544 mps voted for the eu referendum.
544 mps voted for the eu referendum.
how many mps voted for the eu referendum?
544
for a few years the issue was largely settled but, with the approval by parliament of the single european act, the maastricht treaty and the lisbon treaty, there were calls from eurosceptic members of parliament for a new uk referendum on continued membership. conservative party leader david cameron announced in january 2013, in what became known as "the bloomberg speech", a proposal to undertake a renegotiation of the terms of the uk's membership of the eu, and subsequently to hold a uk referendum on its membership of the union. however, at the time of cameron's speech, the conservative party was in coalition government with the liberal democrats who, along with the labour party, were at the time opposed to any new referendum being held. the conservative party did not have an overall majority and a private members bill by conservative mp james wharton to legislate an in-out referendum by the end of 2017 was blocked in the house of lords. the proposals were contained in the conservative party manifesto for the 2015 united kingdom general election, in which the conservatives won with an unexpected overall majority. following the election, the opposition labour party withdrew its opposition to holding an in-out eu referendum. on the bill's second reading, on 9 june 2015, mps voted by 544 to 53 in favour of the principle of holding a referendum with only the scottish national party opposing the bill, and by 316 votes to 53 on its third reading in the commons on 7 september 2015.
european union referendum act 2015
although the united kingdom ratified the treaty in parliament, this was not without some opposition. broadly the governing labour party supported the treaty, while the opposition conservatives did not. the liberal democrats supported the treaty, while calling for a referendum on the uk’s membership of the eu as a whole. several ‘eurosceptic’ mps called for a referendum on the ratification of the treaty. daniel hannan pointed out that the prime minister, tony blair had twice promised a referendum on the matter, to which blair replied that he had promised a referendum on the european constitution rather than the lisbon treaty, which unlike the former was not a constitutional treaty. in early october 2007, the commons’ european scrutiny committee had found that the treaty was “substantially equivalent” to the rejected constitution. in mid october 2007 bill cash tabled an early day motion calling for a referendum on the treaty, with 47 supporting signatures. in january 2008 a group of 20 mps of the ruling labour government (including former ministers, kate hoey and frank field) tabled a wrecking amendment to the treaty ratification bill that called for a referendum on the treaty. they pointed out that all the major political parties had promised a referendum in the 2005 general election. prime minister brown (who had replaced blair on 27 june 2007) rejected calls for an election on the grounds that the treaty had significant differences from the constitution. gisela stuart called for a number of measures that would help avoid a crisis of legitimacy for the treaty: a referendum on ratification, the creation of a cabinet-level europe minister who would be accountable for negotiations, and that the final ratification of the bill (and any further changes to changes to qualified majority voting (qmv) in the european parliament) to be a matter of primary legislation that would go through all the parliamentary stages rather than being whipped through. the same month, the foreign affairs committee produced a report on the treaty which concluded that there was “no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs” in the constitution and the treaty, and that the british government was underestimating and downplaying the significance of the proposed eu high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and european external action service. at the second reading in the commons 362 voted in favour of lisbon and 224 against. three conservative mps voted in favour of the treaty, while 18 labour mps voted against it. the amendment calling for a referendum was rejected although 29 labour mps and 13 liberal democrats voted with the conservatives in favour, and three conservatives voted against their party.
ratification of the treaty of lisbon