Labour could be jumping the gun with early EU mischief-making

If you’ve felt your heart beating a little faster than usual, and a strange sense of excitement creeping all over you, it’s because #letbritaindecide fever is back in Parliament. Yes, folks, the fun returns, and this time for the committee stage of the bill, from 2pm today.

I’ve already reported Mike Gapes’ amusing amendments to the legislation which are designed to cause trouble. He has put a few more down of a similarly mischevious ilk, changing the question about Britain’s membership of the EU to a question about whether Britain should join the Schengen Agreement, or the euro.

But Labour’s frontbench has also tabled some changes to provoke a row. Emma Reynolds, Labour’s Shadow Europe Minister, has added a line to the legislation which would mean a referendum would only take place ‘if there is a further transfer of power from the United Kingdom to the European Union’, which is the case anyway (as the Lib Dems like to remind us), and a change to the date. One of her amendments adds the line ‘the Secretary of State shall appoint the date on which the referendum is to be held at least 28 weeks in advance of the polling day’. You can read her proposals here.

It is worth noting that currently there are no Conservative amendments, so Wharton is so far getting his way after pleading with colleagues not to amend the bill. But these amendments are also not of great concern, and could in the end make things easier for the legislation. Eurosceptic Tory MPs are amused that Gapes and Reynolds have chosen the limited context of a bill committee, rather than waiting for report stage to cause havoc, as by focusing on dates now, they could make it less likely that the Speaker accepts amendments on the same subject at report stage. If that is the case, then Labour could fail to cause the havoc that Reynolds and co might have hoped for.