Cameron and the EU Constitreaty

Does David Cameron really want a referendum? After all, we all know that Michael Heseltine's mini-me would then have to campaign for a Yes vote, or else sit out the referendum campaign altogether. It would be far better for him to use the lack of a referendum (and there isn't going to be one - Gordon Has Spoken on this) as his excuse for nominally whipping his party against the Constitreaty itself, though taking no action against those who voted in favour, or abstained, or just didn't turn up.

In any case, a referendum campaign would be rigged, with all the money on the Yes side, and with the BBC, which is convinced that only the Tory Hard Right has the slightest doubts about the EU, putting up various rather disagreeable cranks against three or four pro-Constitreaty speakers at a time, drawn from across the parties as if theat meant that they somehow held a range of views. Oh, and from time to time, it might put up Tony Benn instead.

Furthermore, these (not including Benn) would also be the only people writing Vote No articles for the only newspapers to carry such articles: the Times, Telegraph, Mail and Sun/News of the World titles. The Yes Campaign would have no difficulty in saying even to most readers of those newspapers that their own views had nothing in common with those of such persons on any other issue (Do Telegraph readers want to abolish farm subsidies? Do Sun readers want to abolish the NHS?), so how could they have anything in common over this, either?

Parliament should throw out the Constitreaty. It wants to, so let it do so.