Mini EU 'referendum' to be staged

The Tories want a referendum on the Eu reform treaty

A referendum on the EU reform treaty is to be held in the constituency of the UK Europe minister.

Enough money has been raised to poll voters in Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat in February.

It will be the first of 10 planned polls in UK marginal constituencies staged by I Want A Referendum.com.

Scots Tory party vice-chair Richard Cook, who is behind the move, claimed the treaty was an EU constitution by another name.

Mr Cook, the Conservative Westminster candidate in East Renfrewshire, denied it was purely a stunt to embarrass a UK minister on his home ground.

'Dismal' interest

He told BBC Scotland's Politics Show he believed the £30,000 polling exercise would come out in favour of a referendum.

"This treaty transfers powers to the European Union," he said.

"I stood on a platform with Jim Murphy, with the Liberal Democrats, and we all had in our manifestos that we would give people a vote on the constitution."

Mr Murphy said the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee had voted against a referendum and similar poll campaigns over the last few months had attracted a "dismal" turnout and were not based on all the facts.

However, the committee also said foreign policy in the treaty was the same as in the constitution, on which Labour had promised a referendum.

"What really has happened here is the Conservative party are more obsessed about Europe than ever before and, in fact, they're more isolationist than Mrs Thatcher's Conservatives," said Mr Murphy.