Perhaps Cameron's 'Cast Iron' Promise Should've Been A Stainless Steel One

As his cast iron one, to hold a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty, has tarnished.

Iain Dale is busy defending Cameron's decision, but as Dizzy shows, the treaty has within itself the ability for signatory nations to exit it. So why not have the referendum on that? That's not gesture politics, that's giving the people the very voice on the treaty that Cameron was so concerned about.

And Camerons new, shiny, and made of even more iron-y and cast-y cast iron, promise to 'repatriate powers' really is full of the finest shit you can find - he plans to, what, negotiate with all 27 members of the EU to find a way of gaining powers sequestered to the EU? Does he think they'll do that out of the goodness of their hearts? Does he think they'll go 'sure Dave!' and change various treaties and rules just for him? Even if they can be bothered sitting at the table with him, they're going to want to extract some value out of it for themselves - there will be a price attached for the support of each of those 27 nations. Hefty prices. I doubt France will be satisfied with a new sofa from DFS in exchange for helping us out.

I'm sure with the UK being just such a well-loved, and highly popular member of the EU, they'll all be doing cartwheels in order to help Cameron achieve his aims. Perhaps they'll chuck in a Blankety Bank chequebook and pen in as well.

The odour of rat pervades Camerons decision, it could well be viewed that he knew damn well Lisbon would be ratified long before he got chance to enter Downing Street as PM, and that he knows damn well that Europe will laugh in our faces when we try to renegotiate. What he gets is a stick to beat Labour with during the election (Never Again!), and a stick to beat Europe with whilst in power (Nasty France Says Non!) and to keep the Eurosceptics chasing after whilst he gets on with business.

Really, it's the precise sort of thing Blair/Mandelson would cook up - keeps the EU sweet, provides ammo against the opposition, gets to say lots of empty rhetoric over sovereignty whilst achieving pretty much nothing.