Treaty change, no referendum.

That's right, according to Mats Persson of Open Europe, German newspaper Die Welt has reported the story that David Cameron promised Angela Merkel that he will guide changes to the Lisbon Treaty through the British Parliament without a referendum.

I'm sure he and his front bench will argue and argue that the Treaty change will have a limited effect on the UK and all the rest of it, but this yet again proves that Cameron is no better than Gordon Brown. He sees the EU as an issue where he must dodge and weave the Eurosceptics and the public rather than allowing the voice of the overwhelming majority to prevail. He acts as the British Prime Minister in defiance of British public opinion.

What kind of warped world has British politics become when our Prime Minister views a victory as handing the European Union another £400m+ per year while cutting defence, police and a whole host of other services back home?

The straw that will break the Tory back?

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan says no to the EU budget hike, no to a new Treaty and yes to a referendum on EU membership.

Fellow Tory MEP Roger Helmer insists David Cameron must not wobble on a new Treaty or the budget and must repatriate powers.

Tory grandee Lord Tebbit argues that the Tory Prime Minister must reject any increase in the EU's budget.

Conservative Party feeling is summed up very well in a post over at ConservativeHome. David Cameron is clearly not going to be the tough acting Prime Minister that millions of Tories insisted he would be. There is no real reform agenda here on the European Union, no Conservative Prime Minister dedicated to radically reforming the EU and changing Britain's relationship with it.

Cameron's position of trying to freeze the EU budget is pathetic. He is today going to submit to a £435 million increase in the EU's budget and probably a huge further transfer of economic power to the EU, all the while ducking and diving to avoid giving the British people a referendum.

What is the difference between this Prime Minister and the last, or the one before that? Only the rhetoric and speeches, no tangible action. Conservative Party members, supporters and voters are slowly realising what UKIP was saying about David Cameron the whole time was not hyped up rubbish, but claims which are now proving to be true. Cameron talked tough on the EU and is acting weakly. He has finally exposed himself now he is the PM.

Will this cause defections to UKIP? I certainly hope so. While a few loyal level-headed Tories have proven their loyalty to country and not Party by saying we would be Better Off Out, sacrificing their front bench career in government under Cameron in the process, it is time for many of them to see the reality. The Party they are in and the government in power is not remotely Eurosceptic in any meaningful way.

Now lets see what happens.

The bid to modernise our politics isn't party political.

Caroline Lucas' interview with the BBC is very enlightening. Sure, I disagree with her on most things, but at least she is bringing some fresh ideas to the table. And you do have to respect her ability as a political operator to manage to get elected as the Green Party's first MP (she is also the Greens' Leader).

Along with Tories like Douglas Carswell, she is at least challenging consensus in Westminster. Why should we have a electoral system that can see a Party like UKIP with nearly a million voters backing it, totally unrepresented in the House of Commons? Why should votes not be done electronically in the Houses of Parliament? After all, outside of the Houses of Parliament new technology is what is driving British politics with news outlets, independent bloggers, YouTube, Twitter and all the rest helping to bring an updated approach to what goes on in Westminster.

Okay so her views on the EU somehow being "efficient" overlook the fact that it utterly fails to be effective as a "European Parliament", or anything resembling a democratic legislature. And her views on global warming and social justice are way off in my eyes.

But it is still nice to hear some new ideas. We need a fresh approach in our Parliament. Yes on the EU, but on a myriad of other issues too.

EU talk is cheap, we need action.

It seems that everyone in Westminster is against the EU getting more money. David Cameron has condemned it, Labour MP Kate Hoey condemned it during Prime Minister's Question's and there is lots of buzz about the fact that plenty of Tory MPs are angry about what is going on.

Unfortunately very few of them have a well thought out approach to what is going on. Rather than knee-jerking with talks of reform and opposition to the EU when issues such as this crop up, our politicians need to get real.

There is simply no desire among those at the top of the EU, who have the real power, for an EU made up of low cost, democratic institutions that are accountable to national governments, let alone the people who elect those governments.

The real question, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for some of those who are critical of the EU, is whether we stay in a constantly more powerful and expensive European Union or we leave and maintain a simple free trade agreement with other European nations.

