Gordon Brown, in common with all other Labour MPs, was elected on the Labour Party’s 2005 manifesto. Far and away the most important constitutional provision of that manifesto was the promise to hold a referendum on the European constitutional treaty. That commitment had no qualifications or escape clauses. It was a contractual term of the general election. If there is no referendum, that will be a breach of contract between Labour and the British people.

The manifesto paragraph needs to be read carefully: “The EU now has 25 members and will continue to expand. The new Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively, and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy, taxation, social security and defence. The Treaty sets out what the EU can do, and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe. We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign wholeheartedly for a ‘yes’ vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe.”

The constitutional treaty was voted down in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The British referendum was never held. The constitutional treaty was then replaced by the reform treaty, which has substantially the same content. As Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said: “The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.” The Spanish Prime Minister has said: “We have not let a single substantial point of the constitution go.” The reform treaty is itself a constitutional treaty, which replaces the original constitutional treaty but with the same content.

Last week Mr Brown accepted the reform treaty but he has backed out of his party’s commitment to a referendum, on the false pretence that the two treaties are different. This is not an action in good faith. If he persists in it, he deserves to be removed from office. For a man to obtain an advantage by a trick is inherently dishonest. For a prime minister to do so destroys his covenant of trust with the people he is governing.

Most of the parliamentary gossip is not concerned with the morality of the Prime Minister’s conduct, though there is a moral issue. In the lobbies they ask the pragmatic question: “Can he get away with it?” I am not sure that he will. It is quite unusual for a prime minister to be distrusted or despised by a significant part of the population and regarded essentially as a cheat.

Successful leadership depends on respect, on the moral consent of the governed. Even at his lowest point, John Major never found himself in this position. He – disgracefully enough – refused a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, but he had never promised one.

There does, however, seem to be a constitutional as well as a moral obstacle to Mr Brown’s policy. The treaty recasts Europe to bring the EU much closer to a United States of Europe complete with a president, a foreign minister, an enlarged foreign service, a charter of rights and some 60 areas in which qualified majority voting will take over and national vetoes will disappear.

If the Maastricht Treaty seemed to be five minutes to midnight, this reform treaty is at least five minutes past midnight. So far as Europe is concerned, this did not look like the end of the old era so much as the dawn of the new one, in which a single European state will take over, and the independent nations will fade away.

Yet these key transfers of sovereignty from Westminster to Brussels seem to include powers that have been devolved to Edinburgh. One example might prove to be the extension of qualified majority voting in the area of tourism. Will Scottish tourism become a European competence, or will it remain devolved to Scotland? Further examination of the reform treaty seems certain to discover that it would have a far reaching impact on Scottish self-rule. There is no red line to protect Scotland.

The Scots had a referendum to approve devolution. Any substantial reduction in the scope of Scottish self-government would require a further referendum. Mr Brown is refusing a referendum to the UK. Can he also refuse one to Scotland, a nation with its own government and First Minister, Alex Salmond?

Can Mr Salmond and the SNP allow Scottish powers to be transferred to Europe without Scottish consent? If that consent were sought from the Edinburgh Parliament, would there be a majority to ratify the reform treaty, in respect of Scottish affairs, without a referendum? In the UK Mr Brown may have the power to refuse a referendum, but Mr Salmond may decide to call one in Scotland, as a powerful precedent for the referendum he is already seeking on Scottish independence. I do not see who could stop him – it would not be the Black Watch. Mr Brown does not have the capacity to coerce Scotland, even if his whips can still coerce the House of Commons.

It will be difficult for Mr Brown, or his successor, to work his way back from this situation. The real trouble is that the British people understand the reform treaty only too well, and want to reject it, just as they would have rejected the constitutional treaty. They think the EU is too centralised, too expensive, too bureaucratic, too remote, that it is insufficiently open, democratic or liberal. The British do not want closer integration, but more independence. The Government is chained to a moribund institution, lacking public support, the archetypal stinking fish. To cheat on his promise of a referendum can only make things worse for Mr Brown.

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