That is a very interesting report on last night’s debate but I almost saw this kind of offbeat Lib Dem amendment and its diversionary ‘membership referendum’ coming from months ago. I don’t say that as a matter of blowing my own trumpet, but I just don’t see how the Conservatives are going to have a significant parliamentary ‘British front’ to oppose the provisions within this Treaty.
You may be interested to know that Bill Cash said on the Today programme (reported by the BBC this morning) "It's obviously a matter of numbers and frankly it looks as though there aren't going to be quite enough rebels. … A lot is going to turn on the Liberal Democrats." If the Lib Dems are not backing the Conservatives, then isn’t the opposition over the Treaty going to be seen as a screen of hot air (albeit through no fault of their own)?
I also notice that the Labour backbencher opposition amounted to nothing – I wonder what happened to Ian Davidson’s 120 Labour MPs who were going to oppose this Treaty? Off sick? Perhaps they thought 19 was enough to give Miliband the jitters. Although I was never a europragmatist – dodgy eurosceptics who tended to think that by working with Labour rebels (with a different vision of Europe), we could win – it is a shame that more MPs did not come out to support the Labour rebels, to create some real pressure for a Labour split (a real split as opposed to a small fracture).
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