Brown must give us a vote on EU treaty, says Hague

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague will insist the new EU treaty - unveiled with the aim of securing agreement in just 12 weeks - will transfer power from Britain to the EU "in spades".

The Tories believe a referendum is the only way to restore trust in politics as fears grow about the shifting of power to Brussels.

Europe Minister Jim Murphy dismissed the Tory offensive, along with claims the treaty is simply a relabelled version of the rejected 2005 constitution.

In a significant hardening of the Government's position, Mr Murphy dismissed calls for a public vote as "frankly absurd".

He told MPs the Government had secured all its 'red lines' on policy areas where it was not willing to give away power.

And the Prime Minister told a Downing Street press conference that the "constitutional concept" of the original treaty had been "abandoned".

As long as Britain's "red lines" were maintained, Mr Brown added, "then there's no need for a referendum".

But analysts poring over almost 150 pages of a draft agreement published - only in French - claimed it went even further than had been feared.

Neil O'Brien, of the Open Europe think-tank, said the treaty committed member states to developing a common defence policy and gave the European courts jurisdiction over policing and criminal justice for the first time.

"We never expected that they would simply bring back all the text from the old constitution," he said.

"All they seem to have done is renumber the articles.

"From this point forward it's going to become absolutely impossible for Gordon Brown to resist a referendum, because this is almost exactly the same text that he promised a referendum on before.

"If Brown now tries to carry on pretending that this is somehow a different document, it will be one of the most audacious political lies in the last couple of decades."

In a keynote speech, Mr Hague will announce the Tories would hold a referendum on the treaty, claiming Mr Brown will further undermine public trust in politics if he does not offer a vote.

Labour pledged in its 2005 election manifesto to call a referendum on any new version of the EU constitution, which foundered after being rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands.

The strategy is high-risk for Tory leader David Cameron, since it risks infuriating the dwindling band of strongly pro-European Tories led by former Chancellor Ken Clarke.

But Mr Cameron has calculated that the campaign will help shore up the party's core vote and appease restive MPs on the Eurosceptic Right of his party, as well as putting Mr Brown under pressure.

Mr Hague will today highlight remarks by a host of EU leaders - and the Prime Minister's new trade minister Lord Jones - suggesting the treaty is indeed the "constitution repackaged".

"The Government have absolutely no democratic mandate to agree to this treaty without the British people's express permission," he will tell the centre-Right think-tank Policy Exchange.

"The 2005 Labour Party manifesto did not say that the Government would bring in 90 per cent of the EU Constitution under another guise if another country rejected it before the British people had had the chance to have their say.

"Yet, in an act of extraordinary cynicism, Gordon Brown's Government is proposing to do exactly that.

"We have heard a lot this month about trust and consultation. But how can the British people trust Gordon Brown if he begins his time as Prime Minister with a flagrant breach of a solemn manifesto promise?"