The Prime Minister’s unprecedented move has led to fears that the country is now more isolated than ever before.
David Cameron is being widely criticised for his decision to veto revisions to the Lisbon Treaty.
The revisions would have made member states more fiscally accountable to the European Commission, which the Prime Minister considered unacceptable.
Tweeting today opposition leader Ed Miliband said: “Outcome at last night’s EU summit was a sign of weakness from Mr Cameron – why did he fail to build alliances before the summit?”
This unprecedented move has attracted criticism from other world leaders, such as Nicolas Sarkozy who called the decision “unacceptable”.
Mr Cameron made it clear from the outset that he would not sign a deal which was not in Britain’s interest and promised to protect business in the City.
He was opposed to the idea of having a ‘treaty within a treaty’ and feels that it is better for the other countries to come up with a separate agreement.
Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, said on Twitter: “Britain’s been left isolated by Cameron’s shambolic negotiations – where were Poles, Danes, Dutch and Swedes? A bad outcome for Britain.”
He also stated that the country is more isolated now than it has been at any point in the last 35 years.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has denied that this is the case and said on BBC 4’s Today that “nothing like enough of an effort” had been made to meet the UK’s concerns.
The 17 eurozone countries are going to move on without Britain and are expected to sign an agreement.
This would commit them to a balanced budget with structural deficit of no greater then 0.5 percent automatic sanctions for countries whose deficits exceed three percent and a requirement that their national budgets are submitted to the European Commission for revision.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Malcolm Eady said: “Although I am disturbed by what happened last night, the motive to protect the long term independence of the city was correct.
“In South-West London we rely on it to provide a considerable number of jobs and to generate considerable income for this country.”
However, Councillor Eady believes that out future is with Europe and we must build links to avoid being seen as the odd one out.
He said: “This is not being helped by the anti Europe stance taken by a number of Tory MPs.”