When an MP with a bit of principle on the subject who wants us to leave the EU comes up against a pro-EU politician, the pro-EU argument of maintaining the current arrangement really does seem dismal.

I hope the old UKIP disease remains dormant.

As Left Foot Forward have written, UKIP leadership candidate Nigel Farage has come under an astonishing attack from fellow MEP Mike Nattrass. In an email, Nattrass has labelled Farage a "control freak" and threatens that he could "see less MEPs in the UKIP squad" if Farage wins the leadership contest.

One of the things that really turned me off when I first looked at joining UKIP was this history of in-fighting. Lets be clear: any Party that is not at ease internally will not appeal externally to those it is asking votes from. Worse, UKIP has few friends in the media. Seen as a genuine threat to the establishment given the Party's spread of support, growing credibility and large parliamentary presence in Brussels, it is bound to be attacked by rivals often enough. The Party falling out and attacking itself from within will only worsen things.

I understand that some do not like Nigel Farage and do not see him as the right Leader for UKIP. I strongly disagree and believe that Nigel is the best man to lead the Party, but never would I ever insult, berate or threaten those who have an alternative view point, as long as they present it in a fair manner. What UKIP needs is those within it to look at the bigger picture.

If those who want to withdraw from the EU, restore grammar schools, get flat tax, put criminals in prison and so on hurt UKIP by offering up ripe pieces of dissent for our opponents to snatch up, they are hurting the cause we all believe in.

Disagreements are fine. We are a Party of democrats who should respect and applaud healthy debate, but such public slagging off is unprofessional, uncalled for and serves only to undermine our Party and cause. Don't forget: there is no alternative to UKIP. It is UKIP or nothing. Enough ex-members have left in a huff to set up splinter parties that have got nowhere so show that that tactic does not work.

Those in UKIP who dislike Nigel Farage should remember that he is a man who at least agrees with them on the issues facing our country. If the old UKIP disease of egos and infighting returns, we will get nowhere and will never be the fit for purpose true alternative we want to be.

David Cameron can talk globally, but has to act Europeanly.

In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry today Prime Minister David Cameron has emphasised the importance of improving export links with developing economies like Brazil, India and China. Quite right too. Unfortunately Cameron can say what he likes but is ultimately very powerless when it comes to our trade links with these soon-to-be global powerhouses.

Britain doesn't even have its own seat at the table of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) any more. We are represented by the European Commission, as one of the key parts of the Common Commercial Policy. Effectively at the big table, Britain it just one member state of a twenty-seven member European Union despite having the sixth largest economy in the world. Don't take it from me; a book I read last year for my degree by Mark Bungenberg, a top hand at EU law, sums it up:

He says the EU's Common Commercial Policy "determines the legal basis for Europe's place in its global economic relations". This is a policy that has been enhanced in power by the Lisbon Treaty and of course, has not been voted on by the public. I doubt many are even aware of its existence.

A more recent example that pours scorn on Cameron's global-stage posturing is the EU's plan to allow very open movement of Indian workers into EU countries in exchange for EU access to Indian markets. Apparently Cameron isn't a fan of this but it doesn't matter. He will be bound by a final decision made at the EU level, far above and superior to our national government.

So while Cameron may have lofty and perhaps legitimate ambitions for Britain to look more globally at economic partners, he can do very little in action if he doesn't have the permission of those who really determine Britain's global economic standpoint, the EU's Trade Commissioner and the rest of the bureaucracts in Brussels. They rule and act in the EU's favour however, not in Britain's.

Cameron can talk globally all he likes, but his fervent support for EU membership means that our Prime Minister can merely act Europeanly.

Nigel Farage is the man to take UKIP to the next level.

We've seen very little coverage for candidates other than Nigel Farage in this leadership election, aside from pieces by the BBC that have to be impartial. The fact is that Farage, love him or hate him, is highly respected by journalists in and around Westminster.

