Calls grow for UK vote on reform treaty

Debate in the UK is hotting up over the EU’s reform treaty and whether there should be a referendum to ratify it.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, continues to insist that the treaty, which seeks to replace the EU constitution which was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands, will be ratified through parliament and not by a popular vote.

But this has not deterred opponents of the treaty - and even some supporters - from demanding that the government stick to the commitment in its 2005 election manifesto to hold a referendum on what was then the constitutional treaty.

New groups are being launched on both sides of the debate. And the usual picture emerged of pro- and anti-EU groups - mostly reflecting a left-right split in British politics. But the split has been complicated by some pro-European trade unions joining in the calls for a referendum because they are angry at the UK opt-out on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The British government asked for a protocol stipulating that the charter does not apply to its citizens, fearing that the document would create new rights, in particular social rights for workers.

A cross-party group of members of the UK parliament recently launched an "I want a referendum" campaign, with Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat members including Frank Field, Gisela Stuart and David Heathcoat-Amory (the latter two previously UK members of the convention which drafted the EU constitution). One of the main themes of this group is the issue of trust. Frank Field said at the launch of the group: "There’s a huge gap of cynicism between the electorate and us." Open Europe, a Eurosceptic think-tank, is also backing the referendum campaign.

Stuart said that the reform treaty "is a substantially unchanged text" compared to the constitutional treaty and that the government "should stop pretending there isn’t an elephant in the room". Like other sceptics, she argued that Brown’s new emphasis on openness with the public since he became prime minister should lead him to organise a referendum on the treaty.

Stuart said that whether the campaign for a referendum succeeds is not a question of counting the numbers of Labour rebels, who oppose a vote in parliament, but "the breadth of the pressure" that builds up. And she denied that Labour members of parliament asking for a referendum were rebels: "It’s about sticking to the 2005 manifesto commitment."

Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans are slowly getting their act together, with the launch yesterday (12 September) of a new umbrella organisation in favour of the treaty. The group is composed of around a dozen pro-European think-tanks and political groups.

Leah Charpentier of Business for a New Europe, a lobbying group, said that this new alliance would "make the positive case for the reform treaty, especially in terms of efficiency gains and more transparency" but added, that it would "steer clear of the referendum issue".

The trade unions’ worries are linked to a broader unease at the pro-market direction of Brown’s policies - from the opt-out on the Charter of Fundamental Rights to his appointment of various right-wing business and Conservative Party advisers, and the lack of progress on issues such as working time and temporary agency workers’ rights.

Two of the UK’s biggest trade unions - the GMB and the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union - pushed at this week’s annual conference of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to back a referendum on the treaty, in protest at the opt-out on the charter. Expectations were that the TUC, to paper over divisions and not embarrass the government, would postpone a decision until a final text of the treaty is available, most likely in October.

But the debate is getting stronger with letters pages, not only in the traditional Eurosceptic press such as the Times and the Daily Telegraph, but also in traditionally pro-European newspapers such as the Guardian and the Observer, starting to fill column inches with arguments for and against a referendum.

For the moment, it looks as if Gordon Brown intends to resist this pressure and carry on with the parliamentary ratification of the treaty. But it is clear that the debate is not going away.

• Kirsty Hughes is a policy analyst based in London.

Debate in the UK is hotting up over the EU’s reform treaty and whether there should be a referendum to ratify it.