Labour abstention helps PM to dodge tough EU bill revolt

Rebels tried to add amendment on purdah rules to hit Commons vote

DAVID Cameron has avoided a humiliating Commons defeat on Europe thanks to Labour after he faced his first significant rebellion of the new Parliament by Tory Eurosceptics.

Some 27 Conservative rebels, supported by, among others, all 56 SNP MPs, six DUP MPs, four Labour MPs and Ukip’s Douglas Carswell, voted for an amendment, tabled by arch-Eurosceptic Tory Sir Bill Cash, to the EU Referendum Bill to retain the so-called purdah rules, which seek to restrict Government activity in the 28-day run-in to elections and referendums.

The Prime Minister was helped in securing a healthy majority of 191 – the vote on the amendment was 288 to 97 – because Labour abstained, arguing there needed to be more clarity about the Government’s intentions.

The vote followed an earlier U-turn by Mr Cameron, who, under pressure from all sides of the House, decided to introduce an amendment that meant the EU referendum could not take place on the same day as the Holyrood election and other polls next May.

Faced with another rebellion on purdah, the PM dispatched Europe Minister David Lidington to write to Tory MPs to offer a concession that the Government would not spend public money to deliver mailshots to households in the last four weeks of the referendum campaign.

Steve Baker, one of the founders of Conservatives for Britain, which is poised to campaign for the UK to sever ties with Brussels, said there had been a “tremendous whipping operation” during the day with MPs being invited for talks with Foreign Secret ary Philip Hammond “for reassurances”.

Ministers have insisted the Government has no intention of being a major player in the referendum campaign, leaving it instead to the two official Yes and No campaigns and the political parties.

Yet, equally, it has warned that the normal purdah restrictions, which applied ahead of last September’s Scottish independence referendum, would be “unworkable and inappropriate” because they would mean that important day-to-day business with the EU would be brought to a halt. Yet the reassurances were still not enough to persuade rebellious Tories .

Senior conservative Bernard Jenkin insisted: “This is not about Europe; it is about how to conduct a fair referendum.”

Pat McFadden, the Shadow Europe Minister, made it clear Labour did not oppose the Government’s wish to suspend purdah but called for “more clarity” over what it intended to do or publish during the referendum period.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We support purdah arrangements being in place for the EU referendum, for both the Scottish and UK Governments. Therefore we will continue to press for Westminster to ensure that, in line with established practice, a purdah period is legislated for and the gold standard of the independence referendum is followed.”

IAIN Macwhirter is correct to condemn current Labour speak of the electors of the SNP as lured by a quasi-religious cult (“This talk of a religious cult sounds deranged”, The Herald, June 16).

The electors made their decision on sound rational grounds and, for the record, I became active in the nationalist movement because it was simple common sense. In the early 1960s, when I was an active Liberal, I began to realise the extent to which the resources of Scotland, ranging from agriculture through shipping to whisky (to say nothing of troops) were being exploited by Westminster Governments, whether Tory or Labour, and it became obvious that the only rational conclusion was independence.

If there existed a cult it lay in the traditional belief of Labour voters that their elected representatives would act in the common good while looking after their interests. That betrayal became entirely apparent during the Thatcher years and the more conspicuous with Blair and Brown.

It is an insult to the electors of Scotland to accuse them of being influenced by some form of cult. They were persuaded by the realisation that Westminster has consistently acted contrary to their interests and never has that been better illustrated by yesterday’s behaviour in the Commons. The people of Scotland (regardless of origin) have wakened up to the realities of economic truth.

I make this argument without even having to mention the plundering of our oil nor the sterilisation of the merchant ports on the Clyde in the interests of a base for weapons of mass destruction. We are not a cult: we are rationalists. KM Campbell, Bank House, Doune. IF ever there were sour grapes, Jim Murphy, in his last speech as Scottish Labour leader, must have ordered – and swallowed – a whole trolleyload (“Murphy warns of referendum danger for PM”, The Herald, June 16).

To label as “insurgents” a political party, which has existed for nearly 80 years, now has well over 100,000 members, and has consistently used the democratic process to further its aims and principles, has to be pique on a grand scale. To declare, moreover, that standing by their principles and continuing their efforts to achieve what everyone knows they believe in is “engineering” anything is totally absurd. Or does he consider that, by that same token, the LibDems deliberately “engineered” their current disaster by giving up their principles and promises ?

All that his words show is a man embittered by losing, to his enemies from a wee pool, his right to swim in the big pool of Westminster, and a party that is still dominated by its hatred of the SNP and its refusal to accept its legitimacy, attitudes which may yet destroy the party completely.

To my mind, a man with such attitudes is no loss to a healthy political scene. P Davidson, Gartcows Road, Falkirk. IT is a sad comment on the state of English politics that Jenny Hjul (“Why Labour must learn to embrace Blair yet again”, The Herald, June 16) is probably right. Yet why would anyone wish to be led by a man who was a proven liar, a warmonger who in a more civilised world would be arraigned for war crimes and who, through his slavish support for US Middle Eastern policy, did more than any to further the cause of Jihadi terrorism? It seems that in England, political success has to involve vilifying those who need any form of state support, anyone who is an immigrant or who in any way might impede the onward march of super-capitalism.

Your correspondent Robert Dey (Letters, June 16), who invoked the memory of Pastor Niemoller hit the nail squarely on the head. Long may Scotland at least try to retain some semblance of civil society. Dr RM Morris, Veslehaug, Polesburn, Methlick, Ellon. THERE is just one word missing from Jenny Hjul’s article on multimillionaire, former Labour Premier Tony Blair, one word which explains Mr Blair’s notoriety, and why everything he touched and why every one of his former colleagues who back him will be forever tainted by association. That word is Iraq, and all Mr Blair’s victories at General Elections are as dust compared to the death and destruction which he unleashed on Iraq 12 years ago, the legacy of which continues to horrifically engulf that country. Ruth Marr, 99 Grampian Road, Stirling.