One of the leadership candidates, Professor Tim Congdon, has taken to saying that UKIP needs to focus more in the UK and London. I would put it to him and his supporters that you only have to look at the coverage Nigel Farage has received by those based in Westminster during the last few weeks to see how he has obviously worked hard there already. Sky News, the Daily Mirror, The Telegraph, the Daily Express and now the Sunday Express have all featured pieces from Farage in recent weeks.

Like it or not, none of the other candidates - whether MEPs or not - have received anywhere near as much coverage, if they have received any coverage at all outside of the BBC. And lets not forget Farage was also invited on Question Time not that long ago.

The fact is that Nigel Farage is rightly seen as being an incredibly able and articulate voice for anti-EU argument. There are none better, not just in my eyes, but in the eyes of the press who make their own minds up on who is credible and who is not.

I very much hope and expect that Nigel Farage will become Leader of UKIP again. His job now is to do what Caroline Lucas did effectively and make himself a figure the press go to not just on one key area, but on a broad range of issues. I would suggest there is incredibly fertile territory right now for UKIP on the areas of law and order, education and the fundamental question of the size of government.

UKIP could genuinely be the exciting, diverse grassroots British equivalent of the American Tea Party which has captured the imagination of the American public and which is set to make major gains in America's mid-term elections. But it needs that credible, respected figurehead to drive it forward. There is no one better for that role than Nigel Farage.

European public too "exhausted" to have their referendums?

Why shouldn't the peoples of Europe have had a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? On the record, pro-EU supporters of course made the argument that it was different from the EU Constitution and proposed no huge shift. Privately, they had grown impatient of the public's rejection of further EU integration and decided to bulldoze public opinion.

However MEP Inigo Mendez De Vigo has a new reason why there should be no more EU Treaties and presumably, no more talk of silly referendums: people are far too exhausted!

That may be true for those in the EU who invested years of time achieving the next step of EU political integration. However the public are far from exhausted, most having never properly taken part in the debate on the future of the EU.

The likes of Mr. De Vigo shouldn't be presumptuous. As the EU gives itself a nearly 6% budget increase this year, I have a feeling the British public are still wide-awake in their desire for a say with regards to Britain's relationship with the European Union. I fear his excuse of exhaustion is yet another excuse for those who wish to act despite of, not because of, public opinion in pushing for a European superstate.

In areas with grammar schools, parents want more of them.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. Of course parents like grammar schools: they give children an education suited to their academic or vocational ability and are the best tool for social mobility that the government has. Of course that then means the Tories, Labour and LibDems, all led by men from very well-off backgrounds are naturally against grammar schools.

There is uproar in Kent, one of the few areas that still has selective education, with not enough places in grammar schools for parents who want to send their children to them. Surprise, surprise, there are calls for a new grammar school to open in Sevenoaks to meet demand in the area.

No doubt this won't be supported by Etonian David Cameron. No, no, no: grammar schools are far too elitist, of course.

Unfortunately for him, 85% of young people agree with UKIP's backing of grammar schools.

Over a quarter of Conservative MPs once wanted Britain to leave the EU.

One of the things I've been led to believe in recent years is that the emergence of new, relatively young Tory MPs like Philip Hollobone, Phillip Davies and Douglas Carswell who all support Britain's withdrawal from the EU is a good sign that finally some MPs advocate leaving the EU. Well, in a way it is I suppose but I was sent a rather interesting archived news report today that strongly suggests the number of Tory MPs who want to leave the EU is far lower now than it was a decade ago.

In a piece from The Independent in 1999 headlined "Thatcher says Britain should leave the EU", there is talk of a poll done by Hull University. The poll, which I haven't been able to find, apparently results in 26% of Tory MPs advocating withdrawal from the European Union.

Is this further evidence yet that the Eurosceptic backbone of the Conservatives has long departed? While many cite the likes of Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell as evidence of a new breed of anti-EU Tory, perhaps it is the case that actually the anti-EU voice inside the Conservatives' Parliamentary Party is in severe decline, not growing as some like to portray?

Cuts at home, fun in Brussels.

Only a few MPs voted for the EU to have its budget decreased. So instead we're going to hand Brussels a 5.9% increase in its budget. That's a rise of some £7 billion, predicted to be £840 million extra per year for British taxpayer's.

