Eu referendum

It’s eurosceptic party-time in Westminster today. Finally, the time has come for the Conservatives to show that they are the only ones who will #letbritaindecide. When I arrived in Parliament this morning, I was half-expecting a brass band and bunting to celebrate the momentous occasion of the second reading of James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill, so excited are Tory MPs. But instead, CCHQ has placed digital posters at a number of sites across London, including the Vauxhall roundabout. You could be forgiven for thinking that the general election is this year, not 2015. The Bill is highly likely to pass its second reading, and the chances are that the Tories

As trailed on Coffee House yesterday, MPs in favour of an EU referendum met today to discuss how to advance James Wharton’s private member’s bill and how to pressure Labour and the Lib Dems to change their stance on the issue. I hear colleagues from all parties agreed with Wharton’s warning that amendments in the Commons could endanger the Bill, while the Stockton South MP also suggested that though trouble looms in the Lords, any attempts to wreck the legislation there could provide a nice opportunity for a debate about the legitimacy of the Upper Chamber turning down legislation sent up from the Commons. As with gay marriage, dark mutterings

David Cameron’s statement on the European council was another example of how easy it is at the moment for the Tories to portray Ed Miliband as a weak leader. He made it perfectly clear what he wanted those watching to take away by stealing Tony Blair’s ‘weak, weak, weak’ line in 1997 when attacking John Major (which is well worth watching again). Today the PM told the Commons that Ed Miliband’s position on Europe could be summed up in three words: ‘weak, weak, weak’. He said: ‘What I thought was interesting about the right hon. Gentleman’s response was that we heard not a word about the referendum that we are

The Tory campaign on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill has been very slick but very partisan – I examined some of the problems with this last week when eurosceptic Labour MP John Cryer announced he had been put off by the Let Britain Decide campaign and would abstain on the bill. So today campaigners in favour of a vote launched a cross-party campaign called I Support a Referendum. They hope that their emphasis on the referendum itself rather than the party politics will help bring MPs from other parties into the fold where previously they felt excluded. Wharton was present at the launch, and he insisted that he was keen

Friday’s vote on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill is going to push the whole Europe question right back up the political agenda. The Tories will try and use it to highlight their support for a vote and the opposition of the other major parliamentary parties. It will be very hard for Ed Miliband to go into the next election opposed to a referendum. It would look like he was opposed to giving the public a say. I also suspect that it will become almost politically impossible to oppose a referendum after the European Elections in 2014. Patrick Wintour reports today that Labour is toying with the idea of either amending

The Tories are putting off Labour MPs from backing their Private Member’s Bill on an EU referendum with an overly partisan campaign, Coffee House has learned. John Cryer, who chairs Labour for a Referendum, tells me that he won’t be voting for the Bill because the Conservatives have turned it into a party political campaign to shore up their own position, rather than one that genuinely promotes a referendum. He says: ‘I’m not voting for it, I’m abstaining. I think the way the Tories have approached it is very party political. I can understand it in a way because they want to be in a position where they are offering

This story broke as an exclusive in tonight’s Coffee House Evening Blend, a free round-up and analysis of the day’s political stories. Click here to subscribe. The Conservatives will table James Wharton’s Private Member’s Bill for an EU referendum tonight for publication tomorrow. Coffee House has exclusive details of the changes to this piece of legislation, and a clever new plan by the party to make the most of this backbench bill as possible. The bill has been amended following extensive talks between Wharton and Conservative backbenchers about its wording. It now includes a requirement for the Secretary of State to announce the date of the referendum by the end

Tony Blair has plenty to say on the crisis in Syria in his interview in today’s Times, as you might expect. But he also makes a few points on other aspects of foreign policy that are worth noting, particularly regarding Europe. The former Prime Minister tells Alice Thompson and Rachel Sylvester that David Cameron was wrong to offer a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. He says: ‘We should at least pause for thought on this. I can tell you, people around the world now ask about this constantly, with an air of incredulity that Britain should even think of such a thing. Europe will be a lot

From being all over the shop in the past few months when it came to message discipline, the Tories have gone into overdrive in the last two days after the launch of the Let Britain Decide website on James Wharton’s EU referendum bill. It’s now difficult to see the wood for the tweets on how the Tories are the only ones who will #letBritaindecide, and that has got a great deal worse now that Guido has published a leak of Labour’s whipping arrangements for the vote. He’s too weak and he’s too scared to #LetBritainDecide @ed_miliband orders Labour to abstain from EU referendum vote letbritaindecide.com — Julian Smith MP (@JulianSmithMP)

Credit where credit’s due to the Tory spin machine for following up a good idea and putting pressure on Labour and the Lib Dems. This doesn’t happen very often, so it’s noteworthy. The party has launched a website called Let Britain Decide, which asks the public to back James Wharton’s private member’s bill for an EU referendum. It asks visitors to sign up to the campaign, lobby their MP, write to their local paper and brandish posters supporting the bill. A clever little paragraph on the site reads: ‘Currently, only one of the main three political parties believes the British people deserve a say on Europe: the Conservatives. They are

Largely because of events, the febrile atmosphere in the Tory party has gone as damp as the weather after weeks of bickering. A combination of the Woolwich killing and recess have turned attention elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean things aren’t still bubbling away under the lid. As any MP will remind you, parliamentary recess isn’t holiday but more time in the constituency. And time in the constituency means time with your party members, who are particularly unhappy at the moment. So MPs aren’t necessarily going to return on Monday with relaxed, sunkissed faces: more furrowed brows after awkward chats with constituency chairs. Which is why the Tory leadership is busying

Ben Goldsmith, Partner at WHEB Partners and signatory to Business for Britain In the private sector, every business must provide regular and accurate accounts. Yet when you try to look into the European Union’s income and expenditure there is just obscurity, masking a black hole of inefficiency and waste. The EU’s finances are a mess – the Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the EU’s accounts for eighteen years successively. The costs of EU membership to the UK are high – around £8.9 billion in 2010/11, with the threat of increases to come.  The EU is haemorrhaging cash and making the private sector pay for its financial recklessness, not

If you ask what’s the problem with David Cameron’s European strategy, a cacophony of voices strike up. But it seems to me that most of their complaints are tactical when the fundamental problem is strategic: what does Cameron actually want back from Brussels? Some of those involved in preparation for the renegotiation tell me that this is the wrong question to ask, that what Cameron is seeking is a systemic change in the way the European Union works. But I’m still unclear on what their strategy for achieving this is. One insider tells me that inside Number 10 they’re ‘terrified of detail’. One can see why. Nearly all Tory MPs can

So 130 MPs have backed the Baron/Bone amendment to the Queen’s Speech. There will be Labour and other parties in this group, but reasonable estimates suggest that 100 Tories went through the ‘aye’ lobbies. This isn’t a rebellion, because the whips have given backbenchers and PPSs a free vote, and to that extent things could have been worse because there were no aggressive resignation speeches. But it is the strongest expression of euroscepticism since the Coalition formed. Spinners will try to argue that as this was a ‘relaxed’ free vote, 100 Tory MPs regretting the absence of a bill in the Queen’s Speech isn’t a bad thing for the leadership.