EU Referendum

Been rather neglecting Defence of the Realm. Making up for lost time, though, a long post here.

Belatedly picked up from Reuters is news of the South African Air Force cancelling its $5.2 billion contract to buy eight Airbus A400M transports.

Government spokesman Themba Maseko cites rising costs and delivery delays, while defence minister Lindiwe Sisulu says: "We have terminated the contract with Airbus but we've not terminated our quest to ensure we have the necessary capabilities. That is very clear."

Odds are the SAAF will be looking to Lockheed Martin and the C-130J for its "capabilities", knocking another hole in this symbol of European unity and "know-how".

Already (at least) three years late, we have had no further news of the aircraft's first flight, even though Airbus promised it would fly by the end of this year or in the first weeks of 2010. Yet, in December, participating governments are finally to decide whether to go ahead with the aircraft.

If the British government had any sense, it would be following in the footsteps of the South Africans.

COMMENT THREAD

Twenty eight years and 91 days, the Berlin Wall lasted. But today, on the 20th anniversary of its fall, we are but days away from the erection of a new wall, with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December.

The most difficult thing we confront is the fact that the wall is invisible – it exists in the "hearts and minds" of our rulers, who have erected near-impenetrable barriers between themselves and the peoples of Europe, pretending to represent them but representing only themselves.

Their new European empire thus makes each individual member state an occupied country. We are ruled by an alien power based in Brussels, which has never gained the assent of the peoples and which has never sought a legitimate mandate.

As the resistance movement grows, we will bring it down. And it will not take twenty eight years and 91 days to bring about that happy event.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

After abandoning plans to hold a referendum on Europe, following last week’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, reports The Daily Telegraph, Mr Hague said the Tories accepted that constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years.

Until then, he agreed that it would effectively be "business as usual" for Britain within Europe under the Tories.

And there you have it, straight from the horse's xxxx mouth. This is the brave new world of Tory euroscepticism ... "business as usual". And why are we not in the least surprised?

LISBON TREATY THREAD

A partial explanation for the light blogging. The Defence Debate over in Jersey. From the left, General Sir John Wilsey, President of the Royal British Legion – Jersey Overseas Branch, Air Marshal Philip Sturley, President of The Royal Air Forces Association, Peter Troy, chairman, yours truly, and Canon Dr Peter Williams, Vicar of Gouray.

Interestingly, I met an Army Captain today, who had been at the debate - where I had expressed serious doubts about the campaign in Afghanistan. He had been in theatre and told me that those doubts were very much shared by the soldiers in the field.

More when I get back home tomorrow.

The Independent on Sunday records a senior Tory MP saying yesterday that Mr Cameron would have to move quickly in the first year and a half of his premiership and had to show "real progress" on his promises.

The MP said: "I don't think a promise of a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU in more than five years will sit very well. He [Cameron] needs to make progress, within the first 18 months of his premiership. If he does, it will be his crowning glory, but if he doesn't, it will be a thorn in his side."

Another Eurosceptic backbencher said: "We have agreed to keep quiet on this before the election, but if things do not start happening in the first year or so, there will be all-out war for a referendum."

LISBON TREATY THREAD

The Sunday Telegraph is amongst several newspapers who link the erosion of democracy with Remembrance Day, and thence to the point we made recently about the paradox of fighting for "democracy" in Afghanistan, when we have given away our own.

Our ancestors fought for our freedom, and the current generation is fighting and dying in Afghanistan for the same cause. Yet it is indisputable that those freedoms for which they fought and are fighting have been steadily eroded, to the point where we are no longer an independent nation. We have lost that ultimate freedom – the freedom to govern ourselves.

This, however, will be the last Remembrance Day before the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. Next year, we will be remembering not only the lives that were expended in the cause of our freedom, but the fact that we have, despite the sacrifices, lost that freedom. Those who died have died in vain.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

"Amid all the detailed argument about the Lisbon Treaty and referendums, it is easy to ignore a basic truth about Cameron's EU strategy and the trajectory upon which he is now set. This will be the first unequivocally Eurosceptic government of modern times."

So says Matthew d'Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph. Thus, following in the footsteps of Daniel Finkelstein and Benedict Brogan, he is the third prominent political commentator (to our knowledge) to mark Cameron's "modern" Conservatives as "eurosceptic".