What is that money to be spent on? A 4.5% rise in administration costs and a 90% increase in the EU's entertainment budget.

It really is shocking how this story has been buried in the media. But I guess the simple fact is that unless you want to come out of the EU as I do, you have no choice but to bury your head in the sand and pretend that taxpayer's aren't being mugged.

As millions across our country experience very real cuts, as students are consigned to tens of thousands of pounds of more debt, we hand the EU another huge chunk of cash without kicking up  much of a fuss at all. What a sad state of affairs.

BBC sets up anti-cuts hat trick for Question Time.

As Tim Montgomerie has already pointed out, Middlesbrough is the least resilient part of the country to public sector cuts. Naturally then the BBC selected that location for a balanced public response to the announced cuts this week.

But seriously, throwing The Guardian's chief bleeding heart Polly Toynbee and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas onto the panel as well? I'm pretty sure the feel of the show tonight will way be out of synch with the nation at large which realises cuts by the government have to be made, with many like myself holding the view that it was about time government got cut down to size.

I'm far from in agreement with all of the Coalition's budget announcements, but the likes of Toynbee and Lucas would have disagreed with any cuts which leaves them massively out of touch with British public opinion.

Nigel Farage hits another nail on the head

Nigel Farage knows how to deliver messages, understands the public and uses the power of the internet to reach people. These are three of the reasons why I am supporting his bid to be Leader of UKIP for a second time.

Check out this post from Farage on Twitter: "Osbourne announced 'cuts' of £81bn over the next five years. We may the EU £45m a day. Over 5 years that equals £82 billion. Discuss."

Unfortunately it won't be discussed in Westminster aside from by a handful of unambitious old Labour MPs like Kelvin Hopkins and some more fresh faced Tory MPs with guts like Douglas Carswell. What a shame. Things really don't have to be this way if we don't take our membership of the European Union as a given. Its an arrangement that needs to come to an end.

The pupil premium is not right.

It looks like the pupil premium idea is going to be rolled out by the Coalition, with Nick Clegg supporting it today. It basically hands cash over to schools who take on kids who are eligible for free school meals, the idea being that the better schools take on poorer children. No, this doesn't really happen already.

Basically, they seem to be attempting to bribe good schools to take on poor kids. But at the end of the day, poor kids are much less likely to have parents that have the ambition to get them into the best school rather than the local one. And like it or not, the overwhelming majority of good state schools now have a middle class feel to them thanks to being based in affluent areas. I don't see Head Teachers "taking a risk" (in their eyes) and taking on a poor kid rather than a middle class one with a stable family and background for a bit of extra funding. After all, the middle class kids are the ones that made their school so well performing in the first place.

What we clearly need is the restoration of grammar schools, a policy  that does not discriminate nor patronise anyone. It is then purely about ability and not background. Clegg and Cameron's pupil premium merely reinforces the class gap between poor state schools with poor kids in deprived areas, and middle class ones that are now being offered a bit of cash to "take pity" and let poorer children in. Are middle class dads and mothers going to allow their kid being deprived a place at a school because they want instead to let in a poor kid? I somehow doubt it. This policy is surely not right.

Tuition fees rise? Disgusting.

I think my position is pretty much set out in this press release from UKIP.org:

Plans by the coalition to raise the cost of tuition fees to up to £12,000 a year have been condemned by Young Independence Chairman Michael Heaver.

Responding to Business Secretary Vince Cable’s praise for Lord Brown’s University reform report, Michael Heaver responded by saying that “students now know where they stand with the Liberal Democrats”.

“It is sick to think that Nick Clegg proudly stood before the election in front of students as Liberal Democat Leader, saying that tuition fees were wrong”, said Heaver.

“Now with the glint of power in his eye, Clegg, Cable and the Liberal Democrats, in co-ordination with the Tories, have turned their back on affordable education.

“UKIP’s policy of supporting the abolition of tuition fees and bringing back student grants is the right one. We should scrap targets and only those who really need to go to University should, but it is fundamentally wrong that those who do so come out in such huge amounts of debt.

