BRITAIN HAS signalled that it will continue to ratify the Lisbon Treaty through its parliament even if Irish voters are shown to have rejected the treaty in yesterday’s referendum.
The decision is likely to infuriate Eurosceptics in Britain who continue to demand that prime minister Gordon Brown put the EU treaty to a public vote.
It will also raise fears that Ireland could be isolated in Europe in the event of a No vote.
A senior EU diplomat said yesterday that Britain had reassured its EU partners that it had “no intention to pull the plug on” ratification of the treaty, which is currently progressing through the House of Lords.
His comments were later confirmed by a senior official in Mr Brown’s office in London, who said: “It is the intention of this government to complete the legislative programme that it has begun on the Lisbon Treaty.”
Britain’s lower House of Commons has already approved the treaty, and the House of Lords is scheduled to complete ratification of the treaty in a final vote next week.
On Wednesday this week peers voted by 260 to 218 against an amendment from the Conservatives to force the government to hold a referendum on the treaty.
The Conservatives argue that the Lisbon Treaty is almost identical to the EU constitution, which the Labour government had promised to put to a referendum.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair cancelled plans for the referendum following the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution in referendums held in May and June 2005 respectively.
Mr Brown has consistently argued that the Lisbon Treaty is a fundamentally different treaty to the EU constitution and should be ratified through parliament. However, political analysts believe that an Irish No vote could cause him political problems.
“Things will become uncomfortable for him, and he will come under pressure from Eurosceptics in Britain,” says Hugo Brady at the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. “But he has no choice but to stick it out until EU leaders meet on June 19th.”
France and Germany are already preparing a joint statement in case of an Irish No vote.
“It’s for the Irish to decide on this, but what Madame Merkel and I have decided is that, whatever happens, the reaction will be a Franco-German one,” French president Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters after meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel this week. They are likely to signal that ratification of the treaty should continue in other member states.
Fourteen states have so far completed the ratification process on the Lisbon treaty.
The Government fears a No vote could sideline Ireland within the EU and even call into questions its future in the union.
The chairman of the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, German MEP Jo Leinen, has already said Ireland could be forced to leave the union if it rejects EU reforms.