The Labour Party won the 2005 UK general election with 35.3% of the popular British vote. The Conservative Party was just a few points behind with points behind at 32.3% of the popular vote, but because of the first past the post voting system, the Labour Party had a significant majority with 356 parliamentary seats […]
Continue Reading General Election 2010 Poll Results
Before all you people voting Lib Deb get too carried away maybe you did not see Andrew Neil questioning Vince Cable, he appears not to know which way he is coming from or for what he stands for, I know he is not the party but he speaks for them, he appears to be just as bad as Darling. one of my sons will again be running in the London Marathon to raise money for the National Health Service cancer care and the baby care unit, the ones that Gordon Brown wanted to close at my local Hospital.
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Jamie – would you seriously prefer Darling over Cable as Chancellor? Darling who has a background in Law, not Finance?
Or perhaps you’d prefer Osborne with his Modern History degree?
Cable’s by far the most qualified out of the three: Economics Degree, PhD in Economics, Lecturer in Economics, Treasury Finance Officer to the Kenyan Government, Chief Economist to Shell.
There’s no contest in my eyes.
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Thank you friend of Nick, I dont prefer either darling or cable, i would not trust either of them, nor do i like osborne, cable let himself down when andrew neil confronted him, darling is way our of his depth, in fact if we are honest bodger is pulling the strings and darling is dancing, degrees dont mean anything in politics, look at the the millibands, one of my sons has a degree in law and the other has letters after his name, that does not necessarily make them a politician. it does strike me that you cant trust any of them, cable you feel you can trust as he is a father figure but he cant decide where he stands when he is put on the spot, if i had my way i would not have any of them telling me what to do, and the way it is going we wont be deciding either, it will be brussels. thanks anyway for commenting, nice to know mine are read sometimes.
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Of the three potential chancellors Vince Cable is by far the better qualified.
Doesn’t mean he’ll do a good job, but I have to agree with your point why the heck do we have a politician with a modern history degree as shadow Tory chancellor?
Gideon Osborne (Gideon changed his name to George: my 13 year old son told me this :-)) who we all know he hasn’t a clue about running an economy, as shadow chancellor. At least a law degree is along the lines of economics (Law is a difficult degree, I know it’s pushing a link), not a wishy washy modern history degree!
My youngest son has a section on the site now and he likes to understand people, so when he’s doing research he reads about who the people are (I’m quite the opposite, I rarely research the person).
He’s been working at the side of me on his PC and keeps telling me about the various politicians (like Gideon above).
He researched Ed Balls since we home educate our youngest son and if Labour gain power on May 6th we are looking at some quite draconian measures regarding home education: they plan to budget 40 million to home education, 20 million of which is to get half the LEGALLY home educated children back into school! They also plan to pass controversial legislation to give them a legal right to enter the home of home educators because of the fear of child abuse! There is no evidence to suggest home educated children are at any more risk of child abuse than any other child, (in fact the evidence supports the opposite view) yet they plan to take away our rights to keep the government out of our home without a court order or a very good reason (if a crime is on going the police can enter sort of thing).
Could you imagine the public outcry if this was a general policy for all families with children of school age, the LEA inspectors can without supporting evidence legally insist on entering your home to check it out so the government can check you aren’t abusing your children!
It really worries me that Labour are so willing to throw away our civil liberties because of the fear of something. I’ll reiterate there is no evidence to support the view that home education is used as a cover for child abuse and even if it was current laws are already used to check on children. Think about children from birth to 4 years of age, there is no group of inspectors who have a legal right to enter the home of families which children who are not yet of school age without just cause (some evidence to suggest there’s a problem).
Home education is the slippery slope, first they get the legal right to enter the home of children educated at home, next we have the legal right to enter the home of children aged below school age (look at the news stories of little kids like baby P) and after that all children!
It’s unbelievable draconian!
Ed Balls is the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families so you’d expect he’d have a background in education.
