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I suppose one of my favourite sayings is that “Life is a journey not a destination”. What I mean by this is that whilst we often and indeed should, make plans to do this or that, often events in life overtake us or quite suddenly, we can see things from a totally different perspective. For me today and thinking about Gordon Brown’s behaviour over the EU Constitution, I had a sudden realisation and I thought I might share it…

I was writing a comment to an article by Ian Martin on the EU Constitution vote by Ireland being ignored by Brussels and last night the Lords ratifying the wretched document by the UK – scumbags that they are and so on… I ended with the following:

“Forget all the arguments by both the pro and anti EU sides, there is only one glaring answer, the “Lisbon Treaty” stinks and should be ditched – why, because there has only been one Referendum and everybody who has ratified has done so mainly in spite of their citizens. Brown insisting on ratifying in the Lords yesterday is a sign of someone who is terminally insane or, just wants to inflict the maximum damage on the UK before he is thrown out of office. NuLabour is now renamed The Nu Lemming Party.”

Revise that View

I suddenly realised that I was wrong about Brown he most certainly is not insane in fact although I despise what he as Chancellor and later Prime Minister has done to this country through his blind stupidity and lack of intellect, as a man, I can feel a degree of empathy.

Of course his behaviour of the EU Constitution from the “signing ceremony” onwards has been foolish; he could have used the opportunity far better for both himself and the Labour Party. I am sure that with hindsight he realises that trying to compensate for running away from an Autumn Election he most certainly would have won, buy being “tough and resolute” (stubborn & stupid in reality), was over compensating, a free vote would have served him better by far.

So What Is His Motivation ?

I think that it is no glaringly obvious: He knows that he will never win a General Election in his own right; he knows that he is going to lose and the game is out of his hands now. He overspent as Chancellor so there is no room for tax cuts and other stimulus to keep the economy buoyant. He relished and bathed in the sun lit uplands of an expanding world economy and claimed it all as due to “his handling of affairs…” Therefore now when the world economy has turned, he has to accept the blame in equal measure, in short, he’s buggered.

Like Blair who wanted to massage his “Legacy”, Brown wants to leave behind something apart from his abject failure in the job he lusted after for so long, he wants to be remembered as a “Master Political Tactician” and the EU offers him this chance. His objective is not to inflict maximum damage on the UK though, there may be collateral damage in the process, he wants to make things as difficult as possible for an incoming Conservative Government.

His hope being that between the awful financial mess that they will inherit from him which will inevitably require massive job cuts in the public services and existing Government funded projects in order to bring Public Borrowing under control, as the EU has caused previous Conservative Governments major problems (no pun intended), it might lead to splits and disunity within the Tory ranks. What he is trying to set the groundwork for is that the Labour Party will be able to limit the Conservatives to one or at the most, two terms in office.

His hope being that they can leave all the “heavy lifting” on the economy to the Tories and then come back as the “New-New New Labour Party” in 2014 or 2018/19 at the latest. In a sense of course, this kind of thinking of putting Party before Country and Government before Democracy is the real reason that a Labour Party wipe-out in May 2010 might be a good idea, there is a lot of rebuilding of our democracy to be done after these Visigoths have gone.

Cameron’s Answer…

David Cameron doesn’t have to do too much to side step this little Bear Trap. All he has to do is negotiate a Trade Only Agreement with the EU and then after a decent 6 month campaign based upon a free vote with no “Government Whip”, put a “Stay In the Political EU” or “Opt for Trade Only”, it would slay the Dragon fairly easily and in the process, make the EU clean up its act for the benefit of all EU citizens.

Cameron should follow this type of strategy because it has a big political impact as in “We are different from the previous lot, we believe in the British Electorate…” but carries very little in the way of cost to the taxpayer. Whatever a Tory government wants to do, it is going to be very heavily hampered by the position they inherit. A year ago, they could have matched Government spending, now they know this isn’t realistic, even the Government can’t match its own promises.

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