Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

It is impossible to have a referendum without a campaign, as the Coalition has discovered. The NO campaign has made Nick Clegg the reason for voting NO. An emboldened Cameron claimed he was happy with ‘help my friend’ internships after his deputy said they were unfair. The NO leaflet which came through my door gave over the whole back page to rubbishing the Deputy PM. This may not have been wise. As predicted in an earlier post, Nick Clegg is becoming a big hitter, a bruiser even. So today he talks of a right wing clique wanting to keep things in a way which they can control. He is, of course, correct, with the proviso that there are many left wingers opposed to any sort of change about anything progressive.

I suspect the YES campaign may now get into its stride and the NO campaign, with its very simple message, may have shot its bolt. We shall see. This is not an easy contest to call. Easier are the local elections. Both the Conservatives and Lib Dems are heading for losses. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the message from the voters to the coalition parties will be stop bickering, hang in together, or go under.

It is now universally accepted that there is stalemate all round in Libya. NATO cannot tip the balance in favour of a rebel win, neither can it stop Gaddafi altogether. Gaddafi cannot stop the rebels. They cannot break through to Tripoli.There may also be stalemate in the support for either side. Not all Libya backs the rebels and their support may have peaked. The outward flow from the Gaddafi side seems to have ebbed.This is not what NATO intended, but it is what many expected, some of them, Germany in particular, in NATO itself.

The common factor of all civil wars is that they cost many innocent lives and cause much suffering. The longer they go on the greater the suffering, the more the deaths. It behoves the international community to end this if it can. The UN must now take ceasefire negotiations seriously, the Arab League must become proactive and NATO must lean on the rebels. This does not mean the quarrel will be settled, nor that Gaddafi will certainly go. It will mean that the killing stops (even if the ceasefire has to be policed on the ground). The arguments may go on with two Libyas being de facto, if not formally in being. It will also mean that the UK will have extricated itself from an open ended military commitment which it cannot at present afford. The US will be able to concentrate on getting fully out of Iraq and slowly out of Afghanistan. Only the French military will be sorry to lose their limelight moment.