Time to scrap Referendum Commission

[eurosceptic]

With the public purse being tightened surely the RC must be viewed as a waste of taxpayers money. It was setup originally after the mckenna judgement to ensure a balanced debate by giving a range of yes & no arguements. This was fine when it still led to yes votes, but once nice was rejected it was decide that the best tactic was to get the RC to tell people nothing other than to show up. While this didnt involve actual bias it didnt violate the judgement. However as we saw with the recent lisbon campaign just telling people to show up isnt gaurenteed to work anymore. So the RC now had to favour the yes side but in as discreet a manner as possible by offering "considered opinions" that correlated neatly with yes propoganda. Now its obvious the RC has gone beyond its original job of ensuring fair referenda, so its time to scrap it!

[Earnest]

With the public purse being tightened surely the RC must be viewed as a waste of taxpayers money. It was setup originally after the mckenna judgement to ensure a balanced debate by giving a range of yes & no arguements. This was fine when it still led to yes votes, but once nice was rejected it was decide that the best tactic was to get the RC to tell people nothing other than to show up. While this didnt involve actual bias it didnt violate the judgement. However as we saw with the recent lisbon campaign just telling people to show up isnt gaurenteed to work anymore. So the RC now had to favour the yes side but in as discreet a manner as possible by offering "considered opinions" that correlated neatly with yes propoganda. Now its obvious the RC has gone beyond its original job of ensuring fair referenda, so its time to scrap it!

Not really surprising that the Referendum Commission correlated to some extent with Yes propaganda since there were so many lies in No propaganda. Maybe you think the Commission should have, in Honor Tracy's words, stayed on the straight and narrow path between right and wrong.

[Trampas]

With the public purse being tightened surely the RC must be viewed as a waste of taxpayers money. It was setup originally after the mckenna judgement to ensure a balanced debate by giving a range of yes & no arguements. This was fine when it still led to yes votes, but once nice was rejected it was decide that the best tactic was to get the RC to tell people nothing other than to show up. While this didnt involve actual bias it didnt violate the judgement.

Except that it did involve "actual bias". Do you remember those leaflets from the RC during Nice 2 with a cartoon of the EU represented by a Big Momma gathering in her East Eurpean children ? And of course the Nice Treaty and the Nice 11 debate were "all about enlargement."