Birmingham Post, 19th October 2007

The Tories unveiled a poster yesterday - with the slogan "Who has a say on the EU Treaty? Not you. Just Gordon" - in an attempt to increase the pressure for a vote.

Launching the ad, which then toured London on a lorry, with party chairman and Midland MP Caroline Spelman (Meriden), shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "Gordon Brown cannot walk away from his manifesto promise of a referendum. He has absolutely no democratic mandate to agree to this treaty. It is not just his decision - the final say must belong to the British people."

The party leadership later came under pressure from eurosceptic MPs and peers to intensify the debate by spelling out the reasons not just for a referendum but for a "no" vote.

At a Westminster press conference organised by the Global Vision campaign group, Staffordshire MP Bill Cash (Stone) said: "My call is very simple - and it is to the Conservative Party as well as to the country at large: it's no good simply asking for a referendum.

"We have to spell out the reasons why that referendum is necessary in the democratic interests of the people of this country.

"We need to get down to explaining why this situation as it now stands is of direct concern to the daily lives of people in this country.

"The Conservative Party has got to start grappling with the reasons why we want a 'no' vote."

Fellow MP John Redwood said the new treaty handed so many powers to the European Court of Justice and Commission that opponents were "battling to keep a democracy in these islands".