The Conservative-backed private member's bill requiring a referendum on Britain's EU membership, which is due to be debated in the Commons on Friday, has been dismissed as a "parliamentary stunt" by Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury.
Alexander confirmed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that his party plans to abstain from the debate. "We won't be there," he said, pointing out that he had voted for measures that would already give the public a vote "if there [was] any transfer of power in treaties from Britain to theEuropean Union".
The Guardian reports that Alexander said: "It was wrong to waste our influence in Europe by going after nation-specific repatriation rather than using our influence in Europe to build up the European economy that will improve job creation and growth prospects across Europe. We know from the eurozone that is what is knocking our economy back so much.
"Ukip will come and Ukip will go – what matters is that Britain stays a full member of the EU, that we have a referendum and as when major treaty change takes place but we do not try to conjure one up out of nothing for domestic political reasons."
However, the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, said the Tories were the only party that could be trusted on Europe and criticised his coalition colleagues for failing to back the private member's bill sponsored by the Tory MP James Wharton.
The Punch