Tories to Publish Details of Draft EU Referendum Bill

UK and European flags flying. Photograph by Lancastrian

The Conservatives are to publish a draft bill for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, with a vote proposed to be held during the next parliament in 2017.

The draft is an attempt to demonstrate to the British public that prime minister David Cameron was serious about the pledge on a referendum that he made earlier this year to renegotiate Britain’s standing with the EU and then hold a referendum on the matter. However, around 70 Tory MPs would like to vote on the issue sooner, and are seeking to force a vote on the issue in an amendment expressing their regret such a referendum was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech last week.

David Cameron has described any vote on membership before he has had a chance to renegotiate Britain’s standing in the EU would be a “false choice” between the status quo and an immediate exit. In an attempt to quell this movement and placate the MPs calling for a referendum, Downing Street is proposing the EU draft referendum bill.

The bill has been criticised by both the Liberal Democrats and Labour as chaos within the party looking to split itself apart over the issue of Europe as it did in the 1990s. UKIP leader Nigel Farage, whose party made significant gains in the recent local elections at the expense of the Tories, likely forcing the creation of this bill, has called the move “gesture politics”.

Whilst some may see the drafting of this bill as a demonstration that Cameron is serious about holding such a referendum, but under A.V Dicey’s theories of parliamentary sovereignty in the UK, a government cannot bind its successors, and so any commitment in reality will be superficial.