Heaver concluded: “These proposals are going to see even less people from poorer backgrounds go to University as they face such daunting burdens of debt before they even secure a job. Young people are going to be neck deep in debt, in a country with poor education standards and that doesn’t even have a proper Parliament thanks to the EU’s domination of our legislature.

“Things really are looking bleak for our young people, which is why UKIP need to continue pushing our vision of a brighter future for our young people”.

Donald Trump: Tea Party President?

Very interesting times indeed. Donald Trump has indicated that he is strongly considering running to be US President. I certainly think he has the credentials, and a rumoured Presidential poll carried out in the key state of New Hampshire pitting Trump vs. Obama apparently gave Trump a very good score indeed.

What is really interesting about this story is how Trump would position himself. He went out of his way to express his admiration for the low tax, small government Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and there are whispers of Sarah Palin being his running mate.

Trump would not only be a massive candidate, potentially the favourite for the Republican nomination if he did decide to run, but would lend serious credibility to the Tea Party movement which is at times sidelined as being nutty. If one of the most successful businessmen in the world supports a small government message, he will make the entire Tea Party viewpoint instantly more mainstream and respected. And with the backing of the hundreds of thousands of highly effective Tea Party activists and the Republican Party machine, he would surely be a challenger that would seriously trouble Barack Obama.

Ashton fails to defend British interests once more.

Perhaps it is naive to think that those British citizens like Baroness Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs for the European Union, would seek to defend British interests. After all, her wage, pension and job title pledges her allegiance to the European Union and its mission to create a European superstate.

But it is the blatant manner in which the likes of Ashton ignore their own country's well-being that is a disgrace. Where was Ashton when there was a crucial meeting by EU officials who were discussing axing Britain's £3 billion rebate? Sunning it up in tropical Mauritius, of course.

It blows my mind that even pro-EU fanatics like Ashton no longer try and keep a pretence of Britain getting a fair deal from the EU by attempting to gain concessions to keep citizens happy. She represents no one but the EU nationalists, and they certainly want to see the rebate killed off and for Britain's contributions to the EU coffers to become even greater.

My AV referendum dilemma.

The First Past The Post system is one which needs to be put out of its misery, killed, finished. It is hopelessly outdated in an era where many constituents don't need to live down the road from their MP to be able to contact them and follow their work thanks to the advent of the internet. It is also hopelessly unrepresentative, as illustrated by the last General Election where much smaller parties got MPs, while UKIP with nearly 1,000,000 votes still has zero representation in the House of Commons.

It would be logical for me then to vote "yes" to the Alternative Vote in next year's referendum, yes? Well hang on. AV is a preferential system, not a proportional one. On the other hand, those who seem to be running the "no" campaign seem to be largely Conservative advocates of FPTP.

I am in neither of these camps. I don't like AV and I don't like FPTP. So the question I have to ask is, would a "yes" vote open up the flood gates and make the possibility of further PR reform possible, or would it simply serve politicians to turn around and say "job done, PR secured"? Would it effectively be used to kill off the argument for full PR, as it would have supposedly been secured?

On the other hand, a "no" vote against AV will be used many to justify the view that their is no wide appetite among the British public for electoral reform or proportional representation. It could set the case for those who want genuine PR back many years again.

Which camp am I in? I'm still not quite sure, and I doubt I'm alone.

Betting with Twitter.

There was much debate today about what roles different Labour politicians would play in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet. I logged onto my Twitter this morning to see a few rumours about Alan Johnson being given the role of Shadow Chancellor, a role he was before today he was definitely not predicted to be getting. Even the Daily Politics by 12 only talked about Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper as likely contenders for the key role.

I strolled onto Smarkets armed with my intelligence to see some very favourable odds for AJ: a tenner getting you more than triple back. Being a poor student I took a punt after skimming further intelligence at my fingertips from journos based in Wesminster and all of a sudden my roll of the dice has just given me a very nice payout.

The power of the internet: I was better informed today than those presenting a story on the role of Shadow Chancellor on the BBC's Daily Politics. Oh dear!

Tories get £500,000 from EU for think tank - will UKIP go for the same?

