The Truth. The new Treaty is not the constitution. The Constitution was 154,000 words long. The reform Treaty is 43,000 words long. Yet William Hague and the Tories insist that the new treaty is 90 per cent or 95 cent the same as the constitution. Only under the weird Eurosceptic arithmetic of William Hague can 43,000 words be 95 per cent of 154,000 words.

The Truth. For the first time there will be a chairman or president of the European Council of nations to offset the power of the president of the European Commission. The Tories are pretending this is the creation of a “President of Europe.” In fact, the new post is a major shift of power to the nations of Europe as they will appoint this new post (in place of the six-month rotating and highly inefficient presidency of European Council). In a dramatic shift of power from Brussels to national governments the president of the Commission – representing the Brussels bureaucracy, will have as co-equal a president of the Council speaking for the nations of the EU. When this post was first proposed by the UK and France, it was bitterly opposed by the Commission. Only the Tories would pretend this new post was a transfer of authority to Brussels when the opposite is the case.

The Truth. Europe is based on a sequence of Treaties – beginning with the first one in 1950 which set up the Iron and Coal Community (which sadly the then Labour government refused to join, but that’s another story), followed by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 which created the European Economic Community. The treaties under which Britain and other new member states joined over the years changed some of the rules. The two big Treaties were the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty ratified by the Tories without a referendum in the Thatcher-Major years. All these treaties, add, amend, and alter the rule book. The defunct constitution replaced all previous treaties and rolled them into a single document of great length. The reform treaty simply adds another treaty to the existing treaties – modifying some of the rules but leaving a great deal of language unchanged from the Treaties of Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice.

The Truth . Only Ireland is bound by its own constitution to hold a referendum on an EU treaty. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidency of France on a pledge not to hold a referendum but to allow the French parliament to ratify the treaty. Positions may evolve over the next six months but anyone who reads the continental press will see that other EU member states accept that the 2004 constitution was killed off because it was too ambitious. The new Treaty is a more modest, moderate text.

The Truth. Tony Blair, not Gordon Brown decided in 2004 that a referendum was desirable. Given the nature of the proposed EU Constitution and its 154,000 words which sought to fuse all previous treaties into a new document entitled a Constitutional Treaty complete with anthem, flag, and other language associated with a new constitutional settlement between the UK and the EU there was a case for a referendum. Many were disappointed that the then prime minister removed from parliament its historic role to ratify treaties. The senior Tory MP, John Gummer, spoke bitterly against Blair’s decision to opt for a referendum. It was the Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary, Liam Fox, who in June 2005 told the Commons that the Constitution was “dead.” He was right. And with the death of the EU constitution died the referendum pledge. William Hague and the Tories may want a referendum for the obvious political reasons to weaken Gordon Brown and the new Labour government but it is a lie to say that Tony Blair’s referendum pledge on the 2004 constitution should apply to the 2007 Reform Treaty.

The Truth. Tory spokesmen and anti-EU front outfits like Open Europe say that Gordon Brown, Digby Jones and various EU leaders still call the new treaty a constitution or say it is little different from the defunct 2004 Constitution. In a slip of the tongue at a news conference, the new prime minister did refer to the new treaty as the constitution but quickly corrected himself. It is fundamentally dishonest and inaccurate to claim otherwise. Digby Jones, the former CBI chief and now a Labour minister made clear to a House of Commons select committee on 16^th July : “I am very pleased that the Prime Minister’s predecessor (Tony Blair) came back from Brussels with the so-called red lines actually still intact” and far from criticising the new Treaty or the EU referred to “the most fabulous achievement of the European Union, which is enduring peace in Western Europe.” It is true that the octogenarian French politician, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, asserts that the new treaty reflects the work of his committee which tried to draw up a constitution for the EU. But what he proposed and wanted was to fuse all the existing Treaties on Europe into a new constitution with florid language, a flag, a European anthem and so forth. The new Treaty is just another in the sequence of treaties which form the EU rule book.

The Truth. EU positions on foreign policy matters are a matter of consensus. They have to be agreed by all 27 EU foreign ministers. It is useful sometime for the EU to take a position on an issue of great importance to one member state but not a high priority to other member states. The EU magnifies the voice of Britain. Nothing causes more damage to a UK foreign policy position than to see it contradicted by key partners and allies. But all governments retain control over their foreign policy. President Sarkozy is not going to transfer control of French foreign policy to Brussels. Nor will France give up its seat on the UN Security Council. Only the Tories dare tell lies that the new Treaty means that Britain loses control of foreign policy.

