Nationalism works.

I think it is quite clear now that the Lie Dem does not believe in anything. They have no position, or principle on anything. They are the most snivelling, lying sacks of shit that ever took office. Only a fool would ever vote for them again.

@ 1: “Nationalism works”

Particularly for Germany and France, whose cluster of supine client states obediently kow-tow to their demands.

Members of party with “Democrats” in their title oppose undemocratic treaty shock.

@4. XXX: “Members of party with “Democrats” in their title oppose undemocratic treaty shock.”

The interview subjects are not party members, just voters on the street (or phone, given that the poll was provided by YouGov). The interviewees were pretty likely to vote LibDem at the next General Election, I presume.

Is this a problem? Yes, if LibDems persist with the idea that the current EU delivers liberal, internationalist policies, the party (or LibDem love affair with the EU) is over. Greece and Italy no longer have popular government, which is not liberal, and the financial mechanism that has been proposed to support them is not liberal.

LibDem policy on the EU/EZ has been shot through both feet and can no longer hop along. It would be much wiser, painful in the short term, to reinvent the party with an internationalist perspective beyond EU/EZ. That is not to say that the party should be unconcerned about EU/EZ, but that LibDems stop obsessing about it. And LibDems should actually seek a liberal, democratic EU.

You’re surprised that Lib Dem voters are more Euro-sceptic than their party? Where do the Lib Dems get half their support? The West country, which is about the most Euro-sceptic part of the country. Why do they vote Lib Dem? ‘Local reasons’ usually.

It is not so bizarre when you realise that the Lib Dems decision to go into coalition has lost them half their supporters, including almost everyone who is left-of-centre. Those left are the party loyalist core, and the ‘Yellow Tory’ group. The latter would have no objection to the veto, while some of the former see it as a price well worth paying for staying in government.

@7. David Boothroyd: “Those left are the party loyalist core, and the ‘Yellow Tory’ group. The latter would have no objection to the veto, while some of the former see it as a price well worth paying for staying in government.”

I believe that you misread Clegg and Huhne. They are classical liberals who hold strong faith in the EU; they are the strongest supporters of the EU and most likely to take offence at the veto decision.

The LibDems also comprise thousands of anti-centralists who question the role of the EU. Ditto in the SNP, although Cameron did his best to offend them last week.

‘Liberal’, along with ‘conservative’ are two extremely ill-defined words in political terms. Classical liberals are those that the government should interfere as little as possible, both economically and socially. So liberals would tend to be low-tax and pro-civil liberties. From how I understand it, the Liberal party where generally fairly classically liberal. When the SDP split from LAbour they were obviously more left wing, meaning that whilst they were social liberals they were more interventionist on economic policy. So when the merger happened whilst they agreed on civil liberties there must have been some disagreement on economic policy. Then up until about 2005 it seems the SDP seem to have been more prominent but the last five years the ‘Orange Book’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Book:_Reclaiming_Liberalism) group have risen to the forefront of the party.

If you look at a map of the UK, the Liberals tend to be in the south west and Scotland, whilst the social democrats are in the cities and suburbs. 1974: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_election,_Oct_1974_(low_res).png
2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2005UKElectionMap.svg

There is still one anomaly though, and that’s that some classical liberals see the EU as positive as (supposedly) it is a free trade area, allows free movement of people, and enacts laws that protect people’s freedoms. I guess there are others that think the EU often does the opposite, or at the very least makes things less liberal by taking decision making away from people on the ground and instead does this from on high in the European Parliament and other European institutions.

A final thing is to say that this position isn’t entirely given that even in the Labour Party support was 2% points away from being more for the veto than against. I think it just shows that the views of the public are very different from the views of the political elite.

Whilst I was searching for the Orange Book I came across this programme about it on Radio 4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00yqjtj/Analysis_The_Orange_Book_Cleggs_Political_Lemon/

I haven’t listened to it yet, but I’d better hurry, as it is only available till 12:00AM Thu, 1 Jan 2099!!!!