Oh yeah, and the other obvious ploy. Sometimes I wonder why I'm not the Prime Minister of Great Britain. On a bad day I'm William IV, though.
There are so many things you can do if you're actually in charge of the agenda, provided that you're not Attlee in 1951 or MacMillan in 1963 or ... well, I guess you have to be in charge of the agenda, which Brown was.
Any sane political operator would have stuck a finger in the wind and realised that, maybe, 2% or upwards of the vote depended upon frustration with the EU. Perfect opportunity! Promise a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. (Which he signed two months later in December.)
I'm not saying that a referendum would have made any difference to the Lisbon Treaty; far from it. Popular consent, or the lack of it, made no difference in France or Holland, and even Ireland needed to double-check. Actual democracy is not the point here.
Is there any good reason why Brown decided not to make a pointless and florid gesture like this in the full knowledge that it made no difference but might bring him temporary acclaim?
Is he utterly thick, or is he perhaps a politician of genuine principle and conviction?
Well, sooner or later there has to be one of those, if only as a genetic sport.
Re: Gurning irrelevancy
There are so many things you can do if you're actually in charge of the agenda, provided that you're not Attlee in 1951 or MacMillan in 1963 or ... well, I guess you have to be in charge of the agenda, which Brown was.
Any sane political operator would have stuck a finger in the wind and realised that, maybe, 2% or upwards of the vote depended upon frustration with the EU. Perfect opportunity! Promise a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. (Which he signed two months later in December.)
I'm not saying that a referendum would have made any difference to the Lisbon Treaty; far from it. Popular consent, or the lack of it, made no difference in France or Holland, and even Ireland needed to double-check. Actual democracy is not the point here.
Is there any good reason why Brown decided not to make a pointless and florid gesture like this in the full knowledge that it made no difference but might bring him temporary acclaim?
Is he utterly thick, or is he perhaps a politician of genuine principle and conviction?
Well, sooner or later there has to be one of those, if only as a genetic sport.