The Truth. This is the first Treaty which writes into EU law the obligation to consult national parliaments and gives national parliaments the right to send back a proposal for an EU law or directive for amendment or to be binned. Instead of working with other national parliaments to give life to those new roles for the Commons in EU affairs, the Tories are breaking links with political parties in Germany, France and other EU member states.

The truth. The establishment in the UK ranging from city boardrooms, to large numbers of MPs and peers, and with an overwhelming level of support in the media from The Times to the Today programme is far from enthusiastic from Europe. Populist support for referendums wins support in Liberal Democratic circles as well as in culturally pro-European papers like the Independent. Whitehall mandarins see Europe in terms of being more of a problem to be managed than an opportunity to be seized. One has to go back to the campaigns in favour of the Single European market in the 1980s to see organised and enthusiastic support from power-holders in Britain for Europe. Since 1997, few if any cabinet ministers have made strong pro-EU speeches or attempted to persuade Labour and trade union members or citizens on a sustained basis of the positive benefits of EU membership. Politicians who want to make a pro-EU case can rarely get space on the BBC or a column in the press. By contrast, Open Europe or politicians who want to see the new Treaty defeated by a referendum are treated deferentially by the Today programme and given unlimited space in the papers.

The Truth. The EU and its various treaties, including the new one, form the only region in the world where obligations to support workers, “to promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men and solidarity between generations” are written down as legal obligations for a number of sovereign states freely joined as EU partners. Thanks to EU membership British workers enjoy legal rights like five weeks’ paid holiday, obligatory consultation rights, pension rights for part-time workers, and anti-discrimination rights for gay and lesbian workers. British unions may feel that the government should do more on working time and agency workers. But those are arguments to have with the government not arguments to say No to the new Treaty and the EU – the goal of those calling for the referendum. 1.5 million German public sector workers are banned under the German constitution from going on strike. 95 per cent of French private sector workers are not unionised. The new Treaty will not alter German labour law or the failure of French unions to organise. But EU social rights remain the only model globally for how worker and union rights can be enshrined in treaty law. That is why the Tories oppose the EU and want to see the new Treaty defeated.

This pamphlet is about Tory dishonesty and mendacity on Europe. But trade unionists, and especially those in the steel industry should never forget the importance of the EU for the future of Labour constituencies. This summer the UK Steel Division of the Engineering Employers Federation published important figures highlighting the importance of the EU for steelworkers. British steelworkers are now exporting 30 per cent more steel in value terms that a decade ago. In 1997, according to figures from the UK Steel division of the Engineering Employers Federation, Britain exported £3,027 million worth of steel. In 2006, that figure had gone up to £4,197 million. Steel is also one of the industries where there is a healthy balance of trade surplus for Britain with made-in Britain steel being worth twice the value of imported steel. Europe remains the most important market for British steel. In 2006, there was a 16 per cent increase in steel exports to EU member states compared to an 18 per cent drop in exports to the rest of the world. We keep hearing that the future lies with China and India but we export eight times as much steel to Europe as we do to Asia. The Tories who continually decry the EU and say it has no future are doing great damage to the UK steel industry

I could go on. But readers who have stayed with me so far will get the drift. Tory-led attempts to replace parliamentary democratic ratification by a referendum is a coherent and concerted effort to move power from MPs to media proprietors and editors as well as well-financed front organisations campaigning against Europe. If they succeed it will be working people, especially in industry, who will suffer. I took an active part as a Minister in the drafting of the old Constitutional Treaty. It had much language in it that was already in British law under previous treaties. Tory MPs and Daily Mail EU-haters would proclaim that language on “loyal cooperation” in foreign affairs meant a dreadful new interference in British foreign policy. In fact, the words came from the Maastricht Treaty agreed by John Major and ratified by the Commons, not by a referendum. Margaret Thatcher made the first big speech in favour of more EU foreign policy at an EU Council meeting in 1984. Looking at Iraq surely no-one can claim that the existence of EU Treaty obligations means that EU member states have to follow a common line. More recently, the entire German political establishment has been virulently critical of the dealings between the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi. President Sarkozy does not give two or even three hoots to what the rest of Europe thinks. The new Treaty will make little difference.

