TORY REBELLIONS RARELY live up to their billing; but will today’s be the exception that proves the rule. The referendum debate should have been a public display of the prime minister’s e-petition in action. The e-petition was meant to be a direct link between the people who vote, and the country’s primary debating chamber. It was meant to give the people the chance to make parliament debate an issue close to the e-petitioners heart: providing the individual could gather 100,000 signatures, the Speaker of the Commons could allow the subject to be debated.
I am sure that, from his behaviour regarding this afternoons debate, David Cameron, whose dislike of the Speaker matches that of his backbenchers, will be even less inclined to send him a Christmas card after Speaker Bercow allowed this particular debate to take place.
I find it extraordinary that the prime minister has deployed the nuclear option, by imposing a three line whip on his backbenchers. This ultimate form of discipline is only used in exceptional circumstances, like an important piece of legislation or a motion of no confidence. It was never intended to be used for an occasion of such singularly unimportance in terms of legislation; for all an e-petition promises is the chance of a debate - there is no obligation on the prime minister to enforce the petitioner’s will if the debate is won.
A referendum on our relationship with Europe is another example of how distant our politicians are from the people who elect them. None of the main parties will be voting for this afternoon’s motion. David Cameron, Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg have all said they oppose this motion.
We are a Eurosceptic nation governed by Europhiles; none of our party leaders want this debate (although Labour believes they have hit a rich political seam, by seeking political advantage over Cameron’s Tories). It has been the intention of our political elites, for several decades, to cajole and wheedle this sceptical nation into a federal union with the rest of Europe. Since Margaret Thatcher’s demise, successive Tory leaders have had to work hard to try and convince us that European Federalism was off the agenda. But it never was as far as the European political elite were concerned; and the current euro crises has once more brought the possibility of political and monetary union ever nearer. Which is why I cannot understand the insistence of those who say that this issue is a waste of time when we have to tackle our current economic crises – both are linked.
We hear it all the time. Now is not the time for such a referendum. The people want us to concentrate on the economy…this is a side issue, blah, blah, blah. This is the voice of Europhile fear; and the three line whip is an expression of such fear.
The Tory party has always threatened to implode on this issue: simply because Conservatism is about conserving; it is about defending the nation state, its culture and its history; and the true Conservatives are those much maligned Eurosceptics who remain loyal to a centuries old validation of their existence. But conservatism goes beyond any political party. It gathers around it people from all political ideologies. Both Tony Benn and the late Michael Foot; each from a distant planet compared to the Tories, but each of equal distance from the modern Labour Party on this issue of a referendum on Europe.
THIS AFTERNOON’S DEBATE (only allowed to take place at all, let us remember, by an external petition) is probably the most important debate from the perspective of this nation’s history, that the House of Commons has had to consider since the Second World War - and it was all brought about by a young, talented, and over ambitious Tory politician seeking to bring to an end a decade long Labour governance.
Whether David Cameron lives to regret his decision to allow different public issues to be debated within parliament, remains to be seen. But, if anything, the events taking place on the continent of Europe make it all the more important for the British people to be given another say on Europe - the second only since the 1970’s.
This fact alone should enlighten the British people to the true intent of our political establishment. Not since the 1970s have the people of the UK had any say in the way their relationship with Europe was to evolve. Whenever important treaties needed to be signed, our political establishment have collectively undermined the importance of such advances by use of such neutral and comforting adjectives as, an adjustment or technicality. Through such means were both the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties given free passage.
This debate does matter because it will in all probability be this country’s one and only chance to determine its future: because there will never be a referendum on our relationship with Europe, if the main parties have their way - there will never be a time for such a vote as far as our current political leadership are concerned. 
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