However, all this does is illustrate - as we remarked in our piece on Brogan - that the political claque, living in exactly the same bubble as the politicians, is equally out of touch.

The remarkable thing is that d'Ancona, like his fellow travellers, almost certainly believes that Cameron is a eurosceptic. But, if they cannot distinguish between a europhile and a eurosceptic, they are not equipped to offer sensible comment on one of the most important political issues of our time.

Such men, who so fundamentally lack judgement and understanding, are part of our problem.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

With Tom Wise awaiting sentencing for fraud, after changing his plea to guilty last week, Daniel Foggo in The Sunday Times gives the background to the case. Neither Wise nor UKIP come out well.

Not least, as Daniel is now able to record, UKIP – contrary to its claims – went to great lengths in an attempt to cover-up Wise's criminal activities. This segment from his article makes particularly interesting reading:

In court, the bearded and bespectacled Wise cut a pathetic figure for a man once elected in the name of a party committed to ending the EU "gravy train", though his arrogance remained intact.

It was a quality that had first struck me four years ago when he had attempted to bluster his way through my questions about his employment of Jenkins. Later, when he had been supposedly "exonerated" by the EU payments office, he had pompously said that my "attack on his character" had not deterred him from his important work. Wise even took legal advice on how to sue a political commentator who wrote blogs on the story, paying for it — although he did not proceed — with taxpayers' money from the same fund he was accused of abusing.

Arrogance is a quality that is not in short supply within UKIP; nor is an ability to dissemble and prevaricate. As Wise awaits a possible jail term at his sentencing this week, who knows which politician and which party will enter the dock next.

The EU has achieved the goal it has worked stealthily towards for so long - a supra-national government which is now beyond our recall, writes Booker in his column today.

He finds it appropriate that, as the trap has snapped shut, he politician who finally let the EU get its constitution should have been Klaus, the veteran anti-Communist. It was he that predicted, just before the Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004, that it would mean the end of his country as "an independent sovereign state".

And what a delightful irony, Booker adds, that Pravda, of all newspapers, greeted the news last week with the headline: "Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU is now a reincarnation of the Soviet Union".

It will be tomorrow that the EU's leaders gather in Berlin to celebrate the end of that wall, but they will also celebrate the rise of a new one – a wall they have built around themselves, that separates Europe's politicians from all their subject peoples. Bring this forcibly home, Booker then writes:

From December 1, the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. (How long before they give it back its original name, "A Constitution for Europe"?) The EU will at last have the supreme government it has wanted so long – unelected, unaccountable and, as even its own polls show, less popular with those it rules over than ever before. But what do the politicians care? They have the power, and we now have a government we can never dismiss.

In a wistful way it has been amusing to see that former Foreign Office mandarin Sir Christopher Meyer much in evidence of late, bemoaning the way Foreign Office morale has sunk so low because so much of its old power and influence has passed to "other departments in Whitehall". What he means, of course, is that its power has departed not elsewhere in Whitehall but to this amorphous new entity which is even now constructing its own foreign ministry and diplomatic service, with embassies around the world, to replace almost everything of significance our Foreign Office once stood for. This is why the child we now have as our Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, can't wait to be part of it.

Although blogging is somewhat difficult at the moment, I really cannot resist a belated comment on the EU presidency charade, and in particular the Guardian report.

It notes that, while the "ideal appointment" has been suggested as "someone who could stop the traffic in Beijing", with the emergence of the Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, as frontrunner, "Europe" may find itself contemplating a president who can barely stop traffic in Brussels.

Actually, it is par for the course. With the EU, contentious agreements are always reached on the basis of the lower common denominator. None of the big boys, especially France and Germany, could put up a president, as that would upset the others, so the candidate had to be one of the "dwarf" states.

Then, it had to be someone trustworthy, and they don't get better than Belgium or Luxembourg ... and it looks as if it going to be Belgium.

Actually, it is going to be very difficult to take Emperor Rompuy seriously, which is perhaps the intention. Behind the scenes, there is a major institutional conflict going on between the European Council and the Commission, for leadership of the EU.

When you think about it, we will have two presidents, one of the European Council and one of the Commission. They can't both be top dog, and a powerful, high-profile figure for the European Council would definitely discomfort the Commission. The choice of a "somewhat anonymous, grey-haired bureaucrat", therefore, definitely puts the Commission in the ascendency.

