Libertas launches the party in the UK

[seabhcan]

The UK press has virtually ignored the Libertas launch. The Sun had a few lines about it and the BBC had one line:

A LITTLE-known political party, Libertas, will tomorrow announce plans to field candidates in the EU elections next June, on a promise to clean up Brussels. Never heard of them? Nor had the Irish until last year, when Libertas came from nowhere, caught the public imagination and smashed the loathed EU Constitution. Mainstream political parties badly underestimated this fledgling threat. Let’s hope they make the same mistake this summer.

Give us what we all want, Gord | Trevor Kavanagh | The Sun |News|Columnists|kavanagh

Declan Ganley led the NO campaign to victory in the recent Irish referendum. Ganley's Libertas party aims to "bring more democracy" to the EU Now he is planning to run candidates in the coming European elections as the chairman of the Libertas party.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | The Tories' European dilemma

Political Launches are designed to generate column inches. The Libertas launch clearly failed.

[myk]

As I showed on another thread recently, the resurgence of the Conservative Party has already crowded out the centre/right as a place to set up shop. UKIP has seen its support fall away by anything between 50% and 80% since 2004 and can expect a near-wipeout next June. It's hard to see voters flocking to a UKIP-clone in any great numbers.



This shows how naive Ganley is when it comes to politics. He seems to think that politicians should spend all of their time physically drafting legislation.

In any functioning democratic system, it is the politicians (Council of Ministers, chiefly) who set the policy agenda and make the ultimate decision, whereas it is their secretariat (Commission and its civil service staff) who do the drafting and then enforce the day-to-day implementation.

If Ganners is elected to the EP, I look forward to him sitting in a scriptorium in the dark for 5 years, writing like a medieval monk with a quill and ink. (Writing legislation, of course, not legal writs and threatening letters)

to be honest I thought it was more a dishonest rhetorical device rather than being a comment based on poor information.

[Vega1447]

Seems like hes going for broke.

Hopefully in the financial sense too.

Though something tells me that his (deep) pockets will be replenished if necessary.

[marmurr1916]

Wasn't the name Libertas used to register a political party by an associate of Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP?

[zeleneye]

Mr. Ganley's anti-Europe pals in other countries continue to fare poorly. The PiS (UEN party of the Polish President Kaczyinski) have seen the ruling OP (members of the EPP) increase their huge poll lead. In a poll today they now trail by 27% to the OP's 50% and face being crushed in the June European elections

Are the PiS really potential Libertas partners? I thought they were being courted by William Hague. Either way, they are a limited bunch of knuckle-draggers.

[CookieMonster]

Here is the BBC News at 10 coverage of the Libertas UK launch

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG9xIfKBlSs]YouTube - Libertas EU Launches March 2009[/ame]