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Calls for EU treaty referendum across Europe
By Toby Helm and Bruno Waterfield in Lisbon
Last Updated: 9:40am BST 19/10/2007

Gordon Brown comes under intense pressure today from across Europe to hold a referendum on the EU treaty as academics, diplomats and politicians unite to demand votes in all 27 member states.

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The formation of the European Referendum Campaign, announced on the letters page of today's Daily Telegraph, comes after the Prime Minister agreed last night to rubber-stamp the biggest transfer of powers to Brussels since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

The deal, to be finalised at his first EU summit as Prime Minister, will end 40 national vetoes, create a European foreign policy chief and a permanent European president and also give Brussels the power to sign international treaties.

Mr Brown, who effectively ruled out a referendum on the handover of powers contained in the treaty, was accused by the Tories of surrendering British interests without a fight.

But the new pan-European campaign is proof that referendum fever is not confined to Britain. The group spans the full political spectrum in EU politics, from Conservative euro-sceptics to Socialists, Liberals and Greens, and even Tony Blair's former economic adviser Derek Scott. It also includes academics, former diplomats and the Sixties arts-cinema pin-up turned Left-wing activist, Susan George.

"At every point we have been determined to protect the British national interest and ensure the interests of the British people are safeguarded," Mr Brown said.

Despite the mounting public pressure for a referendum, he said he did not believe one would be necessary. "If it was the old constitutional treaty that was proposed before, there would have been a referendum. But the constitutional concept was abandoned," he said.

Mr Brown set the stage for a ratification process in the House of Commons early next year. The treaty needs to be ratified in all member states to come into force.

His Government is bracing itself for parliamentary guerrilla warfare over the treaty. But Mr Brown insisted that he was relaxed about the danger that Labour faced the kind of internecine internal battles that hit the Tories over the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

He said: "Let us now have the debate in the country which will be reflected through what will be a very substantial number of days we will debate this issue in Parliament. People can judge for themselves, as I believe they will, that we have acted that the British national interest has been protected."

Let's hope pressure from the rest of Europe make them give us a referendum, although I doubt it.