As the camera trained upon the two lecterns in the rose garden of 10 Downing Street, panning across the congregation of journalists in two seating blocks, one almost expected Mr and Mr Camerclegg to come bouncing up the aisle under a flurry of confetti to Mendelssohn's Wedding March.
What we got wasn't far off a Civil Partnership ceremony.
But the question is, how can a coalition of Lib Dems and Conservatives operate in Brussels when the two inhabit such diametrically different groups? Friends in Westminster, enemies in Europe, would not make sense if both purport to work in the interests of the country.
Add to that the fact that the Greek Bailout has seen the invocation of article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty, which cites natural disasters and exceptional circumstances as justification for a bail out (an intellectual stretch if you ask me) would also see the need to switch from unanimous voting to qualified majority voting over future bail-outs (a stitch up, considering Eurozone countries outnumber non-Euro member states 16 to 11). Surely this would demand re-ratification of the dreaded Lisbon Treaty, with the pen firmly in the hand of William Hague.
The bone of contention, battle ground and lamb to slaughter or Gaza strip of this coalitition is our membership of the EU.
But will we get a referendum?
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John makes a very good observation.....there are many areas where the new 'arrangements' can be foisted on the memberships quite easily (despite the serious misgivings of real Tories and Lib Dems) but 'The Europe Thing' is going to be the real cruncher. It could really come back to nip them quite hard on the old under-carriage.
ReplyDeleteThis is an areas where they hold directly opposing views and it will be seriously diificult to paper over such big cracks.....we will see eh!