Re-ratification of the Lisbon Treaty

There will be an EU Intergovernmental Conference next month which will be followed by the need for a re-ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the 27 National and now neutered Parliaments. This is necessary because of confusions regarding the numbers of the troughing MEPs. With the euro currency in crisis it seems unlikely that any national parliament would be willing to re-ratify the clearly useless Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, but this could provide particular difficulties for David Cameron, given the wording of his party's manifesto for the recent election and this contribution from one of his MPs, Douglas Carswell, on The Politics Show today: "I think this is an opportunity for us to table an amendment to try to trigger a referendum, I think we should have a referendum and I think given that we've given an undertaking as a party to hold a referendum if there was any further revision to the European treaties, we need to honour the promises that were made before the election and stick to that and hold that referendum."