
Matthew d’Ancona says David Cameron got it right and it was all part of the grand modernising plan. Andrew Rawnsley says it was “a terrible mistake, quite possibly the fatal error of his premiership”. And I am somewhere in between, saying that [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Sunday, 27 January 2013 at 7:08 pm
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