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90% demand a say on Europe
By David Hughes, Political editor, Daily Mail Last updated at 00:00am on 17.06.03Daily Mail EU poll
The votes have been counted and the message to Tony Blair could not be clearer.
An overwhelming nine out of ten members of the public want a referendum on the new European constitution, according to the Daily Mail's historic national poll.
Almost 1.7 million voted in an amazing example of grassroots democracy.
And their verdict was mirrored almost exactly by the biggest-ever survey held by the independent polling organisation ICM, powerfully validating our exercise as a true test of public opinion.
It is a warning that the Prime Minister would ignore at his peril. Mr Blair has stubbornly refused to give the people a say in the new EU constitution, arguing that it is a 'tidying up' exercise of little significance. In fact, it threatens to change for ever the way this country is governed. So the Daily Mail has given the people a voice - and they have spoken out loud and clear.
Last Thursday, at 7,000 polling stations in newsagents, pubs and stores up and down the country, they filled in their ballot papers.
They voted by post, by e-mail, on our website, www.dailymail.co.uk, by phone and by text message while ICM carried out its scientifically-weighted parallel exercise.
In the Mail poll, a total of 1,692,071 votes were cast on the question:
'A new EU constitution is being negotiated and MPs will decide whether the UK accepts it. Do you think the final decision should be put to a referendum of the British people?'
The result was a thundering 1,519,619 - 89.8 per cent of the total - in favour of a referendum while 71,582 (4.2 per cent) voted against. A further 100,870 votes (5.9 per cent) were declared void.
Sophisticated checks were put in place to minimise multiple voting and weed out spoilt papers.
And to broaden the electorate as much as possible, advertisements with ballot papers appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Metro and Evening Standard, as well as in more than 70 regional weekly and daily papers.
Mr Blair, who flies to Greece on Thursday for an EU summit which will see the publication of the new draft constitution, is now under immense political pressure to agree to a national vote.
Many of our EU partners have already signalled they will put the new constitution directly to the people.
If agreed, it will sweep away 1,000 years of history. It will give the EU sweeping powers over huge areas of national life including the economy, taxation, foreign policy, defence, the law, health and transport.
It means member states including Britain will have to give up their right to veto unacceptable policies on a number of issues.
And only last night it emerged that it could mean the end of Britain's £3 billion-a-year EU rebate.
Iain Duncan Smith described the result of the Mail ballot as 'staggering'.
'It proves just how arrogant and out of touch the Prime Minister is in denying the British people a referendum on the European constitution,' said the Tory leader.
'Huge questions about the future of our country are at stake here. I believe Mr Blair must listen to the people and put the whole issue to a referendum.'
The size of the turnout compares strongly with other recent referendums on big constitutional changes.
The number of votes cast was almost identical to the 1.7 million who voted in the 1998 election of a London Mayor.
And the turnout far exceeds the 1 million who voted for a Welsh Assembly in 1997.
Lest anyone write off this extraordinary display of people power as a newspaper stunt, the Mail also commissioned the mammoth poll by ICM on the same day as our ballot.
With a gigantic sample of nearly 55,000 voters - more than 50 times the normal sample size - ICM found that 88 per cent favoured a national referendum on the new constitution while 12 per cent are opposed.
Taken together, the Mail and ICM polls are irrefutable.
Nick Sparrow, managing director of ICM, said: 'Never before have we polled so many people and recorded such a clear-cut answer. The message for Tony Blair is clear.'
Senior Labour politicians welcomedthe result of the Mail vote and called for a change of Government policy.
Former Welfare Minister Frank Field said: 'Today the Government receives notice from 1.7 million people that they want their say on the future of the country.'
Ex-Sports Minister Kate Hoey said: 'I have yet to meet anyone in my constituency who thinks that a referendum isn't the right way to deal with this.'
And backbencher Kelvin Hopkins, who has tabled a Commons motion calling for a referendum, said: 'I am entirely in agreement with the majority and hope that the Government will take notice.'
The Mail had a rigorous system in place to ensure there was no multiple voting. For those voting by text message, votes were declared void if two or more came from the same number.
Anyone voting on the Internet emailing more than once from the same address or incorrectly filling in the electronic form likewise had their votes declared void.
The high number of void papers among postal votes was down to our counters weeding out photocopied ballot papers, multiple ballot papers in the same envelope and those which had been spoiled or improperly completed.
