"Upstart British party gains in local elections" by STEPHEN CASTLE and ALAN COWELL | New York Times Syndicate, May 04, 2013
LONDON — Britain’s populist United Kingdom Independence Party made sweeping gains in local elections and finished second in a parliamentary by-election, according to results announced Friday, shaking mainstream political parties, and claiming a “sea change” in national life.
Once scorned by Prime Minister David Cameron as “a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists,” the party, which wants Britain to leave the European Union and strictly control immigration, gained about a quarter of the vote in a series of votes around the country on Thursday, according to an initial count. The outcome was the party’s fourth electoral advance in six months.
“We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment,” Nigel Farage, the Independence Party leader, told the BBC, “and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 percent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country. This is a real sea change in British politics.”
The results were particularly alarming for Cameron’s Conservatives, who were pushed into third place in a by-election in South Shields, in northeastern Britain, after the resignation of Foreign Secretary David Miliband. The opposition Labor Party retained the seat, but with a reduced majority.
Farage warned his rivals that his supporters were not going away. “The people that vote for us are rejecting the establishment,” he said, castigating the “metropolitan elite” for failing to respond to what he depicted as Britons’ desire to retrieve British sovereignty from the European Union.
You may not like the approach, but they are on to something.
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"Right-wing party surges in UK by-election" by John F. Burns | New York Times, March 02, 2013
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives took a pummeling on Friday after results of a by-election showed surging support for the right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party.
Such deep inroads into the Conservative vote, if sustained at a general election in two years, could oust the Conservatives from power and usher the Labor Party back into No. 10 Downing Street.
Related:
"The decision to quit British politics appears to reflect the realization that Ed Miliband now looks firmly ensconced as Labor leader after a shaky start. Effectively, David Miliband faced the difficult prospect of many years in the shadow of his younger sibling after their leadership fight two years ago. The brothers are both former ministers in the government led by Gordon Brown and sons of a left-wing Jewish intellectual and historian, Ralph Miliband, who reached Britain in 1940 on the last ship to leave Belgium ahead of advancing Nazi forces."
Why not? They have Britain's balls in their hands anyway.
Midterm by-elections in Britain have been notoriously quirky for decades, providing opportunities for protest voting that have often been uncertain predictors of general election outcomes.
But in this case, with the results tracking closely with national polls and with mounting concern within the Conservative Party itself about its election prospects, the vote was widely read as a measure of deep problems for the Conservatives.
Senior figures in Cameron’s party acknowledged privately that the results from Thursday’s vote in Eastleigh, a mainly suburban voting district near the coastal city of Southampton, had thrown the deeply divided Conservatives into further disarray.
But Cameron was quick to assert that the results were quixotic and not a death knell for the party’s prospects in 2015.
‘‘It’s a protest,’’ Cameron said after the Eastleigh results showed the Independence Party taking 28 percent of the vote, pushing the Conservatives, with 25 percent, into third place. ‘‘That’s what happens in by-elections.’’
The winners, with 32 percent of the vote, were the Liberal Democrats, a left-of-center party that has been in an increasingly fractious governing coalition with the Conservatives since the general election in 2010.
Observers attributed the Independence Party’s surge — its best result ever in a parliamentary by-election — to its relentless campaigning on two issues that have a powerful resonance among right-of-center voters: high levels of immigration and Britain’s membership in the 27-nation European Union.
European directives on a wide range of social, economic, and judicial issues have been a persistent source of discontent among British voters generally and a cause of longstanding strife among Conservatives.
Cameron, whose leadership has been widely questioned among a powerful bloc of mainly right-wing Conservative legislators, said he would not change the policies that have led to discontent with him and suggestions that the party seek a new leader before the 2015 general election.
Among those policies are Cameron’s decision to support a same-sex marriage bill that is moving through Parliament and to seek to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership in the EU rather than quit the European bloc, as the Independence Party and many right-wing Conservatives advocate.
Some of his critics say that in seeking to placate his Liberal Democrat partners and hold the coalition together by adopting policies taken from the Liberal Democrat playbook, notably on same-sex marriage, Cameron has abandoned core Conservative beliefs....
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"UK vows tougher immigration rules" New York Times, March 26, 2013
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain promised more stringent rules Monday to reduce outsiders’ access to social, health and housing benefits, reflecting a debate over the potential effect of increased immigration from southeast Europe that could fuel a rightist challenge to his dominant Conservative Party.