As someone who would like to see Europe develop more coherent foreign policy and speak and act as one I would welcome British leadership to crafting new international politics for the 21^st century, including the crucial area of combating inequality and the nefarious effects of globalisation. But I can see nothing in the new Treaty that will either encourage or discourage that process. The future of the EU lies in the hands of its leaders and its citizens. If they want a do-little EU the new Treaty will not change that. If they want a Europe that can change itself and help change the world for the better, it will be decisions taken in London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid and other capitals, as well as Brussels, that will make the difference not the language of the new Treaty.

Thus to oppose the new Treaty or to call for a referendum on it, which is just a politely dishonest way of opposing it (unless you can send me details of the Tories and others calling for a referendum in order to say Yes to the new Treaty!), is about politics not principle. There is nothing wrong with that. William Hague’s task is to make life difficult for Gordon Brown. But let us have no humbug that he is doing so on the basis of anything other than a desire to see Labour weakened and desire to see his anti-EU obsessions given a full outing by means of a referendum campaign.

William Hague and David Cameron rely on the anti-EU front organisation called “Open Europe” to pump out non-stop propaganda against the EU. Since 1997, and the election of the Labour government which made clear its support for full UK membership of and participation in the European Union, a number of well-financed organisations have come into being to support calls for Britain to isolate herself to a lesser or greater degree from Europe. Their names change but their object is in line with the consistent hostility to the EU enunciated by William Hague when he became Tory leader in 1997. Hague’s successor as Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, made his name in 1992 as a new Tory MP viscerally hostile to Europe. He was one of the first Tories to call for a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. He has been consistent ever since. IDS has called for referendums of every single EU Treaty in the past two decades. It is difficult to imagine an EU Treaty that IDS would not demand a referendum on.

The fact that EU Treaty language, past and present, contains language upholding social and labour rights, is probably enough to make him and other dyed-in-the-wool right-wing Tories want to detach the UK from the EU. Back in 1992, of course, William Hague, then PPS to Norman Lamont, the Tory Chancellor, voted against IDS and against a referendum. So did John Redwood. Hague and Redwood are typical of the Tories who had no problems with the Commons ratifying the Single European Act under Margaret Thatcher and the Maastricht Treaty under John Major. But now that Labour is in power they are suddenly converted to the IDS view-point that a referendum is desirable on any international treaty that Britain signs if it is to do with the EU.

In October 2007, the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee published its examination of the reform Treaty as it stood prior to the final negotiations on the text before signature. It explicitly voted down a call for a referendum. It makes clear that thanks to the success of UK negotiations over the new treaty Britain will have a new relationship with Europe.

The scrutiny committee wants more powers for parliament. So do I. But if every EU national parliament wants a veto right on any EU directive then we might as well as all go home. British rights including existing social rights under EU treaties to travel, live, trade, and work freely will always fall foul of national protectionist instincts.

Treaty opponents never tell us exactly what they don't like. The Tory-UKIP position is just to say no to Europe. The scrutiny committee rightly complains that in Britain we do not, whether in parliament or in the wider political context, debate and discuss Europe with adequate time. I agree. We have tried. In the last parliament we set up a special standing committee of parliament to discuss the negotiations on the constitution. Not once did a Tory front bencher attend. The Tories are disingenuous on Europe. Hague is calling for endless referendums because he wants to undermine Gordon Brown's principled decision that parliament, not the press or a plebiscite should decide our international treaty obligations.

At the Conservative Party conference in October, William Hague called for tough European action on Burma. I agree. Yet the same William Hague wants to kill the treaty that might make this possible. He also wants referendums on any new treaty. This is what Turkeyphobes argue for. They want national referendums to stop Turkey joining the EU. It is sad to see the Conservatives now joining those who argue for referendums on future Turkish membership. Upto now the Conservatives opposed the Islamaphobe right-wing parties on the continent who supported national referendums to stop Muslim Turkey joining the EU – if Turkey meets all the relevant conditions. Perhaps William Hague should fly to Turkey to explain why he is reversing Tory support for Turkey to join the EU by joining every anti-Muslim, racist Turkophobe rightwing in Europe who is passionate for referendums to say no to European enlargement.

John Redwood, famously said of the Amsterdam Treaty, largely negotiated by the Tories before 1997, but ratified by the Commons under Labour, that adopting it would mean the “end of Britain.” Last time I looked, our country was still around. William Hague went into the 2001 election proclaiming that to vote for pro-EU Labour would mean that Britain “would become a foreign land.” Eh?? The obsessive anti-EU fanaticism of William Hague and John Redwood defies rational political analysis.

