Out for publicity or a real case?

Controversy in the Commons yesterday as the Liberal Democrats walked out on mass after the speaker ejected their foriegn affairs spokesman Ed Davey after he had critisised the speaker's ruling

William Hague's comments that it was the most Liberal Democrats he had seen in the Commons when there was not a pending by election were quite apt.

What the party was attempting to do was to force the Commons to debate a referendum on the EU as part of the debate on the new constitution.The speaker who had sent his deputy to sit during the debate had already ruled that it was not going to happen.

Over at Liberal England Jonathan Calder is not impressed by his party

That debate could being within the Liberal Democrats. The idea of a referendum on EU membership had hardly occurred to us before Ming Cambell announced that it was party policy. Now it is such a point of principle that our MPs cannot bear to stay in the House if they are denied a chance to vote for it. It is all very confusing.

And Peter Hoskin at Coffee House expresses the same sentiment,

It's difficult to see what the Lib Dems hope to gain from their bizzare behaviour. Of course, they're trying to present themselves as staunch defenders of the British public's rights. But their actions will most-likely deny that same public a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, whilst achieving nothing by way of compensation. It's one thing to enshrine a red herring as party policy, but running round and slapping everyone in the face with it is quite another.

But interestingly Staunch socialist Bob Piper agrees with Nick Clegg's tactics

Firstly, a purely political move. It would force Cameron's Conservatives to put their money where their mouths are. The fact is, like Labour in opposition, the Tory front bench are all mouth and no trousers on this

and

we are not in the same Common Market that people voted to remain in by 2 votes to one in 1975. The EU has massively more power and direct influence over our lives than the old common trading agreement, and these powers have been ceded to Europe without the consent of the British people.

For the Telegraph this morning the whole incident is

The authority of the Commons Speaker Michael Martin

Michael White on the Guardian's political blog thinks that if nothing else it got the Lib Dems on all the news bulletins

But there are low politics and high principle at work on all sides, not least the Lib Dems, who are committed to voting against the Tory and Labour Euro-sceptic amendment to stage an amendment on Lisbon.

Final word though to Iain Dale who insists

In the end they all managed to make total prats of themselves. It comes to something when despite hours of planning, the brewery piss-up was still totally disorganised. Whelk stall, anyone?