As David Cameron told anyone who would listen that there will no referendum on Europe his own party has been busily chipping the ground from underneath him. In quick succession Ian Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson and Owen Patterson have all said that a referndum is inevitable. "I will not agree to any financial transaction tax in order to protect the City of London," Cameron proudly boasts, "and I will seek to repatriate powers from Europe." We asked our political editor what this all means; "In the first place what we are seeing is the Tory party tearing itself apart, yet again, over Europe. Cameron, meanwhile, is on a hiding to nowhere. If he calls for a referendum what will the question be exactly? If he doesn't what will his party do? How will he stop Europe adopting a financial transaction tax if they want to? If the Europeans tell the City of London that it will have to pay the tax or they will not be allowed to trade in Europe what will they do? Will the City turn its nose up at billions of pounds of business to avoid paying the tax? And, if Cameron does demand a repatriation of powers from Europe, what powers will he ask for? If he asks for those powers that can undermine workers rights in Britain, how will that play to the electorate? He is trying to defend the indefensible, a corrupt and greedy finance industry in the City of London, by threatening our trading partners with a sanction, refusing to agree any change to the European Treaty, that they can and will ignore. If this was a poker game Cameron would do better to throw his hand in."
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