A shameful secret

I have a pass for Lib Dem conference. It's embarrassing, I know, but it was all in pursuit of a good cause.

I went down to Brighton with Nigel Farage who was taking part in a debate with Chris Davies MEP, who used to be the leader of the Lib Dem MEPs in Brussels before he sent an e-mail to a Jewish constituent telling her "I hope you enjoying(sic) wallowing in your own filth." But he's still an MEP, so that's okay?

Anyway, I found myself surrounded by lots of ponytails and beards. The former on men, the latter very much on the unpainted faces of the ladies. They were pleasant for a while, until they were confronted with some uncomfortable facts and figures which their pointless rhetoric couldn't compete with. So they started booing.

One lady stood up and asked people to put their hands up if they had read the treaty. Interestingly, everyone there from UKIP had done, the journalists hadn't, and very few Lib Dems had.

Someone asked Nigel why he was denying the British people the right to have rights which were given in the 'not the Constitution', seemingly not understanding that surely Libertarians don't see the state as something that bestows rights on people but passes laws to say what they can't do to ensure some kind of safe society? (okay, it's not working at the moment but that's because we're being governed by spanners. The older laws still work.)

Then some complete prick stood up and said that if we left the EU then Felixstowe Harbour would close. I am not joking. No one would import anything to there anymore, presumably because we wouldn't want any imports anymore?, and what was he, Nigel, going to do about the problem that he had personally caused? How do these people manage to even get dressed in the morning.

They also refused to believe that countries in the EU would want to arrange free trade agreements with the UK. Even when faced with balance of trade figures they stood up and asked what they thought was a rhetorical question 'do you really think that negotiating a free trade deal with the UK would be top of their list of priorities?'

Well, yes. For Germany and France, the UK is their biggest export market, and I can't imagine the chairman of Mercedes Benz saying to his board, 'well, the UK aren't in political union with us anymore, so damn them! I'm not letting them buy any of our cars!'

hmmm

No, I'm sure the wise folk of the EU would much rather put at the top of their list the rules relating to the space for mounting the rear registration plate of two or three-wheel motor vehicles

Crazy, the lot of them. It defies logic.