How Brown could throw the Tories into disarray: a sudden referendum on Europe

I heard an audacious proposal to upset David Cameron’s apple cart last night. It came from a Labour MP whom I had better not identify.

Let us assume that the Czech President finally ratifies the Lisbon Treaty, as he now seems certain to do. Now, suppose that the Prime Minister then addresses Parliament, pointing out that the Treaty is now formally in force. However, he adds, he is aware that there is a strong feeling in the country that this step should really be ratified by a referendum of the British people. He therefore proposes to hold one, on the first Thursday of May 2010.

But, he will continue, the Lisbon Treaty is now part of the internal structure of the EU, so that the referendum cannot be on Lisbon alone: the option of an EU without Lisbon no longer exists. The referendum must therefore be on the question of continued UK membership of the European Union. He and his party will be campaigning for a Yes vote. Four weeks after the referendum, a General Election will be held.

That would be quite a coup de maître. At a stroke the Tory campaign is thrown into utter confusion; presumably they would have to make common cause with the government on the referendum campaign while trying to undermine it for General Election purposes, and so will come over like John Kerry on Iraq in 2004. Every little Tory dissension on Europe will come out of the woodwork, clicking like a death-watch beetle, whereas Blairites and Brownites will be singing in perfect harmony for once, with Lord Mandelson on mellifluous lead vocals. Labour will be able to wave its implementation of its manifesto promise triumphantly in everyone’s face, countering the accusation that this is a wholly Machiavellian manoeuvre, even though it is.

The one possible drawback is that people might be so disgusted by all this that the referendum vote is lost. (Yes, I know that if the franchise were limited to Telegraph blog readers it would go down in flames, but sadly that is not the case.) But then the General Election would be too, and then wouldn’t Messrs Cameron and Hague have a fine mess to clear up?

There’s rather an unBritish whiff of scorched earth about all this, and somehow one cannot envisage the current Prime Minister embarking on quite such a white-knuckle strategy. But it’s a nice thought.