Highlights of David Cameron's reply to Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn had a shadow cabinet reshuffle this week which took three days. He had recently allowed a free vote on Syria in which his shadow foreign and defence secretaries, (the latter being one of the Eagle sisters who it was first rumoured would be sacked or demoted and was eventually moved sideways instead) took a different position to himself. Far from stamping his authority on the Labour party his reshuffle merely highlighted the divisions in the Labour party.

Which made it rather unwise of him to criticise the Prime Minister during the latter's statement on the  European Council for allowing his ministers to take either side in the forthcoming referendum campaign, particularly as shadow ministers had been allowed to take either side in the recent Syria vote.

A short response might have been "Dear Pot, thank you for your remarks, sincerely, Kettle" but here are some highlights from how the PM actually responded.



Comments

Jim said…
It does not really matter if they have a "free vote" or not in the commons. The referendum is a referendum because it could not be decided in parliament.

So really the only vote that matters is the vote that takes place on the day of the referendum. Its one in which every one who is eligible can vote, how ever they want to, in secret.

And in this poll, the politicians are pretty much irrelevant. They have the same vote as everyone else, that is one each. It holds no more or no less vote that everyone else's vote, so once again, MPs are pretty much irrelevant to it.
3:21 pm
Jim said…
However this is the one that really interested me.


Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab):

Many of those who argue for us to leave the European Union suggest that we could continue to be part of the single market without having to abide by any of the obligations that go with it. Does the Prime Minister know of any non-EU states that enjoy free trade with the single market but are not part of the free movement that goes with it?


The Prime Minister:

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Look, my argument will in no way be that Britain could not succeed outside the European Union, because of course we could; we are a great country, the world’s fifth largest economy and a great trading power. The argument will be about whether we would be more prosperous and more secure inside or outside a reformed EU. To answer his question directly—I answered this when I went to Iceland—countries such as Iceland and Norway have to obey all the rules of the single market, including on the free movement of people, but without having any say on what those rules are. In Norway it has been described as democracy by fax, because the instructions comes through from Brussels, and they pay more per head to the EU than we do. It will be for the campaign responsible to make the arguments about what life would be like outside the EU, and this is a crucial question that it will have to answer.


There he goes again, with the Norway has to obey the rules but has no say line. I am sorry, but I know the PM has been corrected on this matter several times, but still he repeats it parrot style. There is no other way of putting it anymore, the man is Lying. He stood up in front of the house of commons and deliberately and blatantly Lied

there is no other way to put it unfortunately.
3:56 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
How seriously annoying - I spent an hour earlier this week researching composing and posting a response to the above accusation that the PM was lying in which I demonstrated with links to their own words to provide proof, that the comments David Cameron made which said you described as lies were repeating exactly what the present Norwegian Attorney General and European affairs minister have said.

And now I find that between my computer and Blogger the wretched thing has disappeared.

I think I will have to recreate it and post it as an article.
10:47 pm
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