British opposition vows to fight EU treaty despite Irish poll

London – Opposition leader David Cameron, tipped by most opinion polls to be Britain’s next prime minister, pledged Saturday to "keep fighting" against the Lisbon Treaty after Ireland voted to ratify it.

His comments came after over 67 percent of participants in the Irish poll backed the Lisbon Treaty, a sharp turnaround from a previous referendum on the issue held last year when they rejected it by 53 percent.

Cameron, whose centre-right Conservatives are widely expected to win a general election due by June next year, has promised a referendum if he takes power and Lisbon has not yet been ratified across the EU.

"As long as that treaty is being discussed or debated anywhere in Europe, we’ll keep fighting for that referendum," he told British broadcasters.

"If those are the circumstances at the time of the next general election, we will hold that referendum and I would ask the British people to vote No to that treaty."

Cameron added that it was "unfair" that Ireland had voted twice "on a treaty that affects all of our lives and yet we haven’t been able to vote once."

Following the Irish result, Poland and the Czech Republic are the only two countries still to ratify the treaty.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Saturday he hopes for his country to ratify the EU treaty "very quickly."

But eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Prague’s ratification was "not on the cards" anytime soon, noting that the Czech constitutional court has asked him not to take any action until it has ruled on the matter.

The British Conservatives are in an anti-federalist bloc in the European Parliament, with the Polish Law and Justice party, co-founded by Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and Czech ex-prime minister Mirek Topolanek’s Civic Democratic Party.

AFP/Expatica