In or Out says Cameron

when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum.

It’s nice to glimpse a working TV, mine has been unusable since I moved. I’ve been awfully lonely without Eamonn Holmes. When Cameron said the words “It will be an in-out referendum” it was like he knew I was there, like he’d timed his whole speech so that I would be stood there in the canteen with my fruit, mueseli and yoghurt ready hear those magical words “in-out referendum” with David looking me (no-one else, just me) directly in the eye.

Of course it could be a total co-incidence, or clever stagecraft; and the promise not worth the ever diminishing value of a cent.

Discuss.

7 Comments

  1. Cameron needs to go into the negotiations wit a Guillotine. A real one, preferably, but a virtual, temporal one such that if no agreement is made by YYYYMMDD, then a yes no vote will occur regardless.

    Anything less, and the EU will faff, delay, bluster, promise, withdraw, backslide ad infinitum until some further treaty pushes for compulsory surrender of sovereignty.

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  2. It feels like he is just kicking the issue into the distance. How can he promise a referendum in X years when he may not even be in power in X years. Cos you can guarantee if Miligoon and Clegg form the next coalition they are not going to risk their retirement plans with anything silly like a referendum…

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  3. It seems as if Cameron is beginning to worry about losing a significant fraction of the Conservative vote to UKIP.

    There’s no guarantee that any such referendum will actually take place, nor that if it does, its results will be binding and not just something for the government to ‘take under advisement’ or otherwise render meaningless.

    It’d be nice if Cameron’s statement were actually the truth of the matter, but I think measured skepticism rather than enthusiasm is probably the more rational response to it.

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    1. I have wanted Cameron to set the referendum this Parliament, but, as another mentioned, right now he is unlikely to be able to get the legislation through the house until he has a absolute majority without being shackled to the LibDem corpse.

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