In order to win Eurosceptic votes in his bid to become Leader in 2005, David Cameron had to promise that the Conservatives would break links with sister centre-right and conservative parties in Europe. As a result, Cameron, Hague and the Tories have no full fraternal relations with the parties in government in Germany, France, the Netherland, Denmark, Swede, Greece and most of east Europe. It is an unprecedented position for a major British political party and leader to be in. Over the years there are many issues on which a Labour leader or prime minister have been in disagreement with continental parties of the left. But Labour has never snubbed or insulted fellow government and political leaders in Europe in the manner of Cameron and the Conservatives. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, is also part of the centre-right and conservative European family. British national interests are ill served by Cameron’s isolationist policies. But such is the gut-like ideological dislike of Europe by William Hague and many Tory MPs that they will throw political common sense out of the window rather than accept that Britain should remain in the EU, fight our corner, get opt-outs or tougher guarantees when necessary as is the case with the new Treaty and promote Britain’s global interests as a member of the EU.

Many who held high posts in Labour in the 1970s and 1980s also opposed Europe. The referendum of 1975 brought no closure to the bitter divisions on Europe in Labour’s ranks. In fact, those on the left, in the Labour Party and the trade unions who opposed Europe treated the people’s decision of 1975 with contempt and redoubled their anti-European energy, speeches and policy demands. They ensured that in 1983, the Labour Party manifesto was committed to a strongly anti-European line. Mrs Thatcher, meanwhile was going in the opposite direction. She supported the appointment of the integrationist Jacques Delors as Commission President. She pioneered the Single European Act which led to the biggest creation of majority voting – or abandoning the veto – ever seen since the 1957 Treaty of Rome. At the end of the 1980s, the Government was spending £25 million a year explaining the benefits of European membership through its “Are Eu ready?” advertising campaign on newspapers, radio and television. By contrast, when I tried to enthuse Whitehall about Europe as Europe Minister 2002-1005, my budget to explain the EU to Britain was cut in half to just £200,000 – the lowest public information budget line to be found in Whitehall! It would be embarrassing to list all the Labour cabinet members since 1997 whose language in the 1980s was as stridently anti-European as David Cameron, William Hague, IDS and John Redwood today. Luckily most have retired or been retired. Today’s youthful cabinet is relaxed on Europe like most of today’s younger generation of citizens who take the rights to travel, trade, live, study and work in Europe which EU regulations uphold.

TUC leaders like Norman Willis or John Monks had to sit quietly in despair as some trade union general secretaries blasted Europe in their speeches and dragged the labour movement down the cul-de-sac of anti-Europeanism. As globalisation gathered steam in the 1980s, it became more and more necessary for progressive forces in Britain to take European, transatlantic and wider international labour politics seriously. This is hard work. Each country and its labour movement has different approaches. American trade unions routinely call for import controls on goods from Britain if they feel their jobs might come under threat from made-in-Britain goods or services. The United Steelworkers of America campaigned hard to get George W Bush to impose tariffs on steel products from Britain. Bush surrendered to US labor protectionism even as it threatened the jobs of British unionised steelworkers. American unions stop Mexican lorry-drivers from delivering loads across the US-Mexican border – a protectionist practice which turns Mexican workers into economic migrants as they cannot take part in the growth of the North American economy by living in their own country but being allowed to participate economically across borders as all workers do in Europe.

Of course, there is language in EU Treaties that talk of competition, open markets, and the need to reduce economic barriers. This allows British workers and their companies to make money in 26 other EU member states if their products and services are attractive to consumers. It means, for example, that low-cost airlines in Britain can fly holiday-makers to scores of European destinations without being blocked by unions in France or Spain or Italy which might object to the competition with bigger longer-established airlines. But does anyone want to return to paying fares of several hundred pounds to fly from Manchester or Luton or Glasgow to continental Europe because that would suit the particular needs of protectionist groups (including on occasion trade unions) in European member states? So the EU language in favour of open economics helps many average or low-pay workers, families, and pensioners in Britain get the chance to enjoy visits to continental cities and holiday locations which would have been unthinkable or curtailed in the years before EU Treaties opened up these possibilities.

