Ex-minister demands EU referendum

Ms Stuart said all the major points of the constitution were in the treaty

Labour former minister Gisela Stuart has criticised the government for not holding a referendum on the EU treaty.

She said it was "extremely misleading" to say, as the treaty suggests, that it gives back more power to member states than the abandoned EU constitution.

Ms Stewart, who helped draw up the original constitution, said it was important to give voters a say.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists a referendum is unnecessary because the UK has secured a series of opt-outs.

The government had previously promised to hold a referendum before the constitution was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands.

Ms Stuart, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said she had read an "unofficial" translation of the new constitutional treaty and "all the big items" from the previous document had been retained.

'Trust'

She told MPs: "The red lines that we now say we have secured and therefore don't need a referendum, actually those red lines were already protected in the constitutional treaty on which we were prepared to give a referendum. Nothing has changed.

"This is now a question of trust. It is a question of having given a commitment to a referendum on a document which we say is good for Britain.

"We actually should ask the people to endorse that. If we are so confident it is good, we should have the confidence to ask the people."

Ms Stuart, who was a member of the group which drew up the original constitution, told MPs: "The foreign secretary and the Europe minister, who at the moment deny this treaty is substantial enough that we should be bound by that promise, they are either being deliberately disingenuous or ill-informed."

'Fundamental'

The EU treaty was published in draft form on Monday.

The Tories say it would "fundamentally change" Britain's place in the EU and are calling for a referendum.

On Wednesday, shadow foreign secretary William Hague said there was "near unanimity" across Europe that the treaty was "simply the substance of the EU constitution repackaged".

But Mr Brown has accused the Tories of returning to an "old agenda" on Europe.

Negotiated before he took over from Tony Blair as prime minister, the treaty gives an opt-out on a human and social rights charter and keeps an independent foreign policy and tax and benefit arrangements.

Europe minister Jim Murphy told the BBC: "We wouldn't sign up to any treaty that transferred in any significant way, any UK sovereignty to the European Union."

When it was put to him that others said there had only been cosmetic changes to the old constitution, he said: "The UK has signed up to a UK version of the European treaty."

There will be three months of talks on the text of the new treaty aimed at reforming the 27-member European Union.

The final text is expected to be ready in time for a summit in Lisbon in October.