EU REFERENDUM - CAMERON'S FAILURE TO DELIVER

David Cameron's intention to publish a Bill 
commiting him to an EU referendum in an             

in or out referendumin 2017, is an act of 

appeasement to Conservative back-

benchers. It is the like of which has not

been seen since Neville Chamberlain returned
from Munich in 1938 with a piece of paper
promising peace in our time.

Canute-like, the Prime Minister wills the tide
of public clamour for the repatriation of
sovereign powers to Westminister to recede.
He will fail because people have no faith that
this promise of a referendum will amount to
anything more than that which he has promised
but failed to deliver in the past. It raises the
question of where Mr Cameron's inclinations
really lie - for Britain to be increasingly part
of an economically and politically disfunctional
EU, or set free to trade independently with the
world's emerging economies.

Refused parliamentary time to debate the

referendum by the Liberal Democrat Leader,
the strategy to introduce a private member's Bill
faces the twin obstacles, first of being selected,
then being filibustered out. All of which makes t
he exercise nothing more than a charade,
designed to wrong-foot Mr Miliband and
Mr Clegg on the question of the referendum.

This pointless spectacle can only increase the

disaffection of voters, of whom even fewer
than the 65% who turned out at the last
general election, may bother to vote in 2015.