U.K. opposition drops plan for Lisbon referendum

Wed, Nov 4 12:57 AM

Enlarge Photo Britain's opposition Conservative Party shadow foreign secretary William Hague leaves his hotel on the third... Slideshow: World in pictures: November 03

Britain's opposition Conservatives scrapped on Tuesday their plan to hold a referendum on the European Union's Lisbon treaty after Czech President Vaclav Klaus became the last EU leader to ratify it.

"What has happened today means that it is no longer possible to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty," the party's foreign affairs spokesman, William Hague, told television networks.

Conservative leader David Cameron will announce on Wednesday what stance the Conservatives will take on the Lisbon treaty if, as expected, they win a national election due by next June.

Klaus signed the treaty after his country's Constitutional Court threw out a complaint against it, removing the last barrier to the EU's plan to overhaul its institutions.

Although the Conservatives believed passionately that the British people should have been consulted on the treaty, it would now become European law, Hague said.

"That means that our campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon treaty comes to an end today. We think that it is a bad day for a democracy," he added.

Cameron strongly opposes the Lisbon treaty, seeing it as a step to a federal Europe, and objects to its creation of the post of a new European president.

He has long promised to hold a British referendum on it if, at the time of a Conservative election victory, it had not been ratified by all EU member states.

He has said he will not let matters rest if the treaty has been ratified by all member states, as is now the case. He will spell out on Wednesday what that means.

ANGRY EUROSCEPTICS

The scrapping of the referendum commitment will anger many on the Eurosceptic right of the party who demand Britons be given the chance to vote on the treaty.

Some may defect to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) which wants Britain to withdraw from the Union.

Analysts expect the Conservatives to try to repatriate from Brussels to London control of areas such as social and employment law.

That could plunge a new Conservative government into a damaging battle with its EU partners as any repatriation of powers would need the agreement of the 26 other members.

Cameron has already pulled British Conservatives out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament to form a new, small, more Eurosceptic bloc.

The last Conservative government, headed by John Major, was almost torn apart in the early 1990s by arguments over Europe.

Eurosceptic Conservative Member of Parliament Bill Cash said he still wanted a referendum.

"It's not just a technical question. It's actually about how the British people conduct their daily lives," he told Sky News. "I hope that David Cameron will reconsider ... I have written to him asking him to reconsider."

Conservative Euro-MP Roger Helmer, speaking before Hague made his statement, said Cameron had given a cast-iron guarantee to the British people that he would hold a referendum if he became prime minister.

"I believe that is a commitment that he will need to keep to," he told the BBC.

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