But these arguments are of little interest to the Tories, to the Labour-hating writers of the Daily Mail or to their friends in the anti-EU campaigns like Open Europe. In itself that would matter little if the argument was based on facts. But as we have seen when given the choice between facts and propaganda, the Tories and the anti-European always run away from the truth. They are brilliant at taking words out of context, ignoring complexity, censoring qualifications and pretending the opposite of the truth.

Margaret Thatcher famously said “No! No! No!” to what she claimed were Jacques Delors statements about the creation of a European state and government. But Delors never used the words attributed to him and one only had to look at the strident differences in foreign, tax, social, economic and other policies between the big EU member states – never mind, the smaller nations – to see that the 27 nation states in the EU are stronger and more distinct than ever. Both the German Chancellor and the French president are paid in Euros. But on policies stretching from nuclear power, immigration, or relations with Libya, Berlin and Paris follow distinct paths. Ireland is an English-speaking EU member state with an open economy. Yet Ireland is the strongest defender of the Common Agricultural Policy of any EU member state. The notion that the EU acts as a homogenising force which saps national identity and dictates all major policies that matter to citizens from Brussels is less true today than at any time in European history.

None of these facts matter to our home-grown isolationists. Take, for example, the propaganda put out by Open Europe and repeated endlessly by William Hague and other Tory anti-Europeans. Below is a simple comparison of what Open Europe claims to be true in the reform Treaty and what actually is the truth. The Tories and Open Europe start with the claim that the defunct Constitution has been revived in the form of the proposed amending Treaty. The Conservatives do not bother with their own analysis and instead reply on Open Europe’s report ‘The Constitution by any other name’ to act as the purveyors of the Hague-Redwood-IDS-Cameron line on Europe. The Open Europe report is misleading, exaggerated and simply gets the facts wrong. Read some of the examples below and judge for yourself.

I will spare the reader more examples of how Open Europe and the Tories are deliberately distorting what is in the new Reform Treaty. The new Treaty is emphatically not the constitution. Tories (and some Labour MPs) celebrated its defeat and death in 2005. Dr Liam Fox MP, amused MPs in the Commons when he said the constitution was as dead as Monty Python’s famous parrot after the French and Dutch said No to is in 2005. Of course some of the language and ideas are similar to those discussed in the endless debates, proposals, and texts put forward in Europe’s discussion about what direction to take in this century. The enlargement of the EU, first from 15 to 25 and then to 27 member states, requires a new rule book. Since the Treaty of Rome in 1957, every time the European Community, the Union got bigger there has been a need for new Treaties.

In the end, Europe works or does not work, if its member states have the will to take the decisions necessary for their people to advance. Britain since 1997, has taken tough decisions to create a modernised social democracy, based on unleashing the material possibilities of the British people to create jobs, increase wages, grow their stake in the UK by investing in their homes or saving. Simultaneously, there have been massive investments in social justice ranging from Sure Starts for future citizens, to the creation of a redistributive negative income tax via tax credits for workers on low pay and for pensioners. Germany is today discussing the introduction of a minimum wage based on the UK model to stop the low-wage exploitation in the unified Germany.

From across the continent, Labour sister parties come to Britain to see how nearly 3 million jobs have been created, including nearly a million in the public sector at a time when unemployment and the loss of jobs in public service have been a major problem across the Channel. Neither Brussels, nor the adoption of any form of words in a Treaty are a Harry Potter magic wand to help grow a socially and environmentally responsible market economy. That requires thousands of individual decisions from economic, social and political actors. Gordon Brown and ministers can set wide objectives but getting the policy mix right to deliver Labour and trade union objectives requires infinite flexibility and leadership at the grass roots as much as in Whitehall, Westminster or Congress House.

That is why the Tories want to throw a spanner in the wheels of Labour at the start of a new era now that the Tony Blair years fade into history. David Cameron has failed miserably in shaping a new Conservative Party and finds himself facing internal division and conflict. His years as a PR official for a third-rate television company are not the best training for the high arts of national party political leadership. Cameron himself, as well as George Osborne and their key advisers have never disguised their visceral hostility to Europe. Cameron may make efforts to move the Tories onto less “nasty” terrain that voters associate the Conservatives with since 1997. But on Europe Cameron is like the frog in the fable who gives a lift to a scorpion to get across the river, despite his fears that the scorpion will sting him to death. In today’s Tory version of the Aesop fable, the scorpion is William Hague who cannot help but sting to death his party because of his zealot-like dislike of the EU. Like the scorpion he “can do no other” and William Hague’s obsession about EU will do the Tories lasting damage.

