Eu referendum

Leafing through a pile of Economists I’ve just caught up on a Bagehot column from last month which inadvertently demonstrates exactly where UKIP’s opponents go wrong. The very final lines of the piece explain: ‘Mr Farage’s real dream is to reshape Britain, by pulling the Conservatives to the right and bouncing Mr Cameron into a referendum on EU membership. If he pulls that off, his insurgency will be no laughing matter.’ It is what is assumed here, rather than what is said, that is most revealing. Why should the prospect of a consultation of the British people on their membership of the EU be so fearful? Surely it could only

Pressure has been building all weekend for the Prime Minister to give some form of concession to his eurosceptic backbenchers in his statement on the outcome of the Brussels summit. James blogged shortly before David Cameron stood up in the Commons that Tory MPs were being reassured that they were going to like what they would hear him, which a pro-European MP suspected would be ‘feeding a beast with an insatiable appetite’. This is the meat the Prime Minister threw to the eurosceptics: ‘Far from ruling out a referendum for the future, as a fresh deal in Europe becomes clear, we should consider how best to get the fresh consent

It’s funny how things turn out. David Cameron said in opposition that there was nothing worse than the Conservative party banging-on about Europe. These days, it bangs-on about little else. The prime minister is a repeat offender. He said on Friday that there should not be an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. It’s a different story today. In an article for the Sunday Telegraph, Cameron says that he is not afraid of the words Europe and referendum. But don’t mistake that for a pledge. Cameron writes, ‘I don’t agree with those who say we should leave and therefore want the earliest possible in/out referendum. Leaving would

There has been much speculation that Labour might insist on a referendum on Europe. This has been fuelled by numerous factors: the parlous state of the Eurozone, the increasingly likelihood of a 2-speed Europe and, above all, the fact that David Cameron doesn’t want the Tories to ‘bang on about Europe’, especially when in coalition with the Lib Dems. There have been a series of high-profile Labour interventions on the subject in recent weeks. Both Peter Mandelson and Ed Balls, arch-schemers both, have mulled the question in public, and the appointment of Jon Cruddas, a pronounced Eurosceptic, as the party’s policy reviewer, tickled fancies still further. But, today Ed Miliband

A couple of weeks ago, James revealed that the promise of an EU referendum is almost certain to feature in the 2015 Tory manifesto. But might we actually have one before then? If the speculation by ‘senior government sources’ in today’s Times is to be believed, we might indeed. According to No.10 and the Foreign Office, a Greek exit from the euro — which could follow soon after the country’s new round of elections on 17 June — would necessitate a rewriting of EU treaties. And that, the Times says, ‘would trigger “aggressive” demands by Tory MPs to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership.’ Meanwhile, over on the other

It might mean little to people outside Westminster, but the decision of Mark Pritchard not to stand for re-election to his job as Secretary of the 1922 Committee is a significant moment. It suggests that the Cameroons might be making some progress in their attempt to gain control of the internal structures of the parliamentary party. Pritchard has been a thorn in Number 10’s side ever since he started warning against the ‘Purple Plotters’ who wanted to merge the two coalition parties back in January of last year. Since then, his positions on circus animals, his role in the rebellion of the 81 and his general willingness to speak out

When David Cameron headed to Brussels last December, it was far from certain that he would veto the proposed treaty. It was only when Nicolas Sarkozy proved totally uninterested in accommodating Britain’s demands that the Prime Minister decided that he could not sign up to it. In a way, Sarkozy did Cameron a favour. Imagine if Britain had got the safeguards the Prime Minister wanted and had signed up to the treaty. How would he then have reacted this week, when the Irish announced that they were going to hold a referendum on it? The pressure from the Tory benches to let the British people vote on it would have

Ed Miliband is not naturally a eurospectic, but he certainly sounded like one during his appearance on ITV’s Daybreak show earlier. ‘I’m very concerned about what David Cameron has done,’ he said in reference to the PM’s equivocation over Europe yesterday. ‘He’s sold us down the river.’ Whether this is Miliband committing towards the sort of euroscepticism that is being urged on him by some of his colleagues, it’s too early to say. It’s only words, after all. But my guess is that — just as when Miliband attacked Cameron for not signing up to the latest treaty, but couldn’t say whether he’d have signed it himself — this is

It is becoming increasingly clear what the Conservative party expects of its Prime Minister. If he is going to agree to 17 eurozone countries pushing ahead with the Franco-German plan for fiscal union, he needs to secure a new deal for Britain in exchange.   Just what this new deal should look like is a matter of intense debate in Conservative circles. If France and Germany turn the eurozone into a ‘fiscal union’, what does that mean for Britain’s standing in the European Union? At the weekend, Iain Duncan Smith suggested that the nature of the EU would change so much that a referendum would be necessary. No. 10 quickly

As French and German officials make final preparations ahead of tomorrow’s meeting on fiscal union, it’s worth reconsidering the coalition’s triple referendum lock. James Kirkup has an incisive post on the issue, describing a potential government split. The division was evident on TV this morning: Iain Duncan Smith told Dermot Murnaghan that a referendum would be held ‘if there is a major treaty change’, while Nick Clegg told Andrew Marr that only ‘an additional surrender of sovereignty from us to Brussels’ can spark a vote. Kirkup argues that IDS reflects the broader sceptic position on the Tory backbenches: that the PM has promised a vote on all substantial treaty changes.

The British electorate, in a referendum held on Thursday 19th June 2014, votes to leave the EU. On Monday, 23 June 2014, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition send the following joint letter to the President of the EU Council, the President of the Commission and the heads of state and government of the other twenty-six EU member states. Dear Herman, José-Manuel, Angela, Nicolas, Silvio etc. etc. …, UK Resumption of Sovereignty On 19 June 2014, in a referendum, the British electorate voted decisively to leave the European Union. Her Majesty the Queen, in her capacity as Head of State of the United Kingdom, consented to her