Lisbon Treaty — Referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union — rejected — 4 Mar 2008 at 16:27

The majority of MPs voted to reject a motion[1] which would have allowed a provision holding a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU) to be inserted into the European Union (Amendment) Bill.

The text of the rejected motion[1] was:

  • That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the European Union (Amendment) Bill that it have power to make provision in the Bill for the holding of a referendum on the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats put forward this motion because they argued that any referendum should be on the EU as a whole rather than on individual treaties. As Adrian Sanders MP explains:[2]

  • 'How can one remain a member of a club when one has rejected its rules?'

However, the Tories and Labour thought this was a cynical tactic by the Lib Dems:

  • 'He is not arguing about the great principle of staying in or leaving the European Union, because he does not want that referendum at all. This instruction is just a weasel tactic to get out of the promise that he made to the electorate at the last general election to hold a referendum on the European treaty. Nobody who shares my opinion will be fooled by this rather disgraceful tactic.'[3]

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con168 0187.6%
DUP0 1011.1%
Independent1 0020.0%
Lab294 (+2 tell) 15088.4%
LDem0 51 (+2 tell)084.1%
PC3 00100.0%
SNP4 0066.7%
Total:470 67185.9%

Rebel Voters - sorted by constituency

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Ronnie CampbellBlyth ValleyLabaye
Dennis SkinnerBolsoverLab (minister)aye
Bob SpinkCastle Pointwhilst Con (front bench)both
Jon CruddasDagenhamLabaye
David MarshallGlasgow EastLab (minister)aye
Ian DavidsonGlasgow South WestLab (minister)aye
John Martin McDonnellHayes and HarlingtonLabaye
Andrew DismoreHendonLab (minister)aye
Jeremy CorbynIslington NorthLabaye
George HowarthKnowsley North and Sefton EastLab (minister)aye
Kelvin HopkinsLuton NorthLab (minister)aye
Geraldine SmithMorecambe and LunesdaleLab (minister)aye
David TaylorNorth West LeicestershireLab (minister)aye
Frank CookStockton NorthLab (minister)aye
David DrewStroudLab (minister)aye
Andrew MacKinlayThurrockLab (minister)aye

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