The Conservative Party's "New Direction" think tank has been launched, led by MEP Geoffrey Van Orden and supported by Margaret Thatcher. The hundreds of thousands of pounds going into the think tank come from a pot of EU money for those in pan-European parties, and has provoked some debate within UKIP.

Both arguments have some credence. Some within UKIP say that joining a pan-European Party would be evidence of UKIP complying with the EU's desire of eventually wanting pan-European lists of candidates and parties. The counter-arguments are in my mind stronger though. The pot of money available for these think tanks remains the same whether UKIP go for any of it or not. So effectively, if UKIP don't get stuck in, then more funding will go to those who will be spending it to promote pro-EU messages.

It is a similar question in my eyes to the one of whether UKIP constructively engages with the EU process by taking seats in the European Parliament. That move has undoubtedly helped the Party massively. Could taking a further slice of the EU's budget - which is of course European and British taxpayer's money - to spend on promoting the case of EU withdrawal, be a good thing for the Party and cause? I don't see why not.

Could UKIP be Britain's electoral Tea Party?

Simon Richards, a good man and Director of The Freedom Association has set up the British Tea Party, an initiative he hopes will represent those who believe they are "Taxed Enough Already" in a right-wing cross-party manner. Tory MEP Dan Hannan helped launch the initiative some months ago to what was I understand a packed house.

The trouble is, as seen recently, where the American Tea Party is really hitting where it hurts is at the ballot box by winning primaries across America. The Tea Party movement has the politicians and the media taking notice because it looks set to elect Senators and Congressman as official Republican Party candidates, but whose roots lay in the fast developing sub-layer of the Republicans known as the Tea Party.

And so the real question is in Britain, where will the electoral version of the British Tea Party come? Will a young band of small government, libertarian-minded politicians rise up the Conservative Party and challenge David Cameron's social democratic strategy that rages against much of what Tony Blair and New Labour did without proposing too much that differentiates it in terms of what role government plays in people's lives. Or will the "third Party" effect come into play, with a more domestically focused UKIP pressing forward to argue that the size of the state has grown too large under New Labour while simultaneously exposing the Conservatives' lack of real ideological urgency at the top of the Party in bringing lower taxes and a smaller state.

Perhaps, if UKIP doesn't pursue this line aggressively enough and the libertarians within the Tory Party don't gain more prominence, neither will happen. One thing is for sure though: there is a real debate, whether you talk about the welfare state, quangos or the growth of public sector jobs that nobody is banging the drum loudly enough at present that it is time for the government to stop taking so much and spending so much.

The burka is now part of school uniform in Britain.

Howls of protest came when UKIP first announced its policy of banning the burka in public places. UKIP had it wrong, of course the burka was only ever worn by women who have the choice. UKIP were wrong that it was sometimes a sign of oppression!

Interesting now to see that it has been discovered several schools in Britain force young British girls to wear the burka as part of their school's uniform requirements. One of the schools, a 400 girl boarding school in Lancaster, also prohibits the young females who attend it from plucking their eyebrows.

It would seem for these girls, whose schooling is chosen and paid for by their parents, they have little choice but to wear the burka.

Nigel Farage ranked 58th most influential right-winger in The Telegraph.

One of the big advantages Nigel Farage has in the UKIP leadership race is his high profile outside of the Party, something that very few if any other members of UKIP really have. Known to be much admired by many in the Conservative Party, Farage has been ranked as more influential than the likes of former Prime Minister John Major and Chris Grayling, the Minister of State for the Department of Work and Pensions.

It is one thing to be respected by those inside your own Party and quite another to be so respected by those outside.

Cutting child benefit is simply not an "attack".

Shock, horror, even the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror are united in their alarm at child benefit being cut for people earning over £44,000 per year.

Labour's line seems to be that this is an attack. What they seem to not understand is that saving taxpayer's money on things like this means it frees up the money to be spent elsewhere, like on schools, hospitals or helping to reduce the nation's deficit which simply must be done.

Those who oppose cutting the benefit for those earning so much need to get real. Most people I speak to (who aren't dirt poor) who receive the benefit don't require it for their children - it's used as an extra bonus. One that British taxpayer's can no longer afford to pay out.