Here’s Ed Balls background from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Balls
Why have we got what is basically an economist as the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families and as the chancellor (which should be someone who understands economics) Alistair Darling who has a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree?
And we have a Home Secretary, Alan Johnson (who should understand law and legal matters) who left school at 15 and has no background in law! I’m sure he’s a very capable politician, but MPs should at least have some sort of background in the area they run. His background is trade unions, I’m sure we could find him a suitable ministerial position :-)
If the parties don’t have an MP with a suitable background for a ministerial post, fine take the best from what they have, but this reshuffling ministerial posts and putting people with no experience of the post in charge is STUPID.
It’s no wonder government is so inefficient and poorly run, the people at the top don’t have a clue about the sections of the government they control.
David
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David your talking correctly, Ed Balls surely must be the waste of space and money, his wife is not much better, you forgot Bill and Ben Milliband, so the Government want to enter houses of home educated children, pity they dont find something better to spend money on, next Catholic Churches ?, I am sure that home educated children can get more benefit, children are held back as half the children in parts of the country dont speak english or if they do you cant understand them, it strikes me that politicians throw their keys in a pot, then put ministerial posts in another and then see whose key matches what post, there is no way Darling should be running the countries finances or even looking after his housekeeping.
Why dont the government rent a block of flats for the ministers near Westminster to stop the two house syndrome, i wish i owned two houses, but i have to live here and also do my work.
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Regarding home education it’s been the right of all British parents to educate their children at home since before schools became the norm, it’s the default form of education since parents actively choose to register their children at a school and that’s exactly how the law currently reads.
I realise it might not feel that way to most parents since it’s assumed you’ll be sending your children to school, but legally home education (in law it’s called education otherwise) is the default form of education.
We’ve home educated three of our children from birth, eldest soon to see his 19th birthday and at University (never went to school) and the youngest 13 and almost certainly will go to University (not been to school so far). Middle son, 16, that’s the ‘black sheep’ of the family and he rejected home education and went to school at 15, still even he’s more advanced than your average schooled child even if he is a bit of a numpty!
Two out of three doing extremely well isn’t bad and better than your average school achieves for it’s pupils.
Since I work from home and my youngest son works in the same room I work from we’ve inevitably spent a lot of time discussing politics. He wanted his own politics site:
He plans to be a graphic artist.
I think David Cameron as a waffle is hilarious :-)
It really concerns me the Labour government see home educators who are doing nothing wrong as a risk to children! Obviously if there’s evidence of abuse they should investigate and the current law more than allows for this.
The proposed legislation is the equivalent to the new over the top ant-terrorism laws they’ve brought in, except unlike with terrorism, there’s no evidence of a problem with home educators and abusing children (it’s a non-issue).
Civil liberties is the only area that REALLY concerns me about Labour. Most other areas of government they are middle of the road, but on civil liberties they go to far.
David
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Well done David, shoots my favourite Ed Balls in the foot.
Alan Johnson was asked on the Politics Show today how many illegal immigrants there are here, he said ” I don’t know “, well he should ask Jack Straw as he said on Question Time last Friday that there are over 900.000 and he knows where most of them are, so who is in charge, or don’t they talk to each other, if he read this, Alan ask Jack and get your act together.
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Looks like we are both watched the politics show today :-)
I heard Alan Johnson say that as well and it’s true, they don’t know the number of illegal immigrants since they are illegal immigrants and that means they don’t register as an illegal immigrant. How can you have an accurate figure for illegals?
Best you can hope for is an estimate, no idea why Alan Johnson didn’t state the official estimates for illegal immigration.
I’m curious why do you believe he knows where all the illegal immigrants are?
If we have 1,000,000 illegal immigrants, that’s around 1 in 60 people living in Britain today. How do you find 1 in every 60 people without resorting to draconian measures?
David
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David , I am only repeating what Jack Straw said on Question Time last friday, 900,000 illegal immigrants and he knows where most of them are, I expect there is a repeat on BBC iplayer to confirm.
