Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

I am not breaking my pledge because I will be backing a referendum on whether we are in or out. That is the closest question to a referendum on a constitutional treaty. The constitutional treaty will contain the treaties from Maastricht, from Rome, from Nice, from Amsterdam and from the Single European Act. A referendum on that treaty was in effect an in-or-out referendum, as we said at the time. We are keeping our pledge; the problem is that the Conservatives are trying to pretend that a pledge for a referendum on the reform treaty—a minor amending treaty—in any way meets their proposal. That is because the Conservatives are totally split on Europe. They would not be prepared to go to the people on the question whether Britain should be in or out.