WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The ratification of the new European Union Treaty is not going quite as well as expected, with only 26 percent of Irish people planning to vote "yes" in their referendum. The vast majority, 68 percent, told pollsters for the Irish Times that they did not know enough about it to make a decision.

That is hardly an excuse that can be made in Britain, where the House of Commons is debating the Lisbon Treaty. Lawmakers do so as Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted a brisk "economic summit" Tuesday with his French, German and Italian counterparts, and with EU Commission president Jose Barroso.

The summit leaders issued a statement all for more transparency among financial institutions, but were somewhat overshadowed by rancorous accusations that Brown's Labor government has "broken its pledge" to hold a referendum on Europe. A British gambling millionaire is now filing a lawsuit that demands the government keep its promise.

This is a mess, and no British party is coming out of this well. The Conservative opposition, now leading Labor by 38 percent to 30 percent in polls, is pretending to be opposed, while making it clear that it does not want to leave the EU. The third-party Liberal Democrats is divided, half of it demanding a referendum in the name of the people's choice, the other half opposed on the grounds that the British public would certainly vote "no."

The parliamentary "debate" is a puppet show. Neither a line nor a word of the treaty text can be changed, and Labor members of Parliament are being "whipped" (compelled, on pain of losing their party affiliation) to vote in favor. More than 50 Labor MPs have called for a referendum and are being ignored. The debate has also been limited to 12 days by the government, despite promises that MPs would be able "to scrutinize the text line by line."