I find all these reasons why we can't simply leave persuasive but very very depressing. The number of ifs between now and an in/out referendum makes the probability of it ever coming about miniscule. Your listing of all the obstacles in the way make the chances of winning such a referendum even more remote. Ahh well, looks like I'll never see an independent UK again!

Quote:

simply repeal the ECA

Wow, I like the sound of it..................but

We will have to do it a tad more subtly than that - Article 50 is the way out and a good way - weighing it up.

There are probably simple ways round it ... but, as I say, unless we bring it up, the opposition will.

The opening part of this post, the description of the desire to fail, is more common than might be imagined. Glorious failure is such an Anglo Saxon concept and we do it like no other nation on earth and not just in politics. I have worked abroad and never found it so well done as back in dear old blighty!

However, this blog is all about politics so sticking with that let's grit our teeth and consider UKIP,they will do as an opening example. It really does look as if they have at the top of their list the desire to annoy as many people as possible. Getting out of the EU is second. The arithmetical consequence that flows from this, people don't vote for them, seems not to matter.

This is why we have to be so canny with the HA. We have to appeal on the widest possible front. It's not that the arithmetic is superior to the politics, we can't be all things to all people, but the numbers are equal to the politics. If we don't get the numbers we are wasting our time. And we might only get one chance.

Smart? You are talking about our Foreign Office here!


But I take your point, and note it. I've slightly modified the text of the post.

This international treaty dimension is one I've always been aware of, but only recently have I begun to understand the scale. And since the EU acquired a legal identity with Lisbon, the problem is set to become worse. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be to extract.

Come on Dr. Richard, you are forgetting how the anti-EU people really began to coagulate at the time of the Maastricht Treaty. They were all passionate people who believed that something needed to be done to get out of the EU. They were not "eurosceptic" people trying to define their own existence.

UKIP was formed in 1993 and Malcolm Wood in Salisbury recognised the MEP candidate and platform speaker Nigel Farage as representing the face of Conservatives, like the Tory "bastards" and himself, who wanted to leave the EU but under a Conservative government. Farage has survived through many dramas and extols the sentiments with which many millions of UK citizens have empathy. Farage has never done detail. The 1994 and 1999 European elections were fought on simple messages. The one major attempt at a comprehensive manifesto was junked at the last minute by Farage because it was late and confused the election message in 2009. It sticks in my craw to say so but Farage was right. But EU elections are "easy" to win by virtue of the fact that it is a vote about the EU.

Winning UK Parliamentary elections is another ball game, one for which Farage is unsuited for the many reasons which I have previously stated on various blogs.

So, Dr. Richard, you have very adeptly highlighted the pitfalls of the Farage concept of "one vote on the ECA and we're out" because of the EU Treaties and Agreements currently in place. As a good medical doctor diagnoses the problem and suggests the remedy, I'd like to hear from you a remedy. Could it be Article 50 coupled with a promise to comply with each EU Treaty until such time as we have negotiated alternative arrangements (over a sensible timeframe) ?