Duff gen

Andrew Duff MEP, spokesman on constitutional affairs for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, should be looking to review the title of the group for which he speaks – and seriously questioning whether the word “democrats” should be retained.

To help him in his review, he could revisit his own words, in a letter to The Financial Times, in which he discusses the effect of a "no" vote in the French referendum. He writes:

If the constitution is killed off, Europe will be in deep trouble. The Treaty of Nice will not work, decision-making will be paralysed, and further enlargement will be pointless. The EU would be badly damaged at home and abroad. A French "no" will not kill off the constitutional project. The EU is wholly implausible without France. If France says "no" now, it will have to say "yes" later.

What is so incredible is that people like Duff do not be able to understand the implications of their own words. Time and time again, we see the same sentiments from the Euro-luvvies, which all amount to the same thing – democracy only counts if you agree with us: a “no” is not permissible.

If Mr Duff was a trader, I suspect that his use of the word "democrats" would be attracting a visit from trading standards.