Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): Ming Campbell has become the first major party leader to call for a referendum on membership of the EU, although of course UKIP have been calling for this since their inception. (Also, Ming has now done what Anthony B scornfully suggested he had not).
This means that Britian's most pro-European and its most Euro-sceptical parties share a common line, while the Conservatives have found common cause with the TUC. We live in interesting times.
Will the Prime Minister hold to his line and say that no referendum is necessary, or will Keith Vaz's suggestion to merge the question of a referendum on the Treaty to one on membership of the EU now come back? Either way, this issue looks set to dominate the political stage for the next few months. Whether that makes a General Election more or less likely appears to depend on who you talk to. A brave Gordon Brown could opt for an early election on the explicit basis that a win for him will be a win for Britain signing the treaty in Lisbon. This could act as a honey trap for the Conservatives, forcing them to jump back on William Hague's flat top lorry with similar results. On the other hand, such a strategy has vague echoes of Ted Heath's October 1974 election bid, and we all know how that turned out.
