VOTERS will have a say on Britain’s role in Europe by 2015, an MP predicted last night.

Simon Reevell was speaking after the House of Commons rejected a proposal to allow a referendum on membership of the European Union (EU).

The Dewsbury Conservative was one of 81 Tory backbenchers who rebelled against their leadership to back the demand for a public vote.

But the motion calling for a ballot on Britain’s membership of the EU was defeated by 483 to 111 in the House of Commons on Monday night.

However, Mr Reevell believes there will be a referendum before the next general election in 2015.

“The fact that the proposal was defeated means that a stand-alone referendum on membership is not going to happen in the foreseeable future,” he told the Examiner yesterday.

“But a referendum will be triggered during this Parliament anyway.”

Mr Reevell believes the problems in the 17 eurozone countries will lead to demands for greater integration – which will trigger the Government’s new promise to hold a referendum before any more powers are transferred to Brussels.

He said: “It’s now being discussed in Europe that it’s impossible to have a single currency without political union.

“There are proposals to harmonise tax and VAT across the EU. That means sovereignty going abroad, which means triggering the referendum lock.”

But Jason McCartney, who also rebelled against his party on Monday, has not given up on a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

“I think the referendum is firmly on the agenda, it’s a question of timescale,” said the Colne Valley Conservative.

Mr McCartney denied that his party was seriously divided on the EU.

“Listening to the speeches in the Commons, everyone was pretty unified about the need for massive reform of the EU,” he said.

“In some ways we’re very, very unified, we disagree on the timescale.”

Calder Valley Conservative Craig Whittaker, who also rebelled against the leadership on Monday, was defiant yesterday.

“I think the sheer size of the rebellion shows that this issue isn’t going to go away. This is the start of a long ball game,” he said. “This is the largest rebellion in the history of the Conservative Party and it would be pretty flippant of the Prime Minister to ignore the will of his backbenchers.”

Mr Whittaker added: “I’ve had emails since the vote saying ‘well done, keep chipping away’. That’s what I intend to do.”

Huddersfield Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who voted against holding a referendum, claimed the Tories were seriously divided on the EU.

“What we see is that the Conservatives are totally split and the leadership is terrified of its right-wing,” he said.

“Many of the new intake are Euro-sceptic and would be more at home in UKIP.

“The split has been papered over but it won’t go away.”

Prime Minister David Cameron insisted yesterday that there was “no bad blood” over the bruising rebellion on a referendum on Europe.

Admitting it had “always been a difficult issue” for the Tories, he insisted the “important thing is to do the right thing for the country”.

Mr Cameron defended his decision to impose a three-line whip, saying “in politics you have to confront the big issues rather than try and sweep them under the carpet”.

Mr Cameron attempted to play down accusations that the party had been left deeply divided by the scale of the rebellion – the biggest assault on his authority since he became Conservative leader six years ago.

He added: “These are valued Conservative colleagues. I understand why people feel strongly and we will go forward together and tackle the difficult decisions that the country faces.”

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg condemned the backbench rebellion as a “smash-and-grab dawn raid”.

LibDem leader Mr Clegg said Britain should be leading, not leaving Europe.

Recognising that reforms to the EU were necessary, he said: “You don’t change Europe by launching some smash-and-grab dawn raid on Brussels.

“You do it by setting out the case for changes and then arguing the case with other countries.”