Letters / Disrespect for referendum result
Where do Alistair Carmichael and the Liberal Democrats stand on the EU referendum result? (MP makes case for a further EU referendum; SN, 21/12/16)
Simple answer, their recent attempts to rationalise and justify a second referendum are irrelevant as all these points were addressed and asked during the referendum and the answer is: We are leaving!
They are just a smoke screen to avoid the real and only question, which is: will Carmichael and his party respect the people’s decision?
The truth is, they never had any intention of respecting the will of the people if it didn’t concur with their own vision of a single EU super state.
The flipside is that Project Fear has been debunked, the enthusiasm countries have shown towards the prospect of a global UK is already beginning to eclipse the ridiculousness of little Europeaner’s outlook, and Shetland could see some very real changes and improvements as a direct result of doing the polar opposite of what the Liberal Democrats stand for.
Alistair Carmichael is one of the most open books that is never read. To read him you must literally pay no attention to anything he says but instead pay careful attention to what he does.
His words are quite literally whatever you want to hear, even when it is the complete opposite of what he actually does. This is a technique the Liberal Democrats have perfected and made their own.
Alistair Carmichael is every inch a career politician and nothing exposes this more than the issue of the EU. Please allow me to demonstrate a clear pattern that Carmichael and his party have followed:
Words: Propaganda claiming he stands up to Brussels and appears to be on your side.
Actions: His party’ core defining policy is to insure that all powers eventual be removed from our elected institutions and handed over to unelected Eurocrats, for the creation of an EU super state.
Words: Promising a referendum on the EU constitution, renamed the Lisbon Treaty, at a time no such referendum was likely to happen.
Actions: Blatantly breaking this promise. Carmichael abstained in the vote, thereby deliberately holding his hands behind his back so he couldn’t oppose the government breaking the referendum promise.
Words: He was breaking his promise because he now thought we should have a referendum in EU membership.
Actions: there was no likelihood of any such referendum happening so in reality he was breaking his promise on an actual referendum on the constitution that existed for a fictional membership referendum that wasn’t likely ever to exist.
Actions: shortly after that, there actually was a motion for an EU membership referendum which he helped vote down after telling us he supported it as an excuse for breaking his constitution referendum promise.
Words: Carmichael gave up his shadow cabinet position because he kept his election promise and abstained.
Actions: By abstaining he broke his election promise. He was shortly returned to the shadow cabinet but the four members who unlike Carmichael did keep their promise were never returned to the shadow cabinet.
Carmichael is showing disrespect for the 43.5 per cent of local people who participated in the EU referendum and won the ballot.
To me this demonstrates that he and his party have no respect for government by the people when it interferes with government over the people by unelected Eurocrats.
Scotty van der Tol
Scalloway
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