The prospect that citizens from Bulgaria and Romania could gain unfettered access to the British labor market has raised alarms among some Britons about competition for jobs, strengthening anti-immigrant sentiment and helping fuel the insurgent United Kingdom Independence Party.
Romanians and Bulgarians gain full access to Britain’s job market next January. The debate in Britain is particularly vociferous because officials hugely underestimated the number of immigrants who came to Britain after eight other formerly Communist nations joined the European Union in 2004.
In a speech to a university audience in Ipswich, in eastern England, Cameron began by praising generations of previous immigrants, saying ‘‘we’re rolling out the red carpet to those whose hard work and investment will create new British jobs.’’
But, he also said....
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"Cameron warned against reworking EU membership" by Danica Kirka | Associated Press, January 10, 2013
LONDON — Top business executives have warned UK Prime Minister David Cameron that he could damage Britain’s economy if he seeks to renegotiate the terms of its membership in the European Union.
In a letter published in the Financial Times on Wednesday, Virgin Group’s Richard Branson, London Stock Exchange head Chris Gibson-Smith, and eight other business leaders challenged Cameron’s plan to renegotiate the United Kingdom’s EU membership terms and put the matter to a referendum.
The executives warned that such a plan could fail, pushing the UK out of the EU and hurting business in the process.
Membership in the EU has given the UK access to the massive European market as well as a say in how the region should govern itself and run its financial markets. The country has also benefited from EU funds to build infrastructure such as broadband networks.
However, popular distrust of the EU has grown in Britain — one of the 10 countries in the region that doesn’t use the euro.
Because PEOPLE NOW REALIZE the GLOBALIST MONEY JUNKIES and their designed looting systems do NOT SERVE THEM!
The British public shows no interest in the EU’s plans to move closer together. Most can’t even seem to stomach the current level of power of the EU, which many Britons see as meddlesome and inefficient....
A senior US official also expressed concern about the prospect of a referendum, saying the Obama administration wants to see a ‘‘strong British voice’’ in the European Union.
All the more reason to get out.
Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary for European affairs, said ‘‘referendums have often turned countries inward’’ — but stressed that whatever is in the UK’s interest is up to the UK.
‘‘We welcome an outward-looking EU with Britain in it,’’ he said.
Tough economic times are forcing the 17 EU countries that use the euro to move ever closer, creating a more powerful union that could leave non-euro members like Britain with less negotiating power.
After it has FAILED SO MISERABLY who would want to join? People rightfully want out!
While Cameron wants Britain to remain in the EU and to retain influence in the body, he is also resisting a push by many member states, like France and Germany, to grant central authorities in Brussels greater powers over financial and legal affairs for the whole of the EU.
No wonder he is suffering in elections.
In the long run, many EU countries want to turn the bloc into a United States of Europe, an idea British politicians abhor....
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"David Cameron may seek looser ties with Europe; That could also mean decreased influence in EU" by Stephen Castle | New York Times, January 23, 2013
LONDON — Last year, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain used his appearance at the World Economic Forum to vent frustration with the European Union, listing some of the policies he would ditch if he could throw off Europe’s regulatory shackles....
One year later, Cameron is following through on that pledge. He is promising to renegotiate Britain’s ties to the 27-nation bloc, forge a new and looser relationship, and probably put the outcome of those talks to a referendum.
A speech on Europe, planned for last week, was postponed because of the crisis in Algeria. It has been rescheduled for Wednesday, ahead of a possible visit by Cameron to Davos, Switzerland.
It was unclear whether Cameron would attend Davos this year and speak on the same theme. But his tough line on Europe echoes growing British disenchantment with a bloc whose single currency union has been in crisis for three years.
Yet, supposing Cameron were to succeed in scaling down Britain’s involvement, some central questions will arise. Can Britain play a more limited role in Brussels and still retain significant influence there? And what might that mean for Britain’s full participation in one of the world’s biggest single markets? In their 40-year history of engagement with a unifying Europe, Britons have never embraced the idea of unity; instead they have seen their ties to the Continent in pragmatic terms. Increasingly, London’s conclusion seems to be that the costs in terms of regulatory burdens and financial contributions are not outweighed by clear benefits....
He sees what is happening to everyone else.
Britain, which is in the second tier of EU membership, not only stayed out of the euro — and unlike most of the others on the sidelines has no intention of joining — but also does not participate in Europe’s Schengen passport-free travel zone. The British government also announced last year that it would opt out of a range of justice and security policy areas.
