Unions dealt a sharp rebuff to Gordon Brown yesterday by overwhelmingly demanding a referendum on the new European Union Treaty.

The Prime Minister had hoped that the TUC would soften its position on a referendum after he insisted that there would be no referendum on the treaty. In a heated debate at its conference in Brighton the TUC backed a call for a referendum amid fears over employment rights and further privati-sation of public services.

The unions are angry that the Government is insisting on an opt-out from social legislation which they say leaves British workers less protected. The GMB, which pushed one of the motions on a referendum, wants the Government to have a referendum and if it does not change its position on the opt-out it will campaign for a “no” vote.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, told delegates that the Government had made an election pledge to have a referendum on the European constitution and that the treaty was fundamentally the same thing.

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He cautioned: “The proposed treaty clearly falls within the promise made by the Government to the electorate at the last election. To refuse to honour this by means of ducking and diving may cost the Labour Party at election time.”

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, had asked the TUC to back a call for a referendum and campaign for a “no” vote but that motion was defeated. He said that if there was not a referendum “it would mark a further transfer of power to unelected mandarins in Brussels and undermine democratic advances fought for by working people over the centuries.

“If a referendum is good enough for the people of Ireland it should be good enough for the people of Britain.”

The call for a referendum was backed by the biggest three unions and many of the others but was opposed by Usdaw, the shopworkers’ union and Community, the steel-workers and textile union.

William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: “This deeply embarrassing defeat at the TUC is a result of the Government’s arrogance and its intention to disregard both its own promises and the views of the British public. I hope it will strengthen the determination of many Labour MPs to stand by their own promises to vote for a referendum and to tell Gordon Brown he should do so as well.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader whose party may hold the balance of power on any Commons’ vote, threw the Prime Minister a lifeline last night by declaring that his party would not support calls for a referendum on the constitutional treaty.

Sir Menzies said the new draft treaty was sufficiently different from the original to make a referendum unnecessary.

“My judgment is a referendum is not necessary on this document,” Sir Menzies told the Financial Times.

Jim Murphy, the Europe Minister, told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday that the Bill to ratify the new constitutional treaty that emerges should be drafted in a manner that allows MPs to table an amendment proposing a referendum. This would probably be early next year.

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