https://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/bruges-group-mee   
   ing-1-april-2015-john-redwood-says-he-could-vote-to-stay-in-the-eu/   
      
   Bruges Group Meeting 1 April 2015 - John Redwood says he could vote to stay in   
   the EU   
      
   Robert Henderson   
      
   Speakers:   
      
   Tim Aker  (Ukip  MEP)   
      
   John Redwood (Tory  MP)   
      
   Peter Oborne (Associate editor of the Spectator  magazine)   
      
   The meeting was very well attended with in excess of 200 people present, many   
   of whom stayed despite having  to stand.  Particularly pleasing and   
   encouraging were the number of young faces, which made up perhaps  a  quarter    
   of the audience.  The    
   audience was very animated and a positive forest of hands were going up when   
   questions were taken.   
      
   The order of the speakers  was Aker - Redwood - Oborne.  However, for ease of   
   summary of their views both in their  speeches  and in answer to audience   
   questions I shall  deal with them with them in this order:  Redwood - Aker -   
   Oborne.   
      
   John Redwood   
      
   Redwood was so out of touch with the feeling of the audience that  he came   
   close to being booed. As it was there were frequent cries of "no", "rubbish"   
   and general murmurings of dissent as he asked the audience to trust Cameron's   
   honesty in his attempt    
   to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU and put forward a plan for   
   the OUT campaign which side-lined Nigel Farage . (The traffic of  audience   
   disapproval   was countered by support for Redood , but judged by the noise   
   made  those against him    
   were  more numerous than his supporters).   
      
   Redwood said that he  believed  in Cameron's honest intent  in  his   
   negotiations  with EU. Consequently, he would not make up his mind whether to   
   vote to leave until Cameron had completed his negotiations.   I think most   
   people who have followed Redwood'   
   s voluminous pronouncements  on  the EU will be more than a little surprised   
   by his adoption of  such an equivocal position as the referendum   
   approaches.    Redwood's words were all the more unexpected because he began   
   his talk by  denouncing  the fact    
   that  membership of the EU  meant elected governments  -  most notably Greece   
   at present - could not  do  what their electors wanted even if they wished   
   to.  An important question arises,   if  Redwood  is  undecided about which   
   way he will vote  how can    
   he be  part of the OUT campaign?   Indeed, if Cameron gets concessions which   
   Redwood deems enough to persuade him to vote to stay in,  presumably he will   
   be campaigning with the stay in camp.   
      
   While Redwood's unwillingness to directly dismiss Cameron's stated aim as a   
   sham is understandable, he is just a backbencher   who is unlikely to find a   
   place in  a Cameron cabinet in a Parliament where his party only has a small   
   majority.  These    
   circumstances mean Redwood  has considerable freedom  to speak his mind.  In   
   this instance he  could have said something along the lines of "The Prime   
   Minister is sincere in his desire to reform the EU but I am  sure we all know   
   in our hearts that this    
   is a lost cause. Therefore, I have no doubt that I  shall be voting  to come   
   out of the EU" or  even better  " I  shall be voting to leave the EU   
   regardless of what is offered by the EU  because for me the question  is not   
   about renegotiating our term of    
   membership but  of Britain being a sovereign nation state".  Either statement   
   would be consistent with what Redwood  has said over the past few years.   
      
   Redwood also  failed to  describe in any  detail what he would consider  would   
   constitute  sufficient changes to the UK's relationship with the EU to make   
   him vote to stay in.  Neither Aker nor Oborne challenged him on this and no   
   audience member who was    
   called to ask a question raised the subject.  However, the subject is    
   academic in the long run because it really does not matter what Cameron   
   obtains by his renegotiation because whilst we remain within the EU any   
   concessions given now may be reversed    
   at a later date by the EU.   
      
   Perhaps most  disturbing for those  who wish  the UK to leave the EU as a   
   matter of principle, that is, those who wish our country to be a sovereign   
   nation again, was Redwood's strategy for the OUT campaign.  Redwood  adopted   
   the line that Nigel Farage    
   should not lead the OUT campaign because, he claimed, Farage is a marmite   
   politician  who will alienate large chunks of the waverers  as we approach the   
   referendum.  In fact, Redwood gave the impression he would rather see Farage   
   completely excluded from    
   the OUT campaign.   
      
   Redwood's scheme for the OUT side  consisted of not frightening the voters   
   with vulgar non-pc  talk about immigration or being  brutally honest  about   
   anything relating to the  EU. Of course it is true  that the undecided and    
   faint-hearted supporters of    
   leaving the EU will have to be appealed to in the right terms. The mistake   
   Redwood is making is to imagine that the right terms will not include putting   
   immigration controls  at the heart of  the OUT campaign.  Polls consistently   
   show that immigration is    
   one of the  major concerns of the British public and  when the politically   
   correct inspired terror of speaking honestly about race and immigration is   
   taken into account, it is odds on that immigration is the number one issue by   
   a wide margin.  A British    
   Future report in 2014 found that 25% of those included in the research wanted   
   not only an end to immigration but the removal of all immigrants already in   
   the UK and a YouGov poll commissioned by  Channel 5  in 2014 found that 70% of   
   those questioned    
   wanted and end to mass immigration. .   
      
   Putting immigration at the heart of the OUT campaign would also have the bonus   
   of appealing to the Scots through  a subject on which they feel the same as   
   the rest of the UK, that is they are also  opposed to mass immigration.  That   
   is important because    
   the SNP are trying to establish grounds for Scotland having a veto over the UK   
   leaving the EU if Scotland votes to stay in the EU and either England  or   
   England, Wales and Northern Ireland  vote to leave.  The larger the vote to   
   leave the EU in Scotland    
   is , the less moral  leverage they will have for  either a veto over Britain   
   leaving  the EU or another independence referendum.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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