A number of my very good supporters have already told me that they voted UKIP in the Euro elections because they wanted to make a point.
I am now in a quandary. Do we kick them out of the local party or do I keep quiet? Well, I am obviously not keeping quiet.
So what should the party do? If its got any sense at all, it should recognise that occasionally good Tories, for their own good reasons, will vote in a way the party doesn’t like.
Tough! The party better get used to it or create a policy which those good Tories can support.
And don’t tell me the EU is a democratically based organisation. It isn’t.
We go through the whole farce of voting for a Parliament which has very limited powers.
The Commission is the only institution that is empowered to initiate legislation and they are not directly elected.
In fact, the only real power the Parliament has is to refuse to sign off the Budget.
No wonder good Tories want to change this situation.
So I have some sympathy with those who voted UKIP for that reason and that is why I will continue to turn a blind eye.
Unfortunately the Conservatives will not getting my own or my families support at the GE either. The Europe problem has reached a head and needs to be dealt once and for all. I cannot in good conscience vote Tory and watch the UK’s sovereignty gradually leech away to Europe. Unless Cameron grows a spine and renegotiates our relationship to Europe with a view to returning to a trade agreement only I will be voting UKIP again.
This is a very good idea. When asked how I voted I said I spent the Thursday of the EU elections helping Roger Helmer in Daventry. My desire is to work hard to elect our local Parliamentary Candidate for the Conservatives.
I refused to lift a finger to walk the streets in my own ‘region’ which contained two of the culprit MEPs (James Elles and Richard Ashworth) who signed the notorious letter to the Telegraph refusing to come out of the EPP in the European Parliament despite David Cameron’s pledge to come out (in 2005) within days not weeks; it’s taken four years!
We have to put relentless pressure on the upper reaches of the Conservative Party’s bosses, movers and shakers to exert more power on behalf of this country, not bend over backwards to bring in European laws that work against the interests of our people.
Under any outrage over expenses etc, the euroscepticism of the country must not be ignored!
Well said Brian. You have got a good debate going on Conservative Home and mostly agreeing with you.
I think the reason that some Tories drift towards UKIP is obvious, the Conservative Party is losing its conservatism. The Cornerstone Group, to me, represent the resistance and healthy reactionism rather than the mainstream Conservative Party.
We must hope for reform from within or a new party to represent the values if TCG.
http://theantipolitician.wordpress.com/
Brian, you are right. I am Conservative voter, who has at every national election since 1979 voted tory, but at the last 2 european elections have vented my anger with our party’s leadership by voting UKIP.
I don’t normally respond to blogs, but I agree with your thought for the day. The Conservative Party must find a way to reach out to people just like me who want a firm commitment to put the Lisbon Treaty to the people of this country. We will not accept the limp wristed answers that Ken Clark and other seem to be dishing out.
If the Conservatives honour their pledge to hold a referendum, then I for one and many old farts like me will come back to the party’s fold and if you do not then, well my protest vote might not remain a protest vote.
Well said Mr Binley. Time to sack that old has been Clarke as well!