Libertas.org

• Italy will hold onto their extra MEP
• The Poles will get the Ioannina clause written into the treaty (which allows memberstates to delay legislation)

Gordon Brown will return to the UK this weekend with stronger calls for a Referendum than ever before, with some of his own MEPs, The Conservatives and a signficant amount of heavy-hitters in the media (The Sun, The Daily Mail & The Telegraph) calling for a referendum. Gordon Brown cannot afford to ignore not just the people around him, but the people, period. He bottled it over leaping back from plans to hold a General Election next month, and his leadership looks extremely shaky at present. Pressure is also building in Denmark for a referendum

And to Ireland, a referendum on this text will most likely be in June of 2008, and Bertie Ahern, The Irish Premier, may have a struggle on his hands to get the text ratified. In the second Nice referendum (the only after the one the Irish rejected), Fianna Fail, Ireland’s largest political party of which Bertie Ahern is leader, spent €500,000 campaigning for a yes vote (compared to €50,000 they spent in the first campaign), a significant amount of money, with the referendum only being a year since a General Election, the political parties may not have the funds to campaign as much as they did for Nice 2. One of the Government partners (The Greens) are in the process of tearing themselves apart over whether they support the treaty, and the other parties have come out of the woodwork to criticise the Irish Government for opting out of certain provisions (specifically with regards to policing).