UKIP and Conservative policy on the EU

Sean Gabb's latest Free Life Commentary is based upon a memorandum he arranged to be given to the leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard. The creation of this memorandum was prompted by a number active members of the UK Independence Party who approached Mr. Gabb to ask him if he could use his contacts get a message to Mr. Howard and to perhaps meet with him. They wanted to urge the Conservative leader to end his official ambiguity about our membership of the European Union.

Many UKIP supporters are conservatives at heart. They want to believe that the Conservative party will help to end the ever increasing entanglement of Britain within the EU. They want to believe that the Conservative party will take a EUrosceptic view and, more to the point, they want to believe that the party really means it. If they are not convinced then, it seems, that they would rather be in opposition to Labour government than represented by a Conservative government that is unclear and untrusworthy on the issue of the EU. Better to have a clearly defined and open enemy.

They will, in other words, do what they can to wreck the Conservatives electoral chances.

Here's what Mr. Gabb has to say on the effect his memorandum and his meeting had:

I submitted this memorandum. We had a long and a personally friendly meeting. But there was no agreement. I was assured that there would be no change of policy and no change of emphasis. The Conservative leadership would under no circumstances talk about withdrawal from the European Union. For my friends in the UK Independence Party - who had almost certainly made other approaches - this was enough. They would begin their wrecking strategy. They would prepare to destroy Oliver Letwin and any other Conservative politician they thought vulnerable.

It seems that the message many Conservative voters sent their party by voting UKIP in the recent European MEP elections has been discounted and I have to say that I was pretty much convinced that this was the case.

It is the primary reason why I did not renew my party membership last month.

It looks to me as if Eurosceptic conservative individuals are destined to spend quite some time in opposition. Indeed, it seems unlikely to me that any party with eurosceptic views strong enough to seek a withdrawal of political and legislative union will ever form a majority government in Britain. However, I think we need to realise that this bleak outlook would be even more bleak if we were to place our faith in a failing Conservative government that might hint at talking tough on Europe but actually intends on not being tough at all.

Mr. Gabb has provided us conservatives with a valuable insight into the truth of the matter. Some of us raised our voices by voting UKIP last time round and we have been ignored.

At least we now know where we really stand.

Posted by John at October 1, 2004 09:45 AM | TrackBack