Efforts to prevent the British from voting on the EU reform treaty suffered major setbacks this past week. Events both at home and in Europe make it look increasingly likely that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be forced to call for a referendum on the treaty. If this happens, the result will almost certainly be an emphatic “no” vote.

The first of three major blows came from the UK’s Trades Union Congress. At an annual meeting in Brighton last week, the unions voted that a referendum on the treaty should be held. The unions traditionally support the governing Labor Party, but this move puts them directly at odds with the government. The Labor Party receives over three quarters of its funding from trade unions.

The second blow came from Europe. Last week, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg tried to revive more parts of the defunct EU constitution, attempting to give Brussels additional sovereignty over foreign and justice policy.”Some people have used discussion over the detail of the treaty to try and claw back on concessions made to Britain earlier,” said one source close to the negotiations.

This could threaten some of the UK’s “red lines,” areas Brown has said Britain must get its way on before it will ratify the treaty. If these red lines are blurred or broken, the government will likely find it very hard, if not impossible, to ratify the treaty without a referendum.

With almost perfectly bad timing, the third blow came as the sensitive issue of Britain’s annual ₤3.6 billion (us$7.2 billion) rebate resurfaced for examination in the EU. The rebate was negotiated in 1984 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to make up for Britain’s substantial contributions to the EU compared to what little it received from the Union. Debate over this highly controversial issue reopening now will only intensify anti-EU feelings in Britain.

Britain’s time inside the European Union is running out. Bible prophecy forecasts the EU as becoming a powerful, unified bloc that will exclude Britain. Herbert W. Armstrong, the late founder and editor in chief of the Plain Truth, predicted this over 50 years ago. “Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe,” he wrote, “but Britain will be no part of it!”