David Cameron: what changed him from Eurosceptic to Europhile?
A letter from Dave Barnby to the Witney Gazette, which covers the bulk of David Cameron’s Oxfordshire constituency
I had asked David Cameron, through the Witney Gazette letters page, a couple of time this year what prompted him to change from Eurosceptic to Europhile (an unusual direction of travel) after being selected as PPC for Witney in March 2000.
Was it because:
a) he had had a genuine change of heart (in which case he should have been willing to explain)?
b) it was a the price he was willing and had to pay for promotion up the greasy pole?
or
c) He never meant what he said when he exchange emails with Dr Sean Gabb in 2000.
There was never a response in the paper.
The Banbury Guardian (which has a circulation including Witney) has asked the same question this week but Cameron, through both his local office and N0 10, has declined to respond once again.
Well it’s academic now, but I would like to know how politicians move from ‘eurosceptics’ to ‘EUphiles’ bucking the normal trend. It’s an important question because it leads to the question of how we can ensure that our elected representatives stick to the beliefs they’d presented to the electorate (Dr Sean Gabb had taken made great efforts to try and lock candidates in to what they had written).
After all we have to obey the laws these people make and it’s nice to know what they are going to do to us when we contemplate voting for them, it’s called democracy.
Dave Barnby