‘R’ Please Bob! Why does Coventry MP block the ‘Referendum’?

James McConalogue of the European Foundation argued in a letter to the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 3 December:

Dear Sir,

Six years ago on 7 July 2001, the elected Labour MP for Coventry North East, Bob Ainsworth, told the House of Commons that there was a compelling case for the Labour government “to recommend United Kingdom entry into the single currency and [if] Parliament and the people in a referendum were to agree.” Whilst I must congratulate Mr. Ainsworth on both his honesty to espouse his essentially pro-European ambitions and views as he thinks fit (although I disagree) and to recommend the use of a democratic referendum and parliamentary agreement to reach an agreement, I wonder if he would now support the democratic case for referendum on the incoming EU Reform Treaty which – like the single currency – fundamentally and irreversibly alters the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

I can only assume, on his own terms, that the case for a referendum remains in the interest of British democracy and to put it right, he must enable a referendum or better still vote against the Treaty given its detrimental consequences for the democratic future of Britain. Any action to the contrary would surely make Bob Ainsworth unelectable at the next election?

Yours sincerely,

James McConalogue