That was a good move.
A group of Conservative lawmakers argued last week for five treaty changes, including those that would allow any country to block new EU legislation on financial services, and would repatriate social and employment laws to national capitals. Britain’s euro skeptics are also blunt in their criticism of the bloc’s agricultural, fisheries, and regional aid programs.
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"UK premier offers plan to reduce ties to European Union" by Andrew Higgins | New York Times, January 24, 2013
BRUSSELS — The French are engaged in a lonely military adventure in Africa. The Germans are preoccupied with domestic elections rather than regional affairs. Unemployment in some countries is at a historic high and economies across Europe are still mired in recession.
Now Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has added to Europe’s malaise, vowing to reduce British entanglement with the European Union, or allow his people to vote in a referendum to leave the bloc altogether.
Out soon then.
The pledge prompted swift retorts from France and Germany, which said no member had the option of “cherry picking” whatever European rules it wants to enforce. But it reflected a growing sense of unease across the Continent, that while the acute phase of the financial crisis has passed, the challenge to Europe’s mission and even its membership has not.
Even the United States has injected itself into the matter, with an unusually public insistence that Britain, a close ally, stay in the union, fearing that its departure would heighten centrifugal forces that would weaken Europe as a diplomatic, military, and financial partner.
With the threat of a sudden breakup of the eurozone appearing to recede in recent months, Europe has seen a resurgence of narrow national interests that risks swamping always elusive common goals. The bickering is undercutting hopes in some circles that the struggle to save the euro had laid the groundwork for “more Europe.”
“As pressure from the financial markets recedes and a sense of urgency lifts, the appetite for serious reform is melting away like butter in the sun,” said Thomas Klau, head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Now that markets no longer hold a knife under leaders’ throats, they are slipping back into their normal mode, which is to manage their own immediate reality.”
For Cameron, with elections coming in 2015, that means heading off a challenge from the hard-right, anti- Europe UK Independence Party, while shoring up support for his government, which recently admitted that its unpopular austerity program would have to be extended to 2018, analysts said.
Then they will be losing in 2015.
Then they will be losing in 2015.
He is also eager to avoid the sort of ruinous intraparty split over Europe that bedeviled the prime ministerships of two of his Conservative predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
That comes against a backdrop of declining public support for British membership in Europe — only 45 percent last year, down from 51 percent in 2011, in polls conducted by the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project.
Cameron’s speech Wednesday in London calling for a referendum had been in the works for some time but, noted Klau, was delivered at a moment when the European Union had begun to declare victory over doomsayers who predicted the common currency and even the whole union could crumble.
This mood of calm, Klau said, has given leaders ‘‘the political space’’ to turn their eyes from Europe toward more pressing and, for politicians seeking reelection, far more important domestic concerns.
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"David Cameron, deputy clash on EU plan" by Kitty Donaldson | Bloomberg News, January 25, 2013
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron and his Liberal Democrat deputy, Nick Clegg, clashed Thursday on whether the possibility of Britain leaving the European Union within five years risks putting off investors and damaging the economy.
Clegg, who leads the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, distanced himself from his Conservative coalition partner’s plans to repatriate powers from the EU. Cameron promised voters a referendum Wednesday by late 2017 on whether to remain in the EU on new terms or leave the 27-nation bloc, saying he will make the case for staying.
“Where, of course, David Cameron and I part company is I simply don’t understand the point of spending years and years and years tying yourself up in knots first, so-called renegotiating the terms of Britain’s membership in ways that at the moment at least are completely vague,” Clegg told London’s LBC radio station Thursday during his weekly phone-in show. “And I think that discourages investment and inhibits growth and jobs, which has to remain our absolute priority.”
Cameron defended his position in a question-and-answer session after his speech Thursday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland....
A letter to the Times newspaper signed by 55 leaders of industry and London’s financial district welcomed the referendum proposals as ‘‘good for business and good for jobs.’’
The opposition Labor Party argued that Cameron’s position on the EU will make Britain less attractive to foreign investors.
‘‘We have traditionally said, ‘come to Britain because it is a favorable climate,’ ’’ former Europe minister Peter Hain told the BBC. “We are on a road which could lead us out of Europe and out of that market and that is a decision which is going to affect investment.’’
Clegg indicated that Cameron’s referendum pledge wouldn’t prevent a renewed coalition after the 2015 general election....
What have they gotten for being subservient?
What have they gotten for being subservient?
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