The Euroball is rolling

Well, it hasn’t taken long, but outright opposition to the Tories’ new stance on Europe is underway. Conservative Home has a copy of an email sent by Bill Cash calling for a full referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Here’s the key section:

‘As David Cameron has said, we need an association of member states. In order to achieve this, we cannot simply cherry-pick individual aspects of the treaty and call for renegotiation of those. We need a full referendum on Lisbon as we were promised and as we voted in the House of Commons. No ifs or buts. This is about the Government of the United Kingdom operating in line with the democratic wishes of the electorate.

Future referendums will be ruled out with the arrangements in the treaty which allow amendment of treaties by internal self-amending text, and with a massive transfer of powers under the system of co-decision.’

The Tory leadership’s rejection of a referendum, even though such a referendum is now pointless, is bound to be unpopular, but Cameron has little choice to take a Eurospectic stance on issues related to the Social Chapter.