Can Tory designs to damage our place in Europe be thwarted?

All pro-Europeans need to do what they can to stop a Tory victory in next year’s election.  The party which took us into Europe and which produced leading European statesmen for a generation has now taken itself out of the mainstream of European development and threatens to marginalise Britain in the affairs of the Union.

At the moment the auguries are set fair for our desired result.  The polls suggest a hung parliament.  Labour appears to be concentrating on bringing out its core vote.  This allows a two-pronged squeeze on the Tory vote in its heartlands.  UKIP will attack from the right and the Liberal Democrats will benefit from a collapse in the Labour vote and apply pressure from the left.  It very much depends upon those two parties getting the funds needed even in these times of recession.

A hung parliament will not only mean no precipitate action on the Europe front but it could also lead to more serious thought on parliamentary reform.  Eurosceptics bang on about the democratic deficit in Europe while blithely ignoring the shameful shortfall in democracy here at home.  Democracy cannot be merely one man one vote.  It surely entails that each vote should count equally.  In the last election it took 96,539 Lib Dem votes to elect each of their MPs and only 26,906 votes to elect a Labour MP.  [11.12.09]