Cameron and Hague say no to EU referendum

Cast Iron Dave and Wee Willy Vague have repeated their belief that membership of the EU is in our national interest and that they won't support an in-out referendum on it.

Camoron says that us voters don't want an in-out referendum, we just want the British government to change our relationship with "Europe". He says:

It's not our view that there should be an in/out referendum. I don't want Britain to leave the EU. I think it's the wrong answer for Britain.

Which is proof, if proof were needed, that he knows what the answer will be.  He knows the answer will be to leave and he thinks that's wrong so he's not going to let us say we want out.

He employs his usual trickery to try and scare people into thinking that by leaving the EU we will lose trading partners:

I will always defend the British national interest. I think our interest is to be in the EU, because we need that single market. We are a trading nation, it is vital for our economic future.

But membership of EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) or EEA (European Economic Area) doesn't require membership of the EU.  Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland are all members of EFTA and none are members of the EU.  All but Switzerland are members of the EEA.  In fact, the EU has free trade agreements with Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Bosnia, Chile, Columbia, Croatia, Egypt, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Norway, Palestine, Peru, San Marino, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Tunisia and Turkey.  The EU is also in the process of setting up free trade agreements with Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bahrain, Belize, Brazil, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Oman, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, St Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, St Vincent & the Grenadines, St Kitts & Nevis, Suriname, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Vietnam.

So why would the EU, which is quite happily empire building across the globe, refuse to sign a free trade agreement with the UK?  Why would the EU go to the effort of pursuing a free trade agreement with a country like St Kitts & Nevis - 104sq mi of tropical island with a population of 51k (less than a third of the size of Telford) and a GDP roughly equivalent to the annual wage bill of a Premiership football team - but not with the sixth largest economy in the world?

A petition with over 100,000 signatures has been presented to the British government calling for a debate on a referendum in Parliament.  The debate will go ahead but any vote will be meaningless as these debates don't make law.  What it will do though is root out the true eurosceptics from the "mainstream eurosceptics" who want to stay in the EU and talk of reforming the unreformable.

Wee Willy Vague told Sky News:

Of course we will look at any motion, but we won't be in favour of holding now an in/out referendum on Europe. At a time of economic difficulty to actually say to people, instead of getting everything growing in our economy, we are going to spend our time on an in/out referendum which will create uncertainty for businesses in Britain - that wouldn't be a very sensible course of action.

I wonder when Wee Willy last asked someone in the City if they thought leaving the EU would be a good idea.  Or the Chairmen of some of the largest multinationals operating in the UK.  Or even just the owners of the hundreds of thousands of SMEs that contribute more to the economy than all of the big businesses put together.  Because all of them are seeing their businesses harmed by the EU, buried in red tape dreamt up by unelected foreign eurocrats who base policy on the desire to accumulate power and further EU integration rather than common sense or need.

We are contributing billions to bailout funds for the €uro and its failing members and new regulations supposedly aimed at stopping the €urozone economies from failing are being heaped on our financial sector. Thousands of SMEs fail every year because they can't afford to employ staff they need to win business.  Big multinationals are being hit with extra costs coming from EU regulations such as green taxes, additional costs of employing staff, etc.

And then there's "guilt by association" - when the EU sneezes, we get a cold; when the €uro gets into trouble, the pound gets into trouble; when a €urozone economy fails, billions is wiped off the FTSE.  Being part of a free trade agreement doesn't do this to an economy, being part of an economic and political union does.  It's having the EU running the country that is dragging us down, our economy would thrive outside of the EU.

Wee Willy said that the Tories aren't split on the issue of the EU, claiming that most Tories are "very closely aligned" with his and Camoron's eurofederalist beliefs.  Meanwhile, in the real world the Express has published results of a poll that shows that almost three quarters of Conservative Party members want a referendum on membership of the EU.

Opinion polls consistently and without exception show that the majority of people would vote to leave the EU.  Even with all the state-sponsored propaganda telling them that membership is good for us, even with the EU-sponsored BBC promoting the EU most people still think we should leave the EU.  The argument for leaving the EU has already been won, it is for the europhiles to make the case for staying in.  Camoron and Vague say we are better off in so show us why we're better off as members of the EU.  They say most voters don't want an in-out referendum in defiance of all the evidence showing that we do so prove it.

The Tories are a pro-EU party, Camoron has consistently said that he is pro-EU and will ignore any calls for a referendum.  Any eurosceptic that stays in the Conservatives in the hope of the party turning eurosceptic is deluded.