All is not as it seems

You may have seen the Sun newspaper today and its coverage of the EU Treaty with some unkind coverage of Gordon Brown. I believe that this is a smokescreen, the Sun is firmly behind Gordon Brown as it was behind Tony Blair because the Sun backs winners and at the moment Gordon Brown is a winner. Rupert Murdoch has authorised an attack on the one policy of Gordon Brown's that Mr Murdoch cannot stomach and to warn him of what will happen if there is no referendum. My prediction is that one of the following three things will happen:

1) Gordon Brown will announce a referendum on the Treaty but worded as a sign up to the Treaty or Leave the EU choice and then hit the scare stories about exiting the EU as hard and fast as he can

2) Gordon Brown will announce a snap autumn general election and not explicitly promise a referendum in the manifesto and see if Labour can win on that basis. If Labour do win then he can say that the issue was put to the electorate and they voted Labour whose manifesto excluded a referendum (unlike in 2005) so that is that

3) Gordon Brown will hold a referendum on the same day as the general election so as to maximise the turnout and hope that he can convince people of the importance (see above) of voting the Labour way. This would allow Rupert Murdoch to sanction a vote Labour, vote NO the EU line. A Labour election victory and a Yes vote would be the outcome that he hopes for but a Labour victory and a No vote in the referendum would give him time to formulate another plan.

The anti-EU Constitution movement needs to galvanise itself and I am afraid that the priority is to support the Conservatives rather than UKIP because UKIP cannot win any seats but splitting the pro-referendum vote between Conservatives and UKIP will give Labour and the Lib Dems more seats than would otherwise be the case.