What about a 2010 referendum bet at 10/1?

What about a 2010 referendum bet at 10/1?

Is this worth a punt?

Ladbrokes has put a couple of interesting referendum markets up this morning one of which offers some value.

This is the 10/1 shot that there will be a referendum on the Lisbon treat during 2010. The price looks quite tempting.

Clearly it requires the Tories to win the election and then to go forward with a referendum plan that happens before the end of next year. As of now the party is only committed to doing this, though we don’t know about the time-scale, if the treaty has still not been ratified by the time a Tory government comes to power.

That of itself is dependent on the outstanding EU members not to have completed their ratification processes.

But it could be that Cameron finds that he has to offer a referendum of some sort – even if it is in force on the due date. It could be on, say, whether the voters would call on the incoming government to renegotiate specific asects of the treaty with the purpose of demonstrating to Europe the stength of feeling here.

They could just vote on the whole of Lisbon but it would seem a bit pointless given that it would, by then be in force with the UK’s agreement.

The second market, at 8/15 is on whether there’ll be a UK referendum on any European issue before 2015. The seems a small price to be locking up you stake for what could be a long time.

The 10/1 shot seems to be a fair bet and I’ve put a little bit on.

Mike Smithson

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