What is it with this bloody thing that is getting so many people worked up and in a tizzy?
From what I've read and heard - and yes perhaps I am being naive - the commitment to withdraw from the EPP has not been scrapped, William Hague has just said that the delivery date is not going to be tomorrow. As Conservatives' it seems to me that we should be happy that the leadership is not making overtly radical decisions and is being cautious about how it achieves it commitment - which remains a commitment.
As EU_Serf points out, the problem stems from our potential new grouping partner from the Czech Republic and Poland having a public row. It's all sort of thrown a spanner in the works. Where I disgree with Serf is that we should just have pulled out then made the grouping afterwards. That would've have disrupted the gravy trainers to be sure, but it would've also marginalised what little power we had in the EP even more. So I think we went for the least worst option.
The spanner in the works means that if we forge ahead alone we not only lose influence but end up sitting in the Parliament with the other independents. That - for me at least - provides a gift to Labour to start banging on about us being extremist which we're not.
Just because it's not happening tomorrow, doesn't mean it never will. You're all free to call me a naive bastard now if you like.
UPDATE: Does this mean I'm not naive?
4 comments:
I think we ought to know more about what our Conservative MEPs think about this.
That would be the thread which I participated in having Tim close then.
heh... yep
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