Blair Calls for Vote on EU Constitution

LONDON —  Saying, “Let the battle be joined,” Prime Minister Tony Blair reversed course and announced Tuesday that Britons would be allowed to vote in a referendum on a constitution for a strengthened European Union.

With Blair already beleaguered over his support for the war in Iraq and for alleged subservience to Washington, the possibility that British voters would reject the new constitution for the enlarged EU carries risk for the fortunes of the prime minister and the future of the union itself.

But holding the vote might deflect a barrage of charges that Blair’s Labor Party government is unwilling to allow the people’s voice to be heard on a fundamental issue. The move might also help his party in upcoming elections to the European Parliament.

After two years in which terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dominated the national agenda, the Conservative Party has only now managed to bring the question of European integration to the front burner, a few weeks before the scheduled enlargement of the EU to 25 members.

Labor is seen as supporting closer integration into Europe. Conservatives feel it is an issue on which Blair’s party is vulnerable and out of step with ordinary Britons -- many of whom like to travel to the Continent, swill its wine and buy vacation homes there but do not wish to be governed by Europeans in Brussels.

Blair came out fighting Tuesday, accusing Euro-skeptics of promulgating myths about the EU, such as that Queen Elizabeth II would cease to be the head of state and that Britons would have to learn to drive their cars on the right. Nonsense, he said.

“Let’s get on and have the debate on the actual issue,” he said during a raucous session of Parliament, where foes taunted him for the reversal of his earlier position that no referendum on the EU would be necessary. “It will be a pleasure to debate the reality, not the myth.”

But Blair would not commit himself to a date for the referendum, prompting opponents to accuse him of wanting to put the matter off until after Britain’s next general elections, expected in May 2005.

Conservative leader Michael Howard has said the proposed European Constitution would take away sovereign powers and give them to bureaucrats in Brussels.

An initial draft of the constitution was drawn up last year to streamline the European Union after it expands from 15 to 25 member states on May 1. So far, union leaders have failed to agree on all the details, but they hope to have a completed version by the middle of June.

Proponents of the “European project” seek a stronger, more unified EU that would have greater influence in world affairs and, to some degree, counterbalance the United States. Traditionally, France and Germany have been the motivating forces toward European integration, while Britain has been ambivalent about diluting its national identity and its special relationship with the U.S.

Blair has argued that Britain would wield more heft by being in the center of matters affecting Europe and that it would not have to cede substantial national rights to do so.

“It is time to resolve whether this country, Britain, wants to be at the center and heart of European decision-making or not,” Blair told Parliament on Tuesday.

But if a referendum is put to British voters and rejected, it would deal a blow to the whole endeavor. At least six other current and incoming EU member states plan to hold plebiscites on the constitution. They are Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland. Others may now follow.

According to Blair, critics of a stronger EU have been “partially at least” successful in convincing the British public that “Europe is a conspiracy aimed at us.”

Howard, the Conservative leader, mocked Blair’s turnabout on the issue, saying acidly, “Who will ever trust you again?” He also disputed Blair’s portrayal of the issue as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote on whether Britain stays in the EU.

If Britain or any other nation rejects the constitution, Howard argued, it would not be forced to leave the EU. Rather, the charter would simply have to be revised, he said. As now written, Howard said, the document would mean “greater centralization, more regulation and less flexibility. It is the exact opposite of what Europe really needs.”

Blair’s reversal -- he had long maintained that the new constitution would not fundamentally change Britain’s relationship with the EU and therefore did not need popular ratification -- is due to his declining political fortunes, commentators said.

“His reputation in the UK has suffered massively,” said political scientist Rodney Barker. “When you reach a state where the leader of the Conservative Party says that a Conservative government would be less subservient to the United States, wow.... Times are strange.”

But Timothy Garton Ash, a European scholar and outspoken proponent of the referendum, congratulated Blair for finding the “political courage” to make the case for a stronger EU.

Writing in Tuesday’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper, Garton Ash said a vote on the constitution was tantamount to accepting or rejecting Britain’s place in Europe.

“Anyone who votes ‘no’ must be prepared to get out of the EU altogether,” he wrote.

But Barker believes that Blair -- by leaving the timing of the referendum ambiguous -- may have made a promise that he hopes he will not have to keep.

“No politician, if he or she can help it, ever makes a totally binding promise,” he said.

Janet Stobart of The Times’ London Bureau contributed to this report.