Image via Wikipedia

Four year's ago Ming Campbell was the Leader of the Lib Dems - I know it seems such a short while ago. In the Autumn of 2007, in a bid to save both himself and his party, he bizarrely proposed that there should be an in-out referendum on Britain's future in the EU.

I say bizarre because of course the Lib Dems are probably the most pro-European party in the UK and at that time in 2007 even the most loyal party member could see that this was an electoral ploy which their hearts just were not in. Indeed, they quietly dropped it when Clegg became Leader and he shamefully led his party to 'abstain' on the issue of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Click here.  Even now Clegg, when his party is more unpopular than it was even a year ago (according to recent polls), is suggesting that our relationship with the EU is just fine and we should not try and repatriate any powers - how out of touch can you really be?

Of course the Conservative position is abused by the other two parties who believe us to be over-run by scepticism and I for one am proud that we are. David Cameron sees that things cannot go on as we are and that if the Euro crisis has done one thing it has bound further together those countries inside the EU and marginalised the majority not in the EU. A referendum is not going to happen for now, so what do we do? Well, I believe there are a number of things we need:

• Cameron needs to make sure that the ten countries outside the EU form their own bloc so we do not get the Euro countries steering the Union where they wish it to go against the interests of the majority
• We need to clearly state that because of the closer Union between the EU countries that the UK will be seeking to renegotiate parts of our relationship if the Euro bloc decide that a new treaty is needed to formalise their new relationship
• The Government needs to embark on a series of studies to understand what the consequences might be for the UK should new arrangements be put in place (the reason for this is the EU is an area where wild claims can be made about its success or failure without any checks and balances on accuracy. A good example is that we depend on Europe for trade, as if Mercedes or BMW would stop selling us cars. If you think the AV referendum was bad just wait till you get an EU one.)