Brown defeats push for EU treaty referendum

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday defeated a bid to force him to call a referendum on the new EU reform treaty that many analysts believe he would lose. Parliament voted against an amendment backed by opposition lawmakers and some rebels from Mr Brown's Labour Party that demanded a referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

Parliament also rejected a second amendment that would have combined a referendum on the treaty with the possibility of a wider referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

Many analysts believe the Lisbon treaty, which overhauls EU institutions, would be rejected if put to British voters. Mr Brown, buffeted by a bank crisis and government blunders during his first eight months in office, is determined not to call one.

Conservative leader David Cameron accused Mr Brown of backing out of a pledge by his predecessor, Tony Blair, to hold a referendum on a European Constitution. Mr Brown said the treaty was different from the Constitution, which was abandoned after voters rejected it in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

"If this was a constitutional treaty, we would hold a referendum. The constitutional concept was abandoned," Mr Brown told Parliament.

Britain has a strong strain of Euroscepticism. It stayed out of the euro and of the Schengen passport-free travel zone and negotiated a series of opt-outs from the Lisbon treaty.

If Britons rejected the treaty in a referendum, it would be an "enormous blow" for Mr Brown, said Robin Shepherd, senior research fellow at the Chatham House think-tank. "They will do everything they possibly can to avoid having a referendum." Conservatives say the Lisbon treaty is barely changed from the defunct Constitution and gives away too many of Britain's powers to Brussels.

"Ninety per cent of it (the Constitution) is still there," Conservative foreign affairs spokesman William Hague told BBC radio. "The overriding issue of principle here is that a referendum was promised."

The Conservatives pledge to take their battle for a referendum to the Upper House of Parliament, where Labour lacks a majority. The House of Lords can delay laws but not stop them.