Barroso makes a fool of himself
Some of my colleagues were rather upset by the attack on British Conservaties in general, and Martin Callanan, Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in particular, by EU Commission president Manuel Barroso.
Personally I felt that Barroso's attacks on Martin and my colleagues were too silly to be worth getting upset about. And the chances of it losing the Conservatives any votes are somewhere between slim and none - most floating voters will not have picked up his remarks at all. And of those who do there will probably be as many who think getting attacked by the head of the commission indicates that your criticisms have hit a raw nerve as those who think this is something to be worried about.
He accused "Eurosceptics" of wanting Europe "back in the trenches" and delighting in Europe's difficulties.
No. Euro-phobes are the people who cheer when things go wrong in Europe and want to to back to the trenches.
Euro-sceptics are the people who put forward constructive criticism.
What did sadden me is that Manuel Barroso's inability to see the difference between Conservative and UKIP policies suggests he has lost sight of the difference. Which is not a good place for the head of the european civil service to be.
Personally I felt that Barroso's attacks on Martin and my colleagues were too silly to be worth getting upset about. And the chances of it losing the Conservatives any votes are somewhere between slim and none - most floating voters will not have picked up his remarks at all. And of those who do there will probably be as many who think getting attacked by the head of the commission indicates that your criticisms have hit a raw nerve as those who think this is something to be worried about.
He accused "Eurosceptics" of wanting Europe "back in the trenches" and delighting in Europe's difficulties.
No. Euro-phobes are the people who cheer when things go wrong in Europe and want to to back to the trenches.
Euro-sceptics are the people who put forward constructive criticism.
What did sadden me is that Manuel Barroso's inability to see the difference between Conservative and UKIP policies suggests he has lost sight of the difference. Which is not a good place for the head of the european civil service to be.
Comments
There is nothing I like more than annoying the EU Commission
Tim - We want to let all the voters of Britain make that decision.
You could say rebuke the European Communities act - but that would cause havoc, it really would. The UK has many trade deals from simply being an EEA member (by virtue of our EU member status), also there are other trade deals we take advantage of which are not british they are for example EU - Brazil deals.
I would argue the only way forward is to negotiate better terms for the UK, the way to do this is to invoke article 50 of TEU, this gives us 2 years to negotiate the best possible deal for the UK out of the EU, a very handy "off the shelf stepping stone measure" would be to become EEA/EFTA thus we keep the trade but lose the political intergration. Also dont listen to the "No Say" FUD, thats all it is FUD, ebery member has a Veto and a stronger position than a member state at the "top table".
This has been a major problem with UKIP, its fine to say "we want to leave the EU" but unless you lay out exactly how you intend to do it then its not worth much.
Your view, as I understand it Jim, that in the event of an "out" vote Britain should negotiate for the best available EEA option makes a lot of sense.