The party splitter
- 5 Mar 08, 09:40 PM
Europe is a party splitter - always has been - perhaps always will be. What no-one could have guessed before today was that it would be the Lib Dems who would be most visibly divided over calls for a referendum.
Gordon Brown's decision to reverse Tony Blair's U-turn on the issue of letting the public have the final say has met with no resistance at the top of his party. His explanation that it is the treaty - and not just his own position - that has changed has not convinced a sizeable number of his backbenchers but this is a rebellion he'll live with.
The Tories are - bar a Clarke-ite handful - united on the call for a referendum. However, their Euro divisions could very easily and painfully re-occur if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified and when David Cameron faces calls from within his party for a wholesale renegotiation of Britain's membership of the EU.
There is no position that Nick Clegg could have taken on a referendum which would have united the Lib Dems who are torn between a desire to proclaim their credentials as the most pro-European party and the fear of many of their MPs, particularly in the South West, that that position would cost them their jobs.
However, the new Lib Dem leader did not have to choose to have a very public row about this and, indeed, his first as leader. His gamble is that the public will have seen him take a principled stand for an IN/OUT referendum on Europe. The risk is that the public may recall another Lib Dem split before remembering what it was that caused it.