However, while this man is supposedly the 11-8 favourite, the bartering is by no means over, and yet another figure could emerge. But the process really does prove the point about the anti-democratic credentials of the EU. Only the "colleagues" could pick as their leader a Belgium politician that almost certainly no one would vote for, including the Belgians.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

This is the Daily Mail's "take" on the continuing fall-out from the Tory non-policy on "Europe". It has a lot of the faithful "spitting blood" at Cameron's refusal to offer a referendum, threatening to vote UKIP.

I'll do a proper review of this and other coverage later today. Yesterday, apart from a very successful defence debate in Jersey, I spent some time sitting on the cliffs overlooking Bon Nuit cove, looking at the distant shoreline of France.

Jersey is an island where the memories of the German occupation are still very fresh, and along the coastline there is still the evidence, with a network of huge concrete bunkers and fortified gun positions. I got to thinking about how we are going to handle the new occupation – this one of mainland Britain - as our supreme government takes over on 1 December.

In the manner of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, perhaps we ought to start up the Unpopular Front for the Liberation of Britain (UFFLIB). If we could then get it proscribed as a terrorist organisation, we could apply for Saudi funding and live in exile in Paris on the proceeds.

I think I may have had too much booze. I'll set this post to self-destruct in five hours. Please eat this message after reading. Sanity will be restored shortly.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

The Tory leadership, we are told is "delighted" at the smooth reception of "Do-nothing" Dave's non-policy on "Europe".

Looking at the Politics Home snap poll on the issue, however, it can be seen that support is polarised, following orthodox political groupings. Amazingly, Conservative supporters support, er ... Dave. Labour supporters, er ... don't.

Thus, Tim Montgomerie notes that, to a very large extent, the party appears to have recovered its once secret weapon: unity. In other words, in their lust for what they think is "power", the Tory faithful is prepared to swallow any old tosh from the Great Leader, in order to present a unified façade.

By no measure, therefore, does this poll represent a vote of confidence in the non-policy. And the "unity" is, or course, skin deep. As we find in Afghanistan, the tribe unites against the common enemy. Once that is neutralised, the in-fighting starts. James Delingpole offers the obvious way out, but little Dave was never interested in that. Mary Ellen Synon, however, is expecting to hear that patriotic Tories will be found in Conservative Central Office, trying to find the way down to the cellar.

Short of that, the fight for "power" is increasingly a scrap between two bald men fighting over a comb. While Dave postures and prances, power drains away to Brussels. And that, never forget, is what it is all about. Dave might be happy to be a satrap. We would prefer our own government.

And that is all he will be. "The coming into power of the Lisbon Treaty marks the annexation of Europe by Brussels – the expansion of Belgium over an entire continent," says Brussels Journal, and they are not wrong.

It comes to something though when even Pravda notices something amiss. Twenty years ago, one wall came down, but another is being erected - this one between the people and the ruling élites. We are approaching the end game, but all the Tory faithful are interested in is getting their Boy into No 10. Their pitifully limited horizons allow them to see no further.

Yet all they will get is a hollow victory, the trappings of power rather than the substance.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

There was a sense that the story on "Do-nothing" Dave and his amazing technicolour "Europe” policy was beginning to fizzle out. We've done it to death, although for once we've been addressing our core subject – the one for which this blog was set up.

What now gives it "legs" though is the reaction filtering in from the rest of the member states, which gives us a new and important perspective on the situation.

Unsurprisingly, this comes via The Guardian which, despite its Europhile tendencies, frequently offers depth that you do not find in other newspapers.

What it tells us that, in addition to France – and the obvious reaction from the likes of Elmar Brok – there is real, deeply-entrenched resistance to renegotiating the EU treaties, which will be necessary if Cameron is to achieve the repatriation of any powers.

Up front are the Europe ministers from three member states: Poland, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic. All three are saying that that Cameron would fail to achieve his demand to repatriate social and employment laws to Britain because his plans would need to secure the agreement of all 27 leaders of the EU because they would involve rewriting EU treaties.

And, as Elmar Brok said, "We have had 10 years of institutional debate and now is the time to talk about practical co-operation. We don't need another 10 years of institutional debate."

