Cameron defeats rebels on EU vote

25 October 2011 Last updated at 00:28 ET

David Cameron has defeated a bid to grant a referendum on EU membership, despite the largest rebellion against a Tory prime minister over Europe.

The motion was defeated by 483 votes to 111, after all Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs had been instructed to oppose it.

In total, 79 Tories voted for the motion while two Conservative tellers, plus two other Tory MPs who abstained, effectively defied the whips.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the revolt was a “humiliation” for the PM.

“If he can’t win the argument with his own backbenchers, how can the country have confidence that he can win the arguments that matter for Britain?” he said.

A Downing Street spokesman said many people who voted for the motion felt very strongly, and their views were respected.

“However, the government has to do what is in the national interest. The easy thing to do would have been for us to have avoided expressing a view. It was important to take a strong lead – because Britain’s best interests are served by being in the EU.”

The five-hour Commons debate on the issue was prompted after a petition was signed by more than 100,000 people.

The motion called for a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU, leave it or renegotiate its membership.

The government was expected to win easily – and even if it had lost, the result would not be binding on ministers.

This is by far the biggest rebellion David Cameron has suffered since entering Downing Street.

Conservative MP David Nuttall, who proposed the motion, argued there were more than 40 million people of voting age in the UK who had not been consulted on the question of Europe.

And he said the UK Parliament was becoming “ever more impotent” as the “tentacles” of the European Union “intruded into more and more areas of national life”.

‘Out-of-touch’

In a statement to the Commons, Mr Cameron said he shared the rebels’ “yearning for fundamental reform”, and promised “the time for reform was coming”.

He insisted he remained “firmly committed” to “bringing back more powers” from Brussels, but on demands for a referendum, he said amid an economic crisis the timing was wrong and Britain’s national interest was to be part of the EU.

“When r neighbour’s house is on fire, r first impulse should be to help them to put out the flames – not least to stop the flames reaching r own house,” he said.

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who saw 19 Eurosceptic MPs within his own party rebel, likened the Tories’ divisions of Europe to a rerun of an old movie.

He called the Tories an “out-of-touch party tearing itself apart over Europe”.

However, he did agree with the prime minister that it was the wrong time for a referendum.

“The best answer to the concerns of the British people about the concerns of the European Union is to reform the way it works, not to leave it,” he added.

‘Heavy heart’

Tory backbenchers voiced their dismay at the three-line whip – the strongest order a party can give – on Conservative MPs, which meant any who voted against the government would be expected to resign from government jobs.

Conservative MP Stewart Jackson told the Commons he would vote for the motion “with a heavy heart” and “take the consequences”, which may mean losing his position as parliamentary private secretary to Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson.

He said he wished there could have been a well-informed reasonable debate, instead of “heavy-handed whipping” and “catastrophic management” by his party.

Fellow Tory MP Adam Holloway, a parliamentary private secretary to Europe minister David Lidington, rebelled and voted for the motion.

After the debate, he told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight he still believed the prime minister was doing a good job.

“I’m just a nothing little backbencher and he is the guy grappling with the stuff. It’s just very difficult when have no other option if don’t want to basically let r constituents down, as I would have done, given the particular stance that I have taken over the past few years.”

‘Piece of graffiti’

Anger was also directed towards Foreign Secretary William Hague, who earlier tried to quell the rebellion by calling the motion “a piece of graffiti”.

Later in the Commons, he said a referendum would “add to economic uncertainty at a dangerous and difficult time” and suggested most British people did not want to “say yes or no to everything in the EU”.

Tory MPs accused him of going native and abandoning his Eurosceptic views.

The Lib Dems came under attack too, accused of being “charlatans” by Conservative MP Philip Davies for abandoning a manifesto pledge for an in-out referendum on the EU.

But Lib Dem Martin Horwood insisted the party committed to an in-out referendum at the time of a fundamental shift (in Britain’s relationship with the EU).

Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said it is the worst time for a debate about Britain leaving the EU as a “firestorm” engulfs the eurozone.

One Liberal Democrat MP, Adrian Sanders, defied his party’s leadership and voted for a referendum.

The UK Independence Party, which campaigns for the UK to quit the EU, said the Conservatives were “tearing themselves apart” over Europe. Its leader Nigel Farage had urged MPs from all parties “to vote with their conscience, ahead of their party or career”.

In the coalition agreement, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, a traditionally pro-European party, agreed to “ensure that the British government is a positive participant in the European Union, playing a strong and positive role with our partners”.

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