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Referendum politics

• Mark Mardell
• 28 Jun 07, 12:03 AM

The last thing Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants is a referendum on the new EU treaty. Most of Tony Blair's demands at the summit were designed to damp down the calls for a popular vote. Mr Brown, the prime minister (it still feels a little odd to write that after 10 years), has all but ruled it out, and the overwhelming reason he has left the door ajar is because he doesn't want to look like he's not listening. The full treaty doesn't exist yet and he doesn't have to sign the thing until October, and there is little political mileage in shutting off an option, however remote and unattractive.

So what could make Mr Brown take not the course he favours, but the one demanded by his opponents? The short answer is, if resisting it would cost him his job. Or, I suppose, if he underwent a sudden conversion to the democratic or Eurosceptic merits of the case, but I think that is as unlikely as Nick Robinson becoming a pineapple.

Drawing poison

I'll come back to that in a minute, but another answer is: "If Parliament votes for one." The government's preferred option is to ratify the treaty in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and I assume MPs will get plenty of chance to have their say before the final moment.

Most Conservatives will vote for their party policy. The position of the Lib Dems is officially undecided. Many are pretty keen on the idea of letting people vote on individual subjects. Others have seats in the Eurosceptic south west. So, the party just could decide to back a referendum vote, as it did last time. I notice that three Labour MPs have demanded a referendum. That is still rather short of the rebellion of 80-odd Labour members the amendment would need to succeed. But it would all turn the heat up under Mr Brown. Which leads me to the only real reason he'd give in - to lessen the risk of being sacked by the British people in a general election.

The government doesn't just want to avoid a referendum because it could lose it. Campaigns cost a lot of political energy, sap a party's strength and as Tony Blair put it the other day, dominate the political debate for months. So the only reason he would grant one would be to draw the poison out of a general election campaign.

If he and his skilled campaign coordinator Douglas Alexander judge that this is such a divisive, difficult issue, that so many people feel strongly about it that it would pollute a any campaign and seriously damage his chances of winning, then that is the moment they crumble. In fact, in Britain this is pretty much the only reason politicians ever offer referendums - to surgically remove a difficult issue from the party-political arena. This was the only reason Tony Blair went for a referendum on the constitution. The then foreign secretary Jack Straw persuaded him that the demand to vote "on Europe" was cropping up on every doorstep and it would spell heavy, embarrassing defeat in the forthcoming Euro-elections. Although Mr Blair had little idea how he would win a popular vote later on, it was better than losing badly in a few months. He reluctantly did a U-turn, the Conservatives had to pulp most of their leaflets, and Labour didn't as badly as they had feared.

Nextdoor's dominos

So is the debate on the treaty such an issue? It depends on the press, the opposition, and on Europe itself. The Conservatives and the press would have to convince people that the government is wrong - that this is not a simple set of rule changes but something much more momentous. After a slightly uncertain start, they are indeed claiming that the treaty is most of the constitution, and that it is first-order stuff. The argument is put with varying degrees of calmness and coherence, but for my money the best expression of this view is put by . If they convince enough people they are right, then the question becomes: "Why doesn't Gordon trust the people?"

Politicians all over Europe are worried about nextdoor's dominos. One of the reasons that it was so difficult for Tony Blair to resist the referendum call was that President Chirac had unhelpfully changed his mind and offered the French people one. Remember how the No-vote in Denmark over the Maastricht treaty rocked British politics? It didn't provoke a referendum but it did strengthen the hand of the Eurosceptics and led to the slow and agonising dismemberment of John Major's authority.

There is no doubt that most governments will want to avoid a referendum, just as in Britain. The accepted wisdom is that Ireland will be the only exception. Back in 1986, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that there must be a referendum on any amendments to EU treaties, after a Kilkenny farmer-turned-economist argued that the Single European Act paved the way for the creation of a European central bank. To its surprise, the government lost the case and Ireland has had a vote on every treaty since. Twice in the case of the Nice Treaty, which was rejected the first time round.

But what about the French and the Dutch who killed off the constitution in the first place?

Sarkozy has just won two elections. He was explicit there would be no referendum. He would be in a strong position to resist a chorus of calls. But there isn't one. The Socialists are divided and demoralised, without a common position. The Greens, the Communists and a small monarchist party have all called for a referendum, but there doesn't seem to be a big debate about it. This could, of course, change, but it would need to be on the piggy-back of a massive Sarko failure in another field.

The Netherlands is a different matter. The Socialist Dutch MP Harry Van Bommel told me that the treaty was "the constitution in drag", and trying to pretend otherwise was "absolutely unworthy" of the prime minister. A debate is going on in The Hague as I write. The Dutch government clearly does not want a referendum but there might be one small problem. The coalition government took ages to form and is a very fragile thing. It includes three members of the , a party which campaigned for the No-vote last time round, and, one could argue, raised its profile enormously by doing so. That's why it ended up with enough votes to get cabinet seats. It hasn't yet decided its position. I'd normally assume a minor coalition party would do what it's told, like the Irish Greens, but these are men and women who say their job is to "make a Biblically inspired political message heard". While the Bible has nothing to say (go on, contradict me) on referendums, this does suggests they may be principled members of the awkward squad, less likely than most to abandon their political beliefs in order to cling to office.

It may be a Brit-o-centric view, but I am assuming that anybody who campaigned for a "No" last time would want a referendum this time round.

An early poll?

Spain and Luxembourg were the two countries where referendums were won last time round. Their governments were valiant in the fight to retain as much of it as possible and there doesn't seem to be any enthusiasm to go through the whole palaver again for a lesser document. Indeed, they might risk the wrath of people who felt they ordered their government to get the whole thing in the new treaty.

Denmark could be very interesting. It was planning to hold a referendum on the constitution but, like Britain, called it off after the French and Dutch "No's". The Danish government does not have to have one, and does not want to have one, although no official announcement has been made. But it may be in for a surprise. When I was in Copenhagen recently, talking to students at the university about the issue, I was repeatedly told: "Oh no, you're wrong: we have to have a referendum. It's the law." Well, I'm not wrong, but when public opinion is so overwhelming the legal niceties hardly matter. Incidentally, they didn't want a referendum to vote "No" they just wanted to be heard. A rather more scientific take on my quick chat round a student canteen was an opinion poll carried out after the summit which indicated 70% of Danes want a vote.

I've heard of calls for popular votes in Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic. I'm sure there are others. Indeed, do let me know if you think your country should be allowed a vote. Anything that raises the issue would be bad for Brown. If Malta chooses to vote it will hardly bring him down, but it's a few TV and radio reports from me, a few days more of press coverage and few more chances for people to raise an issue he hopes will go away.

But the treaty in the headlines doesn't matter so much unless an election is looming. If the EU pot is bubbling and the calls are loud then they would reach a crescendo around the time of a final parliamentary vote, which I guess would be next spring. If that happens, it could put the skids under the idea of an early poll after a year's bounce. Or it could mean a referendum. I don't think it's that likely, I don't think it's going to happen, but if Mr Brown is in that position someone may tell him: "This isn't worth the keys to Number 10. Let them have their big fight about Europe. After we've won."

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