I watched Nick Clegg being interviewed on The Andrew Marr Show this morning and found him pretty unconvincing. The Lib/Dem position on immigration in particular came accross as unclear and muddled, only the BNP seem to have a clear and consistent viewpoint on this subject. Most of the interview was a skillful lesson in how “not to answer the question”, however he did speak with some conviction on the subject of electoral reform. After all at the moment a party can lose an election and still remain the largest party in parliament. He suggested that this could be one of the bargaining tools in any future Lib/Lab or Lib/Con alliance and it is certainly an issue that this election has brought to the fore more than any previous one. After May 6th the Lab/Con old guard could wake to find themselves in a very different political landscape.
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If they know who the illegal immigrants are, why on earth haven’t they deported them or given them amnesty? Having illegal immigrants here breeds crime, since they are not “in the system”, are desperate and vulnerable. At least Clegg has a plan on how to deal with those that are here now and a plan to stop more coming into the country in future. The other 2 main parties have not addressed this problem at all. I think that is a DISGRACE and for that reason neither Conservative or Labour deserve to be in power at all.
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More Police on the beat, 80% said Mr Johnson today are out patrolling, I wonder where, they are certainly not where i live, not even a Blunkett Bobby, what use are they anyway, I wonder what Police Force he is talking about, the Chinese, Thailand, a friend of mine is an Assistant Chief Constable, not in my Local Force, his budget has been cut, he does not have any extra men on his staff, so where are they, i suggested my local council gave a prize to anyone who saw a Policeman, a real one, walking. I reported the same drink driver 6 times, i then had an e-mail from the Police to say they had more pressing things to deal with.
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I absoloutly detest Nick Clegg, and believe firmly that if he is elected prime minister of this country it will lead to our downfall. He wants to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country, and he wants us to join the euro to name but two of his rediculous plans!!!!! Clegg and his party have no idea how to run a country, Gordon Brown has put the country into recession, so the only person and party who can run this country to a much better future is David Cameron and the Conservative party.
This country has not had a ‘proper’ prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, and in an ideal world, I would love to see her back as PM!!!!!
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Hunting illegal immigrants is like chasing phantoms – how can anyone hope to find them when they hide in the shadows? You can’t just “magic” them out. Furthermore, it’s not like they can really claim state help either (else they’d be gone faster than you can say “they took our jobs”). Sure, you could slowly catch them one by one, but it’ll take forever and a day.
If you offer an amnesty, they can then start paying taxes and actually properly contribute towards British society. And in any case, LibDems AFAIK aren’t proposing a total free-for-all. If I recall, doesn’t their amnesty require that the person in question: (a) speaks English to a satisfactory level; (b) wishes to be part of British society; and (c) has otherwise been well behaved; and (d) has been here 10 years?
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It looks like even though you are no longer voting BNP, we can still have the odd disagreement :) (debate).
The LibDem immigration policy is one of the things that I remain to be convinced on. I’m not sure offering an amnesty to all is the right way to go, I understand and accept the logic behind it and bring them into the formal tax system because most of them will be working and not claiming as like you said they won’t be able to claim benefits.
But then the thing to consider is the jobs many are likely to be doing will be the back door cash in hand low paid jobs, which if they handed themselves in they would stop doing because the companies would then have to pay NI etc, so we would end up with a lot (not all granted) more unemployed and we would then because they have been offered and amnesty the state would take some responsibility to look after them.
The other issue I have with it is the distribution idea, I see it as too difficult to police, it would be easy for someone who was “allocated” an area to live/work in to just move, not that I really see that as a major problem anyway as most would only move should they get a better paying job which obviously means they would still be paying into the tax system so no big deal really, but still a concern as there would I assume have to be some new government or local council spending on either a department or officers to monitor and track.
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True regarding the NI side of things (and the prospect of possibly creating further employment). It’s a tough one. Hunting them down isn’t going to work either as the cost of a mass investigation and deportation sure isn’t going to be cheap either. It’s bad form, but in some ways it’s probably best pretending they aren’t there. After all, they can’t claim much state support, and the money that they get cash-in-hand is still being circulated.