For the Dutch, Frans Timmermans says that the Tory plans would have a "paralysing effect on Europe". He added: "There is more chance of a snowball surviving hell than the EU restarting debates on treaty change." He adds that no EU leader would want to reopen treaties to accommodate the Tories.

"You can still hear the sigh of relief across Europe that we have finally finished with treaty change," he adds. "Everyone is so relieved that we can finally stop talking about the internal rules of the EU and start doing something about the crisis, something about the climate change issues and something about international affairs." He then adds: "I am sure there is no member state in the EU that wants to put energy into another round of debate about the rules of the game."

Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the centre-right Polish Europe minister, expands on this, saying treaty change is out of the question. "We have finalised the most difficult and the most lengthy procedure of ratification that we have ever been through in Europe. Nobody wants to negotiate a new treaty."

Then there is Dick Roche, for the Irish. He says: "There is a complete aversion across Europe to the idea of going through the kind of process we have just gone through. If you are talking about areas that touch on free movement or the whole central core trade areas then you are entering into minefields. The only thing that happens to people who enter minefields is they get blown up."

Now, on this blog, both my co-editor and I have been saying this for some time. We are by no means alone in so saying. It was always on the cards – in fact it was a racing certainty – that this would be the reaction. Therefore, the only way there were going to be any treaty negotiations was if Cameron made them the archetypal "offer they couldn't refuse."

Thus, nothing Cameron says or promises by way of repatriating powers has any meaning whatsoever unless he has that "offer", or a very big stick to bring the reluctant "colleagues" to the negotiating table.

From our point of view, what Cameron has on offer, we've heard before. Twenty years ago, Booker, myself and others were talking privately to then senior Tory ministers, all of whom were telling us that they were eurosceptics at heart, and were determined to repatriate powers.

But not any of them – then or now – have been prepared to tells us how they would bring the "colleagues" to the negotiating table, and what they would do if they said "no". That is what makes Cameron's policy more of the same – empty and completely devoid of substance. He has no fall-back to deal with a blank refusal to negotiate. And, not days after the Boy's speech, the "colleagues" are ganging up to say "no".

That leaves us in an interesting position. On the one hand, we can accept that the Tories did not expect such a reaction – which can hardly be likely, since they've been told time and time again that this would happen. On the other, we can conclude that the Tories are not serious. That they have no real intention of pursuing renegotiations.

In fact, that is the inescapable conclusion, from which stems the further conclusion. Cameron's policy is no more than a cynical exercise in deception – a rag-bag of empty promises dressed up to make it look plausible to a gullible media and some of the electorate. It is calculated to be sufficient to take the edge of a "eurosceptic rebellion" and get him past the hurdle of the next election without losing too many votes.

That is the real difference between New Labour and the Tories. At least with New Labour, what you see is what you get – a bunch of unprincipled shits. With Cameron's "modern Conservatives", you still get a bunch of unprincipled shits. But they pretend to be otherwise. That is what really sticks in the craw – the pretence.

At least though, with record speed, the "colleagues" have called Cameron's bluff. His "Europe" policy is dead in the water. If there was any justice, so would be his prospects of becoming prime minister. This brazen cynicism really should not go unpunished.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

So says The Times, having changed his plea. I always knew he was a wrong 'un, from the day I drove him to Strasbourg. The guy had no interest at all in fighting the EU – the only thing he talked about was making money. The paper says he could go to prison.

COMMENT THREAD

"Do-nothing" Dave and his "settled" non-policy is coming under a little bit of attack says The Daily Telegraph.

Roger Helmer dismisses Dave's finest hour, declaring: "What we have is an essentially cosmetic policy. We are installing a largely ineffective burglar alarm when the family silver has already been stolen."

He goes on then to say: "But the British people don't want vague promises. They want the family silver back in good order," adding, ".... I can neither justify nor support our new EU policy."

He has resigned as spokesman for his party in Brussels, as indeed has Daniel Hannan, in order to concentrate on campaigning for a referendum on Europe.

The Lord Tebbit has also weighed in, calling on Mr "Do-nothing" to hold a referendum after he wins "power" to give additional legitimacy to his attempts to repatriate powers from Brussels. I don't think our Norm has quite got it ... Dave has no intention of attempting to repatriate powers.

