Snowmail: gagging Britain over Europe?

Last Modified: 05 Mar 2008
By: Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Hi there. At seven tonight a momentous decision in British history will be made.

MPs will almost certainly vote against a referendum on the EU Treaty tonight. It is called parliamentary democracy, but for many MPs from all parties and many voters it will be the moment they gagged Britain and signed away more sovereignty.

The balancing wire on which ministers have walked for months, that the treaty is different to the constitution over which Tony Blair promised a national vote, will soon come down.

Never mind that so many experts and European politicians said they were essentially the same thing. It will be essentially all over.

And the fall out? Well, most urgently the casualty will be the Liberal Democrats, whose leader Nick Clegg has three line whipped his party to abstain.

Several of his MPs, and at least three of his front benchers (who I won't name because it probably wouldn't make any difference to your ability to picture them) are due to defy him, so he will have to sack them or be accused of weakness.

The votes (and there are two key ones we need to concentrate on) happen while we are on air and Gary Gibbon will be leading us through it. Jon is in Washington with chapter 33.7 of the Democratic nomination contest. It now seems likely that things could go right up to the party convention in August and the superdelegates could decide who wins, after Hillary's success in Texas and Ohio.

She's still behind Obama, but well pleased with staying in the fight, and could yet end up winning if the establishment party figures go with the insider.

Either way we won't know for weeks at the earliest who is going to be up against McCain's Republicans, he met George Bush today, but presumably didn't stand too close. The men are not friends.

All that and much more including the rescue of eight British children from paedophiles, and why Venezuelan forces are massing near the Colombian border.

On More4 News tonight we'll be talking about the ethics of drug taking.

Is drug taking a victimless crime? Does the casual middle class user, domestic champion of all that's organic, free trade and recycled, really consider where the white powder they snort at the weekend came from? And how?

The UN says this country is far too lenient on celebrity drug takers.

I'll be talking to the former '3am' Girl Kiki King and the drug addict and libertarian Sebastian Horsely about celebrity, narcotics and morals.
Carl Dinnen.