Ministers stand firm on EU Treaty

This week's Labour conference has taken place against a backdrop of increasingly insistent calls for a referendum from opposition parties, parts of the media and protesters in Bournemouth.

But Foreign Secretary David Miliband dismissed the calls, insisting that the treaty thrashed out in Brussels in June does not contain fundamental changes in Britain's relations with Europe that would require the referendum promised by Tony Blair on the previous constitution.

In his keynote speech to conference on Monday, the Prime Minister ignored the clamour for a referendum, saying only that he would ensure that the "red lines" negotiated in June were retained in the final version of the treaty, due to be presented to EU heads of government in Lisbon on October 18.

But the issue did not go away. Campaigners got their message across to delegates by writing the words "I Want a Referendum" in giant letters on the Bournemouth beach.

Mr Miliband insisted that the decision on the treaty should be made by MPs, not voters.

And he warned that "institutional navel-gazing" about the EU's structures was distracting Europe from more important challenges like climate change and terrorism.

But shadow foreign secretary William Hague said: "Labour, like every other political party, gave a solemn manifesto promise that the EU Constitution would be for the British people to decide in a referendum. But Gordon Brown now says he sees no need to keep that promise.

"And the substance of the new Treaty would mean that, over time, there would be a decisive shift of power from Britain to the EU. People would find that more and more decisions on foreign policy and criminal justice would be made not by British MPs answerable to them at the ballot box but in Brussels.

"That is why it is vital that there is a proper public debate so that the British people are fully involved in a question vital to our country's future. I am challenging David Miliband to a national televised debate on the renamed EU Constitution and whether it should be subject to a referendum of the British people. If he is as confident of his case as he says he is, he will accept."