Westminster blog

Could the Tories’ spirited campaign for Gordon Brown to call a referendum on the EU treaty backfire?David Cameron is resisting pressure to promise a Conservative government would hold a referendum on the treaty even after it has been ratified – and for good reason. A vote to pull out of the treaty once it has legal force would leave the UK trying to renegotiate its entire relationship with the EU. But maybe this is what many core Tory voters actually want? A poll on the Conservativehome website today finds most respondents – 63 per cent – support a referendum that mandates an incoming Conservative government to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU so that it returns to a free trade area.This is not a mandate that Mr Cameron wants. Instead, it hands the government ammunition to support its claim that Tory fulminating against the treaty is a Trojan horse for a move to get out of Brussels altogether.