MINISTERS are considering whether European Union citizens who live in Britain should be allowed to vote in the referendum on the EU constitution.

Many of the 1.3m citizens of other EU countries who have made their homes here are believed to be likely to vote for greater integration — and their inclusion could boost Tony Blair’s “Yes” campaign.

Blair is also likely to offer a vote in the referendum to the nearly 30,000 residents of Gibraltar.

With opinion polls consistently showing that Britons would reject the constitution by two to one, the prime minister knows he must take drastic action if he is to stand a chance of winning the campaign in March 2006.

EU citizens living in Britain are allowed to vote in local council elections, but not in a general election.

Chris Leslie, a constitutional affairs minister, refused when answering a parliamentary question last week to rule out the possibility that EU citizens in Britain could be allowed to vote. Another minister confirmed that the issue is being discussed.

Graham Brady, the shadow minister for Europe, said this weekend: “It would be completely unacceptable to allow citizens of other EU countries to vote in a referendum which will determine the very future of Britain as a sovereign democratic nation. This must be a vote by the British people, for the British people.”

Ministers are expected to unveil their plans when they publish the EU referendum bill in the Queen’s speech on November 23.

This weekend some supporters of President George W Bush condemned plans for the EU constitution. Frank Gaffney, a former senior Pentagon official, said it would be a mistake to permit admiration for Blair to obscure assessment of other policies that were contrary to US interests and ill-advised. Worst of all, he said, was the “appalling” European constitution. “That Tony Blair has been obliged to submit the document to a referendum offers hope his people will repudiate it,” he said.

Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Baroness Thatcher and now with the Heritage Foundation, Washington’s leading conservative think tank, said Blair’s support for an EU constitution and single currency might prove his “Achilles heel” in his relationship with Bush. Some Washington conservatives were hoping for a Tory win at the next election to slow the drive to European integration.

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