As for regulating work in a region, I’d imagine a good way to police that is to bind a person to a region as specified on their permit for a period of time, maybe 5 or so years (not what LibDems are actually stating, but hey ho). Granted, a person could live elsewhere while working in another area (the area that they are permitted to work) but it’s not like they would be able to live that far away. And hey, even if it doesn’t work out, it’d be certainly no worse than the current situation (and their proposal of exit checks is even an improvement somewhat).
The problem with the Conservative policy is that a cap is an arbitrary figure. What if there’s less room in Britain? What if there’s more than expected? What of densely populated areas? And what of areas where there is surplus work, but shortage of workers?
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Somewhere on here I wrote an alternative suggestion for an immigration policy, if David could find it :) i’d be interested to see what I wrote.
I believe it was something close to a combination of a tighter points based system and a more thought out cap system.
I may be wrong, but is this it?:
If so, although combining a cap with points based system is stronger than a pure cap it still factors in the cap system which I believe is an arbitrary figure.
Although, on the flip side, a fairly strict cap may not necessarily continue the imbalance of population. Excess workers in an area will eventually move to another area where there are places in the job market (thereby alleviating the strain on public services in a more natural, less interventionist manner).
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If the points system cut out completely the “lower” end jobs, (not to sound derogatory here) but the types of jobs a high proportion of the people on the JSA list could do, and only leave the higher skilled/qualified jobs on the list then a cap could work.
With a cap in place it would then force said Government to invest in education and training for the higher end job.
We would need to upskill our own population, which means we could use a higher cap at first and slowly reduce that cap based on the number of people coming out the other end of the education/training system as qualified?
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One of my suggestions was also to allow people in to fill the skills gaps but only for a fixed periods of time, basically on contracts that state they would have no entitlement to remain after the contract ends.
In return for them signing such a contract we could give them a slightly reduced income tax bracket (as they won’t be living here permanently), but still allow access to the health service as they will still be paying for that through NI and Tax.
If they wanted to bring family for the duration they could, but they would NOT be able to claim any state help, and would also have to sign a similar contract to leave at the end of the spouses employment contract.
This type of policy would secure the right people coming in for the jobs where we have skills gaps, but also secure the immigration levels in that they would only be here on fixed term basis, which could be extended by the employer and the Immigration service if we haven’t got someone who can fill that position during that contract period.
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If I am understanding you correctly that does sound sensible. There are people already here able to do less skilled jobs and providing them with such opportunity takes people out of the benefit system and back into work (and prevents the “they took our jobs” argument).
I agree with that.
You are understanding me :), that is really the basis of the idea.
It would take away a lot of this they come here take our jobs houses and benefits etc, because immigrants are entitled to tax credits for low paid jobs.
So if we took more of those low paid jobs out of the system (actually from either late this year or early next a lot are being taken out), it would solve issues all round.
And it would enable the people we currently have here to access better training for decent jobs, this would also force employers to pay a better wage as they wouldn’t have the immigrant flood to choice from which helps keep the wage level at minimum wage.
So another benefit.
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Finding a specific comment on immigration on this website!
Unfortunately WordPress doesn’t allow for searching for a specific person comments at that level, I can find all comments by you and I can find all comments that use the word Immigration, but I can’t search for all comments by you that use the word immigration.
Over 500 comments use the word immigration :-)
And despite all that I think I found it :-))
And maybe:
David
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Thanks for looking David, but I think the basic principle of what I posted is detailed above :)
Select all VoteNo To BNP’s comments, click the move to trash button and laugh out loud :-)
David
“After all, they can’t claim much state support, and the money that they get cash-in-hand is still being circulated. ”
It’s a good point, people working even illegally do contribute to the economy.
