I listened carefully to what Iain Duncan Smith said on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday 6th December. I read carefully what Iain Duncan Smith said in The Telegraph on Wednesday 9th December.
I conclude the confident air he adopted shows he believes he and David Cameron are about to capture a UK opt-out from EU Regulation 883/2004 as a key part of the Referendum negotiations.
There’s a lot of talk about ‘Treaty change’ not being on the agenda, but there is evidence from the past about ‘Treaty amendments’ and how they can be negotiated.
Take the example of the tiny dot in the Indian Ocean known as Mayotte. It didn’t become an Outermost Region of the EU until 1st January 2014, and the progression from a French territory to become an OR, was an amendment to the Treaty of Lisbon which had been signed in 2008. Mayotte was added as the sixth French Outermost Region, fully integrated into the EU/EEA. France pushed that change through with the agreement of the other 27 Nation States of the EU, including the UK.
We do have to wonder if the fact that in 2008 Iain Duncan Smith voted against the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, has anything to do with his refusal now, in 2015, to recognise how the former French DOMs have changed in European Union Law! The latest letter signed by IDS states: “The Overseas French Departments (DOMs) are considered part of metropolitan France….” This is his latest ‘explanation’ of why the DWP included four French tropical territories in their calculations for the average winter temperature for France.
All of us must think very carefully what an opt-out could mean! If IDS got the opt-out, it’s a good bet that it wouldn’t be long before he introduced a Statutory Instrument to remove the annual uprating of our pensions, just as he did for the Winter Fuel Payment. He could stop it as early as 2018 - and in the last 3 years of this Parliament he could save a very useful £250 Million towards his cuts!
Take a look into the revised, revamped website www.winterfuelpayment.info for the latest stats, facts, and truth, about the Winter Fuel Payment.
I have now looked at the revamped website. I am aghast with horror and in a way shame. I cannot believe any other modern democracy would play the dirty games IDS led, then to have such a disingenuous site as that defies belief. It makes me wish to disown UK citizenship, which is difficult and impractical to the point of near impossibility. What you are saying Roger appears highly likely, but then with proposed changes in the benefits system for EU citizens I also suspect the same rules would apply to returning UK citizens on top of a period of waiting before a 'frozen' pension could be 'unfrozen'. There is something about what is happening that bears all the hallmarks of a country continuing to collect health and social benefits whilst providing less of both as one goes private and the other is run down. That is rather like the system in the USA, not identical but similar, where social security provides anything but what it is called and limited unemployment benefits are far too basic and low to support people put out of work who are expected to use those benefits as a way of finding employment as well as keeping a home and supporting families, such basic things as that. It appears that the UK is sliding inexorably toward the Swiss model of private pensions for all but former state employees who have formally been civil servants or public functionaries. Everybody else will have to buy their own. It is almost predictable if this government is returned in 2020, especially if IDS remains in place. He may be unloved but he is doing precisely what Osborne wants, so he will stay until he chooses to go. Apart from that, it is fairly clear that he 'knows where the bodies are buried' from his period is higher party places, so nobody dares touch him.
It may been malicious to say so, but after all his lies and deceit such as the faked CV, I would wish him a Neil Hamilton moment, complete with a period behind bars, which I imagine would be about the only way of getting rid of him. If that ever happens then I suspect he would drag down so many other people that any dirt that there may be is very carefully concealed and protected. Whatever the case, his malice appears greater than my own in the way he present the case for every measure he presides over and his attitude of defiance toward such bodies as the House of Lords and European Court of Justice that will still be there, being an organ of the Council of Europe, if he gets his wish and the UK was to leave the EU.
We can only hope that what Iain Dirty Smut "believes" is a load of old b******s. He has this built in arrogance where he "believes" he is right about a lot of things. Rather horrific to think they are making any progress in their negotiations. News (from what I hear) from Europe is that Cameron's constant bleating about how unfair everything is - is making him a bit of a laughing stock who won't be taken seriously.
I hope that's the case. Because he does not deserve to cock up the EU thing. He currently portrays himself as pro Europe - whilst everything he does, makes it clear he wants to pull out and shaft Britain Royally! Whilst we're in - ordinary British mortals still have some protection. If Cameron pulls us out - and he will make it happen so it looks like it's all the European Parliament's fault - UK Citizens will be effectively sold off to the highest bidder - depending on which one of Cameron's dirty corporate chums is in the market to buy. We can whistle goodbye to our "Human Rights" too.
Also worth worthy of note that when Iain Dirty Smut was leader of the Tories he also made an assessment of the possibility of Britain pulling out of Europe altogether and joining the North American Free Trade Organisation instead.
The legitimacy of his birth is in question, which is in character with most else he has done!
He is after the title of most mean politician and always right, no matter what the legislation says!
He should change his name to Scrooge.