Dilemma for Brown as Blair plans EU deal

Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite
London Telegraph
Sunday June 10, 2007

Labour has been plunged into a bruising referendum row after Tony Blair secretly agreed the blueprint for a new European treaty - presenting Gordon Brown, the prime minister-in-waiting, with his first big dilemma.

Less than three weeks before he relinquishes power, Mr Blair held talks on the framework for the treaty, an updated version of the failed European Union constitution, with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.

The controversial manoeuvre, at the G8 summit in Germany, came despite a promise to MPs by Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, that "nothing you could really call negotiations" had taken place.

As MPs protested that the new treaty would include many measures contained in the EU constitution that was shelved after being voted down by the French and Dutch electorates in 2005, David Cameron led calls for a fresh referendum.

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