House of Lords may yet force a rethink on Lisbon Treaty referendum

It’s quite not over yet…

The house of Lords may still force New Labour and the Lib-Dems to honour their manifesto commitments to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

New Labour have consistently tried to pull the teeth of the house of Lords and destroy it’s more impartial, longer term view, in order to force through legislation unopposed, since they came to power. Now it seems they may not have done quite enough.

The Bill to rubber stamp the treaty without a referendum squeaked through the Commons in March with a majority of 63, thanks to the slavish unwillingness of new Lab and Lib-Dem MPs to honour what Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg presumably now regard as inconvenient election promises.

Now there is a possibility the house of Lords may yet try force them to honour their election commitment to a referendum anyway, by amending and returning the bill to the house of commons.

Lib Dem peer Lord Falkland, who clearly likes to be able to look himself in the eye in the mirror, unlike so many of his colleagues in the commons, said: ”I will be voting for a referendum and, if I am brave enough to withstand the glares of my colleagues, I will speak in the debate.”. “When you give an undertaking, as we clearly did in our last manifesto, you cannot have it both ways. A manifesto commitment has to be sacrosanct.”

Still, it is the whole weight of the European political elite and the European ‘Project’ behind the ‘Treaty’ - don’t hold your breath waiting for a referendum folks.