Nevertheless, the Noble Lord makes a good point. Even if Dave secures 40 percent of the vote in the next general election, low turnout is likely to mean that can claim the active support of no more than about 24 percent of British voters for his European policy.

That, of course, is hardly a strong mandate and, the way it is going., the Boy might even get less. A direct mandate from a referendum would give him added strength ... which is why Mr "Do-nothing" is not going to have a referendum. He wants to park the issue.

On the other side of the coin, we also seem to have some Frog, who goes by the name of Pierre Lellouche, who is describing Dave's policy as "pathetic and autistic" – although not for the same reasons we would. However, it also seems that something has been lost in translation.

But then Dave is probably quite pleased to have flak from the Frog, on the basis that he can balance one lot of criticism against the other. This is a classic BBC trick – if both "extremes" are complaining, they say, then we must be getting it right.

With the Daily Mail in full flow, though – proclaiming that Dave's effluvia represents a "desperately sad moment for British democracy and sovereignty", the response is slightly unbalanced. One Frog does not balance out three million dischuffed Mail readers.

However, Lellouche does illustrate the difficulties that would have faced Dave if he was at all serious. The "colleagues" are most definitely not in the mood to hand back powers, which shows that if we ever get a serious politician leading the Tory party, he will have his work cut out.

Meanwhile, if Steven Glover has his way, the new Tory logo should be a white flag. At least then Dave's surrender monkeys (pictured) will have something in common with the Frogs.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

The point about political correspondents from national newspapers is that they are part of the bubble inhabited by politicians. They have no more idea what is going on in the real world than do the politicians they serve.

Thus do we have Benedict Brogan in The Daily Telegraph op-ed telling us that, yesterday, Mr Cameron "took a difficult but necessary step to restore our trust not in politics but politicians, by promising no more than he can deliver."

To have gone further, blathers Brogan – including any sort of promise of a post-election referendum to strengthen his hand in negotiations with Europe – would have invited ridicule. Instead, he says, we had a thought-through, realistic scheme for stopping the drift to ever greater European integration.

We are also told that, "Those holding out hope for a broader referendum over our relations with Europe will have noted his explicit desire to put them on a 'more permanent footing'."

Percolating the brain of this dim little creature, however, is the sense that all is not well with the world. "This policy will not satisfy everyone," he observes blandly. "But it has the merit of being genuinely Eurosceptic and – for once – achievable."

The man is an unmitigated fool. Like the majority of the political claque, he inhabits a different planet from the rest of us, and lacks the intellect and empathy to realise that his own drivel bears no relation to anything even approaching reality.

"This policy will not satisfy everyone," he writes. He can have no idea of the intensity of hatred invoked by that supine, malign, fatuous, smug, self-serving, smarmy renegade called Cameron, and his europhiliac sell-out. "Eurosceptic"? That is like calling the Pope a rabbi. This banal idiot needs taking out and shooting.

But then, I suppose, if Westminster is a "village", every village needs its idiot. Mind you, there is a hellava lot of competition for the post.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

"As long as he [David Cameron] is at the helm of the Conservative Party, there is no hope whatsoever of achieving any progress in the battle against Brussels."

That is what I wrote on 8 June 2006 but I knew it already. The test came on 7 December 2005 when, at the first available opportunity, the newly appointed Tory leader ditched the carefully crafted policy on repatriating the Common Fisheries Policy.

If we had any lingering doubts, from that time on we had none. "Call me Dave" was not, has never been and will never be a eurosceptic. He follows in that long line of faux eurosceptic Tory leaders, who will talk the talk in an attempt at keeping the troops on side, but will never walk the walk.

At that time in December, little Dave did not even have the guts to admit that he had ditched the policy. He simply reshuffled its creator, Owen Paterson, and nothing was said about it at the time. It took six months before there was any official confirmation. That came on 10 June 2006, which we announced in a post entitled "Never trust a Tory".

We were right then, and right now. Not much more can be said about Dave's surrender to the EU, although it isn't really a surrender. What he did yesterday was his direction of travel all along. That the "colleagues" are beside themselves with joy tells its own story. The Boy has done good by them.

