PM has run away over treaty - Hague

The Prime Minister has "run away" from voters by refusing to grant them a referendum on the treaty and "run away" from MPs by denying them the opportunity for detailed parliamentary scrutiny of the document that they were expecting, said the shadow foreign secretary.

Condemning the treaty as an outdated throwback to the past - more suited to the age of 1990s European Commission President Jacques Delors than the age of internet search engine Google - Mr Hague said it must be rejected if the EU is to develop the kind of "nimble, flexible structure" it will need in the 21st century.

Speaking to thinktank Policy Exchange, Mr Hague will restate Conservative calls for a referendum on the treaty, which is currently undergoing lengthy debate in the Commons ahead of its expected ratification by Parliament.

Allowing the British people to vote on the document, which replaces the Constitution rejected in French and Dutch referendums in 2005, would restore the EU's democratic legitimacy, re-empower voters and win back trust in politics, he will say.

But he will accuse Mr Brown of denying even proper parliamentary scrutiny, because of his decision to restrict much of the Commons debate to discussions of general "themes" rather than full line-by-line approach usually adopted at the committee stage.

"Gordon Brown ran away from an election, he has run away from a referendum and now he is running away from the detailed parliamentary scrutiny he promised," Mr Hague will say.

"Great chunks of this treaty have missed any Parliamentary scrutiny at all. If Gordon Brown had set out to confirm every criticism made of him - that he is a politician of gesture and cynical calculation rather than sincerity and substance - he could not have done more to confirm it with his behaviour on the EU Treaty."

Mr Brown's argument that the treaty should be agreed because it will free Europe's leaders to focus on issues that matter to ordinary people was "severely flawed", he will say.

To argue that giving up some power to Brussels is good because it means no more will be handed over for another decade was "a bit like seeing the upside of having one's house done over by a burglar as meaning that there's less left to burgle", he will add.