10-01-2019, 08:33 AM
(10-01-2019, 07:35 AM)Derek Hardballs Wrote: That doesn’t mean it was a major issue in most if any elections until a few years ago. It was a minority concern that the Tory’s have either deliberately or accidentally made into an almost religious cult where common sense has been flung out the window and normal rules no longer apply.
The Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party was managed by Thatcher, who - for all her many, well publicised, spats with the EU - was never minded to seriously contemplate leaving; those same Eurosceptics were then faced down by Major over Maastricht. As you rightly point out Euroscepticism never appeared to do the Tories much damage at general elections - they were in power for all of the 80s and the majority of the 90s; eventually being replaced by a Labour Party who were, if anything, more kindly disposed towards the EU.
Which is why Farage, the ERG and sundry other Eurosceptic ideologues were so keen to separate the issue from general elections and make it the focal point of a binary referendum; and Cameron - for reasons only he will ever really know - fell for it.
Ironic that Johnson would now like to repackage it into a GE campaign and is being thwarted by the opposition benches.