Coalition politics sure does throw up some peculiar situations. Take today’s vote on the
EU Bill. As part of the horse-trading that’s going on around it, Tory Eurosceptics have put forward a series of
amendments to mould the Bill more to their liking. Of these, the most striking is Peter Bone’s suggestion that Parliament should legislate for a referendum, not on this minor constitutional change
or that, but on whether we should leave the EU altogether.
So far, so unsurprising. But the curious part of all this is that the Lib Dems once offered an in-out referendum on Europe themselves. If you remember back to the row over Lisbon, Clegg’s get-out clause was what he called “a referendum on Europe with substance“. His party even made a big show of it at the time, walking out of Parliament in protest at not getting their own way. Yet despite all that, the pledge didn’t make it into the Lib Dem manifesto. And, of course, it didn’t get within spitting distance of the coalition agreement either.
So what we’re left with is the Tory right trying to dilute what they see as excessive Lib Dem influence in the government’s EU policy by asking for something that the Lib Dems once promised themselves. Like I say, peculiar.
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