However, if we have 1,000,000 illegal immigrants (what’s the current official estimate?) and the majority are working below minimum wage (no idea if that’s true) in the black economy, they probably aren’t paying income tax etc… and more importantly are harming businesses that don’t hire illegal immigrants.
Businesses employ illegal workers for the obvious reason, they are cheaper than hiring legal workers. The employer doesn’t have to pay NI contributions etc… so it saves the business a lot of money and allows them to undercut competing businesses.
Having hundreds of thousands of workers in the black economy is harming legitimate business and if the Lib Dems immigration amnesty policy can remove a lot of illegal workers from the market place AND pull them into paying tax that sounds like a good idea.
Unfortunately as has been touched on already, if these illegal workers are working in the black economy and are given an amnesty, take their slap on the wrist, where is their legitimate job coming from?
And what’s going to happen to the illegal ‘cash in hand’ job that, that worker has given up, will it be filled by another illegal worker who hasn’t managed to dodge the UK’s immigration police for 10 years??
Or do we assume when an illegal worker is given anesty the business employing them is going to keep them on and start paying minimum wage, NI contributions etc…?
I have a feeling even if the Lib Dems managed to put this into legislation it’s not going to make a positive difference.
I like the concept of pulling more people into the tax system, but I have a feeling (and it’s not backed up by research) that for every illegal immigrant that is given an amnesty another illegal immigrant will take their place and that would mean they are taking jobs from legal workers!
IMO the problem is with businesses hiring illegal workers, if no employer hired illegal workers, there wouldn’t be a problem.
I like the draconian Labour measures on businesses hiring illegal immigrants. If a business is caught hiring illegal workers, they are given a punitive fine up to £10,000 per workers (average appears to be £5k per worker). I would increase the fine up to £20,000 per worker (with an average fine of £10K) to make hiring illegal workers such a massive risk it will bankrupt small businesses that consistently break the rules.
David
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I would tend to agree David, it does seem to be one of those policies that has far more chance of failure than success.
But then again we could say why the hell not give it a go, it wouldn’t cost a massive amount of money to offer the amnesty, and it could trap a lot of those companies that are employing illegals, hence they could then be fined etc for the non payment of all those taxes, so it could take some of these dodgy agencies out of action as well, which would be a good thing.
So it has plus and negative points as does every policy I guess.
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You do make a very good point.
What would swing it for me is those given amnesty have to be willing to give evidence against any businesses that employed them over the 10+ year period. By giving an amnesty we can catch employers who hire illegal immigrants and fine them.
For me it’s more about stopping businesses hiring illegal workers than stopping illegal immigrants per se. Obviously when an illegal immigrant is caught they should be deported ASAP, but we are never going to stop people from other countries where the quality of living is low wanting to live in Britain: you can’t blame them for wanting a better life, if I was born in a third world country I’d want to live here.
We need to make it not worth the savings for businesses to employ illegal immigrants through punitive measures. Like I said before the up to £10,000 fine per illegal worker is a good start, but we need more, it needs to be such a disadvantage in business to hire illegals that only the lowest of the low (organised crime) will employ illegal immigrants.
By doing this illegal immigrants will still enter the country, but they won’t be able to find work in relatively legal places of business and will have no choice but to leave or starve.
It should not be possible for illegal immigrants to survive in Britain for 10+ years working illegally.
David
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The is a book published called……….50 People who Buggered up Britain…….worth the purchase price, no i did not write it or get any commission.
“50 savage and witty pen portraits of those responsible for destroying Britain by the DAILY MAIL’S star sketch writer, Quentin Letts.”
I’m surprised that he only chose 50, given that according to the Daily Mail everyone who isn’t a right-wing, middle to upper class, heterosexual married white man (that isn’t a bureaucrat or politician) has at least contributed to Britain being buggered up.
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Why are Greece in such a bad financial state………they have a socialist government looking after their money. it has never worked and never will.
You can not compare Greece’s fiscal disaster with the UK’s relatively stable financial state.
