Is John Redwood going soft on the EU?

That is the question that some anti-EU campaigners will be asking after Mr. Redwood popped up on BBC News 24 Television on 1.10.2006 (the first day of the annual conference of the Conservative Party in Bournemouth).

In 1995, Mr. Redwood was vying with Michael Portillo for the crown of the Conservative eurosceptics. Unlike Mr. Portillo (who has since left the Commons to become a ‘metro’ moderate supporter of pro-EU Conservative leader David Cameron) Mr. Portillo continued to make eurosceptic noises (right up until 1st October 2006 that is).

Appearing on BBC News 24 Television, he was asked the sort of question by newsreader Peter Sissons that anti-EU campaigners had wanted the biased pro-EU BBC to pose years ago – “Doesn’t most of our regulations and legislation come from europe?”

The reply to this fair and reasonable question from all eurosceptic and anti-EU people would have been “Yes, isn’t it terrible. And there’s nothing we can do about it unless we quit the EU. The Government is deceitfully trying to hide the fact that our ancient Parliament just rubber stamps legislation dumped on it from Brussels these days and is not a proper national Parliament any more.”

Instead, John Redwood told Mr. Sissons “No – not most of it. Only some of it. Some of it is from the UK – such as ID cards.”

Even that is not correct – ID card legislation emanates from the EU as UKIP and the No2ID campaign will confirm.

John Redwood was given a good question by Mr. Sissons – critics will say Mr. Redwood answered as if he was David Cameron.

Let's hope that Mr. Redwood remains eurosceptic and that he is not, like Michael Portillo, moving to the 'soggy europhile centre' where 'europe' is discussed little or not at all.
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Going soft? He voted FOR the Maastricht treaty.

He is therefore a Europhile, no matter how he protests to the membership.
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Originally Posted by mkpdavies:
Going soft? He voted FOR the Maastricht treaty.

He is therefore a Europhile, no matter how he protests to the membership.

I can't argue with the fact that he voted for the EU Maastricht Treaty. He did. And he shouldn't have. It's as simple as that :-) .
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