Unless, of course, there is a return in Labour and its friends in the unions to the anti-EU malady that did so much damage to Labour before Neil Kinnock, John Smith, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook and the younger generation Tony Blair encouraged into office who made Labour one of the most dominant and pro-European political forces in the European Union. The Tories never actually stipulate what they do not like in the new Treaty. Instead they repeat the same old lie that the reform Treaty is no different to the Constitution which was killed in 2005. That text abolished all existing treaties and proclaimed itself to be a Constitution with all that implies in the political relations between citizen and state. I opposed the high-blown language about a Constitution used in this period. I was uncomfortable with Britain’s approach which seemed at odds with what I considered to be European reality from many years of political work with our sister parties and trade unions in Europe. Reading French, German, Spanish or Italian papers and having some knowledge of the political realities of those countries I could not see how European nations, especially those who were just obtaining full EU membership were willing to accept what the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer called a “European finality” in the form of a Constitution. As is well known, thoughts in London in this period were focussed elsewhere as 9/11 and the question of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and the new criminals of global ideological terrorism overwhelmed the policy and political agenda after 2001.

Tony Blair offered the promise of a referendum because what he and Jack Straw signed in Rome in 2004 had some, not all but some of the appurtenances of a Constitution. That promise became utterly irrelevant when the Constitutional Treaty was killed by the French and the Dutch in 2005. William Hague, John Redwood, David Cameron and Open Europe may call for a referendum on the new Treaty but they cannot, with any honesty, make comparison between the new Treaty and the defunct Constitution on which Blair offered a referendum in 2004.

In political life there can always be calls for referendums. I began my active Labour Party three decades campaigning against calls for a referendum on capital punishment. In my view the Blair government was too cavalier with offering referendums instead of upholding parliamentary sovereignty. Gordon Brown has started his premiership with a pledge to restore the Commons to the heart of how we make political decisions in Britain. He has himself made important announcements in the Commons. His constitutional reform proposals underline the centrality of Britain’s elected representatives – not advisers, spin doctors, or media owners and editors – taking decisions on the nation’s behalf. It would sit odd then with the new prime minister’s declared intentions to remove from Parliament the right to debate and ratify the new treaty which allows Britain more say in the affairs of the EU.

When pressed by BBC interviewers on what actually he would change in the Reform Treaty and what precisely he opposes, William Hague, so wonderfully fluent and non-tongue-tied since he burst into British political life as the 16 year old Wunderkind denouncing Labour at a Tory conference in the 1970s, suddenly dries up. He simply wants a No because a) he dislikes the EU; b) he knows it will discomfit Brown; and c) the Tory dream is to see Labour split on Europe as Conservatives were in the 1990s and lose power.

That is why the Tories are seeking to increase the pressure on Brown. They cannot hit him on the economic front. They know that many of Labour’s social investment policies make sense. They can sense that Brown’s leadership on international campaigns against poverty and illiteracy in Africa resonates with voters. So they seek to harness the right-wing press, incarnated now as ever in Labour history, by the isolationist Rothermere Daily Mail, and sow divisions in Labour’s ranks by seeking to detach MPs and some trade union leaders to join the Tory-UKIP-Open Europe campaign to defeat Brown in an early test of the new prime minister’s authority.

Of course, there are many decent and sincere friends, colleagues and comrades who have doubts about the EU or who dislike some of its policies or wish in some areas, like worker rights, the EU was stronger in forcing British employers to respect union and worker rights. The call for a referendum is seductive. Opponents of a referendum and supporters of the EU must not impugn the integrity or sincerity of friends and comrades who take a different view. But equally, we have the right to ask people not to play the Tory game, to say No to the Daily Mail, and not to be fooled by the mendacity of Open Europe.

There may indeed by a case after the next election for a broader consultation on whether the UK should stay fully in the EU or seek to withdraw and accept the consequences. I am not sure such an “In or Out?” referendum would settle the debate once and for all any more than the clear two-thirds majority in favour of staying in the EEC in 1975 helped defuse hostility to Europe in many sectors of British politics. Like the rows over free trade in the 19^th century, isolationism in the 20^th century or our relationship with the United States since 1945, there are some questions in politics that have a life of their own, resurface in different guises and which divide people often across formal party lines.

