The Spectator is wrong to call for an EU referendum

‘If someone in the UK is calling for a referendum, that is not because the text we have in front of us is a Constitution.’ Not my words. They belong to Giuliano Amato, vice chairman of the Convention that drafted the old Constitutional Treaty.

Last week in the Spectator the government was accused of being dishonest regarding the European Reform Treaty (‘Vote for honesty’, 15 September). We are not.

We did indeed promise a referendum on the old Constitutional Treaty. But the Reform Treaty is not a Constitution. In June, all 27 leaders of the Member States of the European Union took the same view, declaring ‘the Constitutional concept has been abandoned’. Nine EU Member States either held referenda on the old Constitutional Treaty or were planning to do so. But only Ireland intends to hold a referendum on the Reform Treaty — because it is required to do so on any EU Treaty.