Not only that, they are confirming that there is basically no chance of Dave securing opt-outs to core EU law. German MEP Elmar Brok spells it out, saying, "We have had 10 years of institutional debate and now is the time to talk about practical co-operation. We don't need another 10 years of institutional debate."

He need not have any worries. Dave has no intention of securing anything meaningful. His is indeed a "do-nothing" policy, calculated to give the impression of purposeful activity, while achieving precisely nothing of consequence. Mary Ellen Synon on her blog thus compares Cameron with the Vichy leader, calling him "Dave Pétain".

Somewhere in the French archives, she writes, there is a 1942 poster of the Nazi collaborationist Pétain gesturing out to the people of France and saying: "Francais!, vous n'etes ni vendus ni trahis ni abandonnés. Venez a moi avec confiance" - "Frenchmen! You have not been sold, betrayed or abandoned. Come to me with confidence."

That, of course, is Dave's cry, one that has the Tory Boys (of both sexes) calling in his wake: "We have to get rid of Gordon Brown first ... 'Europe' can wait until we've done that deed." That, of course, means some time never, which is not good enough – nowhere near good enough.

The deal stays: "no referendum, no vote". Dave doesn't want my vote, or the votes of the million-plus who share my views. Well Dave, we don't want you either, so I guess we understand each other.

FINAL VERSION

David Cameron will promise that an incoming Conservative administration would set up a new constitutional court to protect British sovereignty from encroachment from Europe.

This is according to The Times, which is retailing details of the Boy's briefing to Tory MPs this morning.

He told them that an incoming Conservative administration would immediately seek to pass a Sovereignty Act which would set up a legal body, similar to the German constitutional court, which would rule on future EU proposals.

A senior member of the shadow cabinet told The Times: "Because we don't have a written constitution we have been particularly vulnerable to depredation from Brussels."

This is, of course, total bullshit. We have a written constitution now. It is called the Consolidated Treaties, as amended by the Lisbon Treaty, which takes precedence over UK law ... and what remains of our constitution.

As for a constitutional court, if this is a measure of what the Boy is going to offer, then he need not bother. What did the German and Czech constitutional courts do, other than roll over?

We also learn that the Boy repeated his promise to seek to repatriate some powers from the EU, but he did not "bow to demands" that he strengthen his negotiating hand by holding a referendum. Nevertheless, fears that the move would precipitate an internal revolt have proved largely groundless.

The Boy was "cheered by his MPs", we are told. But, apparently the Tory whips and key frontbenchers were coordinating the applause. Whether they will still be cheering when the general election results come through is another matter. The loudest cheers might be coming from UKIP.

Howsoever, the Boy geve his press conference at St Steven’s Club, accompanied by William Hague, Liam Fox, George Osborne and Mark Francois. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are to blame for the mess. "Nothing to do with us guv!" says the Boy, but he feels our pain. The betrayal of the promise to hold a referendum (Labour's betrayal) was one of the factors, alongside the expenses crisis, that has caused people to lose their faith in politics.

There is to be no referendum. It would be "a waste of time and money". Instead, the Tories are reverting to a previous promise to close the stable door after the horse has bolted amend the 1972 European Communities Act. This will create a "referendum lock" so that no further powers can be given away without public consent.

Usual Tory fudge, in other words.

And yes, in the door-closing department, we are to get a "UK Sovereignty Bill", to make sure that ultimate authority remains in Westminster. It won't be about striking down EU law. It will just put the UK on a par with Germany, where legislation says the ultimate authority lies with the German parliament. What is this man on?

The Boy also says he will legislate to stop the use of the "ratchet" clauses in the Lisbon treaty that would allow the further transfer of powers without another EU treaty. Again, this is moonshine. The "ratchet" clause already requires parliamentary approval. But, says the Boy, The effect of these changes would be to ensure that a Lisbon situation would happen "never again".

But what about the Lisbon treaty?

Nothing there, it seems, but the Boy is stuck like a cracked gramophone record on repatriating power over social and employment legislation - the so-called "Social Chapter", which no longer exists. He will demand a "proper opt-out" from the charter of fundamental rights. And then, he will seek to limit the ECJ's power over criminal law to pre-Libson levels.

With a quick doffing of the cap to reality, he then admits that these changes would need the agreement of all EU member states. These are "complicated issues", but little Willy is on the case. Success in these negotiations would ensure that EU negotiations do not have to be a "one-way street", he tells us - whatever that means.