But as a Labour MP who wants to see all my colleagues handsomely re-elected and to see Gordon Brown and Labour open the door to yet another term in opposition for the Tories I am convinced that anyone if the party or in trade unions who wishes Labour well should think very carefully before deciding to align openly with those calling for Britain to be plunged into the political turmoil of referendum politics.

Socialists in France, both in the party and in the unions, supported calls for a referendum in 2004 on the now-defunct constitution. When President Chirac was forced to concede their demands many socialists in France campaigned for a No vote. They won. And then lost. The divisions on Europe on the French left poisoned any chance of unity against the French right represented by Nicolas Sarkozy. He campaigned and won the presidency with an explicit pledge that the French Parliament would decide on the new treaty. There is never any direct read-across from one nation’s political processes to those of a neighbour. But those on the left who called for a referendum in France did Sarkozy’s work for him. I would respectfully ask my fellow Labour Party MPs and member and my fellow trade unionists to think long and hard about the question of a referendum on the new Treaty. The new government and the new prime minister deserve our support. Let the Tories and the Daily Mail and UKIP and Open Europe shout and cry for a referendum and a No vote. Let their cries be in vain. Labour wants to stay in Europe. Gordon Brown and Labour wants to restore the primacy of Parliament in our national life. The new Treaty safeguards British national interests and allows Europe to move forward.

Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP

November 2007

Afterword. Arguments about the content and implication of an EU Treaty, or indeed any of the treaties under which Britain agrees to abide by international rules and regulations are often technical and can easily bore people. So below I print 50 reasons which I hope are reasonably understandable as to why I am in favour of Europe. They were written for the Independent newspaper to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in March 2007. The Independent’s editor, Simon Kellner, kindly put them on the front page of the paper.

50 reasons why the European Union is good for us

1 The end of war between European nations

2 Democracy is now flourishing in 27 countries

3 Once-poor countries, such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal, are prospering

4 The creation of the world's largest internal trading market

5 Unparalleled rights for European consumers

6 Co-operation on continent-wide immigration policy

7 Co-operation on crime, through Europol

8 Laws that make it easier for British people to buy property in Europe

9 Cleaner beaches and rivers throughout Europe

10 Four weeks statutory paid holiday a year for workers in Europe

11 No death penalty (it is incompatible with EU membership)

12 Competition from privatised companies means cheaper phone calls

13 Small EU bureaucracy (24,000 employees, fewer than the BBC)

14 Making the French eat British beef again

15 Minority languages, such as Irish, Welsh and Catalan recognised and protected

16 Europe is helping to save the planet with regulatory cuts in CO2

17 One currency from Bantry to Berlin (but not Britain)

18 Europe-wide travel bans on tyrants such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe

19 The EU gives twice as much aid to developing countries as the United States

20 Strict safety standards for cars, buses and aircraft

21 Free medical help for tourists

22 EU peacekeepers operate in trouble spots throughout the world

23 Europe's single market has brought cheap flights to the masses, and new prosperity for forgotten cities

24 Introduction of pet passports

25 It now takes only 2 hrs 35 mins from London to Paris by Eurostar

26 Prospect of EU membership has forced modernisation on Turkey

27 Shopping without frontiers gives consumers more power to shape markets

28 Cheap travel and study programmes means greater mobility for Europe's youth

29 Food labelling is much clearer

30 No tiresome border checks (apart from in the UK)

31 Compensation for passengers suffering air delays

32 Strict ban on animal testing for the cosmetic industry

33 Greater protection for Europe's wildlife

34 Regional development fund has aided the deprived parts of Britain

35 European driving licences recognised across the EU

36 Britons now feel a lot less insular

37 Europe's bananas remain bent, despite sceptics' fears

38 Strong economic growth - greater than the United States last year

39 Single market has brought the best continental footballers to Britain

40 Human rights legislation has protected the rights of the individual

41 European Parliament provides democratic checks on all EU laws

42 EU gives more, not less, sovereignty to nation states

43 Maturing EU is a proper counterweight to the power of US and China

44 European immigration has boosted the British economy

45 Europeans are increasingly multilingual - except Britons, who are less so

46 Europe has set Britain an example how properly to fund a national health service

47 British restaurants now much more cosmopolitan

48 Total mobility for career professionals in Europe

49 Europe has revolutionised British attitudes to food and cooking