Category Archives: Leadership Election

Those with long political memories (ie, longer than a week) may recall the kerfuffle prior to the Lib Dem conference prompted by Ming Campbell’s statement that he would oppose Tory attempts to hold a referendum on the proposed new EU reform treaty. It was, he argued, “not necessary”, as the treaty bears scant resemblance to the constitution it replaced.

A number of bloggers (and I was one of them) criticised Ming for seeming to side too readily with those who run away from a healthy debate on Europe. Ming swiftly strengthened his statement, and called instead for an early referendum on the much bigger question: does Britain want in or out?

That went a long way to placing the Lib Dems on the right side of the debate: in favour of giving the public their say on the future direction of the European Union, 32 years after the UK voted to join the Common Market. But there was always one loose end.

Some time soon, the Tories will call vote in the House of Commons on whether Britain should hold a referendum, at which point 63 Lib Dem MPs will have to make a decision – to march through the ‘no’ lobbies with Labour against a referendum; or through the ‘aye’ lobbies with the Tories in favour of one. I doubt I’m alone in feeling queasy at the former prospect.

However, that is what will happen regardless of the result of the leadership contest. Both Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg gave their full support to Ming’s statement during the Brighton conference; and have re-stated their opposition to a referendum on the treaty since the start of the leadership election.

By chance, I came across an article Nick Clegg wrote for The Guardian just over four years ago entitled, ‘We need an EU referendum: nothing will damage the pro-European movement more than appearing to have something to hide’. Now Nick was talking about the EU constitution, and his words should be read in that context, but it’s still worthy of note: