Read the full article at the Daily Telegraph
It’s less than a fortnight since Mr Cameron gained a historic overall majority and began his second five years in office. As yet there are no great storm clouds looming, but the first threat of a political squall came when Foreign Secretary Hammond spoke about the proposed renegotiations in Brussels in advance of the promised referendum in 2017.
Philip Hammond is a committed Europhile and known to favour membership of the EU come what may, but his press briefings that there is no need of any Treaty changes to accommodate our needs – just a “satisfactory outcome” to the negotiations – will raise suspicions amongst eurosceptics that we may be in for a negotiation and referendum in the style of Harold Wilson. After all, they would argue, that which is not in the Treaties cannot bind us, so to be released from the bonds which restrict us from acting as we wish must require changes in those treaties.
Nor will the eurosceptics’ concerns be lessened by talk of an earlier referendum, which could be made possible only by restricting the negotiations to a mere window dressing exercise.
At present the hardcore eurosceptics, even Bill Cash, are holding their tongues, having no wish to be labelled as disloyal “bastards” ike those who troubled Mr Major a couple of decades ago. Anyway, they know that if push comes to shove, the Labour leader of the day, and probably the SNP too, would be ready to bail him out. Nor would the Lords be much trouble. There the former diplomats and the EU’s payroll vote of EU pensioners can be relied to vote for Brussels on command.
So it would make good sense for Mr Cameron to get this potential rebellion out of the way before the warm glow of the election victory fades or other problems pile up.
Poor Douglas Carswell, as Ukip’s sole survivor, will be hard put to speak in the Commons for Ukip’s 3.8 million voters above the hubbub of the SNP’s 50 members shouting for their 2.4 million. Nor do I expect Mr Cameron to hasten to redeem his pledge to make the membership of the House of Lords representative of the votes cast at the immediate past General Election, and certainly not before the referendum legislation is safely secured.
Before the election there was much overheated talk in the left wing press of the threat to the leadership of Mr Cameron, but now contests for the Labour and Lib Dem leadership are in full cry and, rather unfairly, there is an almighty punch up in Ukip over whether a leadership election is on or off.
What I find more curious is that beyond the headlines of Labour’s disaster in Scotland, the Lib Dems’ near wipe out and the excitement at Mr Cameron’s overall majority of twelve, there has not been much close examination of the ebb and flow of battles south of the border.
First of all, it is worth giving the headline figures for each party a second look. The Tories secured 331 seats, an increase of 24 over their 2010 total. Labour held on to second place with 232, a loss of 26. The LibDems won just 8, a catastrophic loss of 49, the SNP took 56 and all the others, DUP, Sinn Fein, Plaid, and Greens totalled 23, to make the total of 650. Again it is worth looking at some of those figures more closely. Mr Cameron’s Tories took 26 seats from Mr Clegg’s LibDems, 1 off Ukip, and 8 from Labour making 35 gains, but lost 10 seats to Labour, leaving Mr Cameron 25 up.
Mr Miliband gained 10 seats from the Tories, 12 from the LibDems and 1 from the disgusting ‘Respect’ party, but lost 49 to the SNP. Hence the Tories advanced by 35 minus 10, that is a net 25 to 331 whilst Labour gained 23 and lost 49 to fall back from 258 seats in the old Parliament to 232 in this.
I am sorry to batter readers with so many figures on a Monday morning and will trouble you with only a few more. When it comes to votes cast, things look black for Labour. Mr Miliband could muster only 9.3 million against Mr. Cameron’s 11.3 million. Poor Mr Clegg was out in the cold with only 2.4 million and the triumphant Mrs Sturgeon even less, a mere 1.5 million, whilst Mr Farage’s 3.9 million in third place gave him but 1 seat. Something is clearly not working in our electoral system in this new multi party, regionalised context.
Indeed the sharper eyed observers may have noticed that although the Tories had a clear majority of votes over Labour, 11.3million to 9.3 million, the blundering Mr. Milliband increased Labour’s vote by 700,000 and the triumphant Mr Cameron and his Wizard from Oz lifted the Tories by only 600,000, although even without his Scottish disaster, it would not have propelled Mr Milliband into No. 10.
The next election is very likely five years away but its outcome in terms of the influence of Scottish votes compared with those of other electors in the kingdom may cause the pressure for reform to grow.