By Paul Goodman
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The Sun reported this morning that:
"Ed Balls risked plunging Labour into civil war over Europe yesterday by
declaring the party would be “stupid” to rule out an EU referendum.
The Shadow Chancellor insisted it was vital they did not let themselves “be
caricatured as an anti-referendum party”.
Balls also said:
“If we allow ourselves either to be the ‘status quo party’ on Europe, or the
‘anti-referendum party’, then we’ve got a problem. We would be pretty stupid to allow ourselves to get into either of those
positions…“We’ve absolutely not ruled out a referendum.”
This is a less dramatic intervention that it might sound, because Labour's official position is not to rule out a referendum in the event of, say, a major reconfiguration of the EU into a) a Franco-German and b) everyone else.
But it is Balls's carefully-calibrated way of reminding voters of his Euro-sceptic credentials (in Labour terms, anyway), appealing to Labour MPs who think Miliband should match Cameron's referendum offer…and turning the temperature up under Miliband, his former leadership rival.
This one will run and run.