Cameron's Position On The Eu?

[PetitAnglais]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20926563
Following the Marr interview is anyone any clearer what it is? What will be our relationship with the EU going forward? Especially if the Tories win the next election. What do you think Labour's stance would be should they win?

[pdq1]

The Tories can't possibly win the next election. They can only win with a coalition and this time should be UKIP. In a poll today UKIP had 16% share of the voting intentions. UKIP wants to pull out of the EU unlike Cameron who wants to stay in. He's now faced with a dilemma.

Labour wants to remain in the EU so if they get into power no change.

[ichkeria]

Firstly:
There will be no Tory/UKIP coalition after the next election. To form a coalition both parties need to have some seats and UKIP simply won't have any. Unfair perhaps, given that they will probably poll quite a few votes, but the fact is: they won't. Added to that the fact that the only scenario which WOULD see them winning seats would be Tory electoral meltdown, in which case we'd have a Labour landslide anyway.
As to Cameron's position on the EU, it is, honestly, farcical. He is onto a complete loser with it: his proposals will not impress the hardened Eurosceptics, will at the same time alarm Europhiles, and will in any event be laughed out of court by the EU. You can't be sort of in the EU and have the benefits without any of the costs.
Because of issues like immigration (exacerbated by hard economic times) the EU is not very popular at the moment and UKIP are as a result doing quite well out of this mood. Cameron of course is aware of this and is trying to appear more of a Eurosceptic to draw their sting and to appease his own Eurosceptic wing. But, like I say, it's a policy doomed to fail.
There can only be an EU referendum if there are some concrete proposals to vote on. there will never, trust me, be a referendum where there is a simple "In/out" option.
Labour are likely to win the next election, and the hope will be that better ecponomic times will reduce the effect discussed above. Labour do not have a large Eurosceptic wing (how times change from the 70's!) and so Mr Miliband won't have this problem.
In short, Europe, in my opinion, is more of an issue for the Tory party than the country.

[Hopkirk]

A significant number of potential UKIP voters are traditionally Tory voters.

Unless DC does something to appeal to them, they will vote UKIP and so decimate the Tory vote.

He is walking a tightrope, and I don't think he has a chance of staying on it.

If there was a referendum with an option to leave the EU, it would probably be a landslide to go.

[ichkeria]

They'll probably decimate the Tory vote at the European elections, but not at the General Election. If Cameron has any sense he'll keep his head down and come 2015 try to persuade doubters that a UKIP vote is a wasted vote. It's his only hope.

[Gromit]

The ConservativeHome blog page (the one to watch) says the party managers are postioning Cameron as the the most EuroSkeptic Prime Minister even.

That is debatable, Margaret Thatcher was genuinely far more distrustful of the EU than Cameron is.

And it is a sham anyway. Cameron, like everyone before Prime Minister before him realises we are better in the EU than out of it. So he is presenting a bogus anti EU stance but really has no intention of exstracting us from it.

It is just positing to avoid the Conservative losing lots of votes to UKiP. Whether anyone is taken in by the deception remains to be seen.

[rojash]

"Especially if the Tories win the next election."

Thanks for that - I love a good laugh on a Monday morning.

[modeller]

We voted to join the Common Market ( I didn't ) in 1973 and dropped out of the EFTA. Today I believe most people would still vote to stay in the EU if it was based on the Common Market or EFTA. That is a free trade area where there are no discriminatory sanctions against the members.

Unfortunately all of our politicians since Maggie have bowed down to every new EU regulation, and Blair went even further by giving away over
£9 billiion of our rebate and got nothing in return.

Neither Labour nor the Tories can win an outright victory at the moment.

If we had a free vote on the EU in parliament today they would vote to stay in. Labour and the Lib/Dems are pro Europe . It is only the Tory backbenchers who would vote against. So there is no chance of us getting an IN/OUT referendom if we get one at all.

[ichkeria]

The vote was in 1975. In those days roles were reversed. The Tories took us into the EEC and Labour, under the influence of a heavily Euro-suspicious wing of the party, promised and delivered a referendum under Wilson 2 years later