Treaty of Lisbon (No. 6)

There have been numerous reports of Labour Members returning from their constituencies after a weekend of having their backbone stiffened by constituents understandably trying to persuade them to honour their election manifesto promises, on which they were elected, to hold a referendum, only to have those early sparks of integrity and independence snuffed out by the brute force of the Government Whips Office. Indeed, such is the terror induced by the Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), that it is said that younger members of the Labour party fear to walk past the door to his office, in much the same way as Russian citizens during the Stalinist era would avoid walking past the doorway to the KGB prison and torture chamber on Lubyanka street in Moscow.