Brown Survives Revolt Over Europe, Defeats Call for Referendum
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
LONDON — Prime Minister Brown survived a rebellion in Parliament and escaped a potentially damaging referendum on the European Union’s new governing treaty.
English lawmakers voted 311 to 248 to reject a Conservative Party demand for a popular ballot on the Reform Treaty. Mr. Brown was braced for the biggest revolt about Europe in more than a decade, with as many as 30 Labor lawmakers threatening to side with the opposition.
“If this were a constitutional treaty, we would hold a referendum,” Mr. Brown said in the House of Commons yesterday. “The constitutional concept was abandoned, and that is why the nine countries that proposed a referendum are not holding one.” The new European Union rule book would almost certainly be defeated if put to English voters in a referendum, with opponents outnumbering supporters two-to-one, opinion polls show. “No” votes in France and the Netherlands killed the constitution in 2005 and plunged the bloc into institutional gridlock. European Union leaders set a January 2009 deadline for all 27 countries to ratify the Reform Treaty, which streamlines the EU’s decision-making machinery and creates the post of full-time president. A veto in any country would quash the treaty. Only Ireland is legally bound to hold a referendum.
