Last but not least

On their countdown to 'Brown's big apology' , expected tomorrow, the Conservatives have finally arrived at the PM's failure to hold the promised referendum on the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty, as the last of their list of things he has to apologise for.

A good excuse to remind people that:

When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister he said: ‘the manifesto is what we put to the public. We’ve got to honour that manifesto. That is an issue of trust for me with the electorate’. Labour’s 2005 election manifesto promised a referendum on the EU Constitution. But Gordon Brown forced through the Lisbon Treaty – the renamed EU Constitution – on a three line whip without any democratic mandate from the voters to sign it.

Commenting on the relationship between the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Constitution the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, said: ‘I believe that 98 per cent of the content … of the Constitutional Treaty, is to be found in the future EU Treaty. The wrapping has been changed, but not the content’ (El Pais, 23 July 2007). German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: ‘the substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact’ (Daily Telegraph, 29 June 2007).