You do talk utter rubbish at times Jamie, the problems been a government that managed everything badly, with the biggest issue being Greece’s government debt. It has nothing to do with socialism per se.
Please take a read of https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html
Greece 113.40% of GDP
Japan 192.10% of GDP
Italy 115.20% of GDP
France 79.70% of GDP
Germany 77.20% of GDP
UK 68.50% of GDP
The above is 2009 figures for government debt as a % of the countries GDP.
You will note Greece and Italy have a debt level over 100% (so their debt is higher than the money the country makes in a year!).
The reason why their debt level is so high now is because they’ve run at a much higher level of debt historically than our Labour government and the Conservative government before.
During Labour’s 13 years our debt level has remained relatively low near the 40% level up until the bank crisis, if you compare our debt over the last 13 years to the debt of Germany over the last 13 years you’ll find we had a lower level of debt than Germany.
Many believe the Conservatives had us out of debt and Labour took power and started borrowing. Nope, the Conservatives on their best year had the debt level at 27% of GDP (1990-1991), but between 91 and 97 government debt increased to around 45% when Labour took power in 1997. Basically both Labour and the Conservatives ran our country at a debt level around 40-50% GDP historically and apparently that’s an affordable/reasonable level.
I’m not an economists so don’t understand why we run with debt as a matter of course, but pretty much all countries like ours run with a level of debt: I assume it’s like us have a mortgage, we borrow now so we can buy something now and pay for it later. Actually thinking about it, the debt has probably paid for the Iraq and Afghan wars!
Greece and Italy ran at a much higher level of debt than Germany and the UK and that’s why when the banking crisis hit and we all had a credit crunch and recession, when Italy and Greece had to bail out their banks etc… it pushed their debt levels to a point where it was no longer affordable.
And that is why Greece is in the s##t financially right now and there’s the possibility Italy will be next. It is highly unlikely Germany, France and the UK will be in trouble like Greece is because we can afford to pay our debt back.
It really irritates me when people suggest the UK is in really bad trouble, bankrupt Britain sort of stuff, because it’s not true, but if enough people say this sort of stuff (especially the media and opposing politicians) it will damage our countries economy as it scares off foreign investment which is extremely important right now!
David
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sorry david you dont like what i say, i write what i feel as i have done for 40 years, i am not a political writer by profession just a humble comedy writer, to me the socialists have ruined this country, first by bliar and then brown and darling, darling and brown said time and time again we are better placed because of prudence that we would be better placed to be first out of recession, which again is another lie, maybe i am an oldie i remember what has happened in the past, and under any labour government have we never been better off. denis healey had to borrow money, i dont run this country down and never have, before brown took over we had a village policeman, everyone knew him and he kept this place in order, what did they do, they pensioned him off, now its 20 miles if you need a policeman, yes labour works but not for the masses brown was asked this morning by a nurse why should she vote for labour ( he did not answer ),the public only want to hear what they want to hear. i have met my local MP and i was not impressed, but he is the best of a bad bunch. if you prefer i dont comment on things in the future. i will not do so.
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I would vote for David Cameron if he promised us that referendum on the EU we are still waiting for. While all the Party leaders are scrabbling around looking for ways to save millions of pounds and at the same time not annoy anyone, he is missing a great opportunity by not giving us a chance to vote on EU membership, ( where we will NEVER get a fair deal for our hefty subscription ), and thereby save Billions of pounds ( and get our Refund back that Gordon Brown so casually gave away ), then get back control of our own affairs, getting rid of the Human Rights law ( that only seems to protect the criminals ). The excellent free book from the Tax Payers Alliance : “Ten years on Britain without the European Union”, is an essential read. So I will be voting for the only Party that WIll give us a referendum : UKIP.
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Sorry Bert,
But NON of the parties actually promised a referendum on Europe at all.
They did however make some promise of one based on the Lisbon Treaty (which actually has nothing to do with us either leaving or remaining in the EU).
There wouldn’t be much point in having the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty now as it has been ratified and is now part of the British system.
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