These three guarantees are "essential, realistic and deliverable" and the Boy believes "we will be able to negotiate the return of these powers that I have set out." But there is to be no "massive euro bust-up". "We will take our time, negotiate firmly, patiently and respectfully, and aim to achieve the return of the powers I have set out over the lifetime of a parliament." The Boy's priority, if he becomes prime minister, will be the economy.

And if he does not get the opt-outs he requires? Ah! He could return to this at the time of the next election (ie, the one after the 2010). At that point he might discuss a referendum on Britain's relations with the EU.

There it goes ... parked ... he thinks. And thus does the Boy conclude that people are fed up with "endless lies and spin". HE is not going to "treat people like fools" and offer them a referendum that would not have any impact, he says.

Instead, it seems, he is going to treat people like fools in a different way, offering them competely meaningless changes and negotiations that will conclude some time never, with absolutely no indication of how he intends to bring the "colleagues" to the negotiating table.

Asked by Andrew Miller from the Economist asks what "threats" he will use to win back these powers, the Boy confirms his intention to park the issue. He is not trying to win back these powers immediately. But there are treaties coming up - like the Croatian accession treaty - that will provide an opportunity for these issues to be addressed. He thinks.

In any case, his proposals are "practical" - aka meaningless. Thus, he purrs, "there's every chance of achieving these guarantees throughout a parliament".

To the "colleagues", aka "European partners", the Boy says that we do not plan to sabotage the EU with these renegotiations. The idea is "to put Britain's place in Europe on a proper basis that can command the confidence of the British people."

People were told that they were joining a Common Market, but they joined a European Union. The new Conservative policy is a credible policy that voters who have been treated badly can believe in ... he says. And he is convincing who?

Clearly, Ken Clarke is one. He is "fully in support of this policy", says the Boy, which really tells you everything you need to know. However, Clarke is also on record as saying a Sovereignty Bill of the kind proposed by Cameron was "baloney". He is not wrong. "It's a sop, a gesture, worthless and pathetic," says a Tory Boy Blog commentator. He is not wrong either.

And for his closing admission, Cameron says "European leaders" did not like his commitment to a Lisbon referendum. Thus, he was "as frank and clear" with other European leaders as he has been with the people of the UK. Which means they must be as much in the dark as we are.

This is described as "a very clever speech: gradualist Euroscepticism." Lots of vague promises and meaningless fluff. Beef? Forget it. Not just usual Tory fudge - bucket loads. "If this is what he meant by 'will not let it rest, then he's a lying toad," says another Tory Boy Blog commentator. She is not wrong either.

Says Glen Oglaza for Sky News about the Boy's "proposal" to take back power from the EU, "The only problem is that ALL 26 other EU countries would have to agree."

"How likely is that?" he asks. "Well, David Cameron pre-empted the question by asking it himself and offering the answer that these opt-outs would be in the party's manifesto for the election after NEXT - with the promise of a referendum."

"So, basically, this is about buying time and hoping the European problem goes away. Isn't it?" the man concludes. Tim Montgomerie over at Tory Boy Blog agrees. "David Cameron gives every impression of wanting to kick the European issue into the long grass so that he can get on with other things," he says. We could not have put it better ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, Gerald Warner comes to the same conclusion. "Cast-Iron Cameron's latest transparent ploy to kick Europe into the long grass," his piece is headed. All this Tory Euroguff is no more than a device to persuade gullible voters to stay with Dave and his forsworn party. Whether you fall for it or not is a simple intelligence test.

And just to confirm that Boy Dave's "do-nothing" policy on Europe is a busted flush, we have the European Movement welcoming the statement. Peter Luff says, "It makes more sense to deal with the real issues facing Europe right now than to pick an unnecessary and distracting argument with our European partners." Mrs Dale has the answer though. "Those who start spitting about voting UKIP can bugger off and do just that if it makes them feel better," he says.

The full text of the speech is here. The Boy has blown it.

LISBON TREATY THREAD

They are wriggling, they are wriggling but it is getting them nowhere except with a decreasing number of blind supporters. First Open Europe, now David Davis. All stuck on stupid. Over on Your Freedom and Ours. Enjoy.