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AGRICULTURE EDITION 53 REVIEW OF PARLIAMENT | The intricate battle over Britain's relationship with the EU, which was to run through the whole parliamentary year, began in the debate on the 2013 Queen's Speech. Ever since 81 Conservative MPs defied a three-line whip to vote for a motion calling for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU in October 2011, Tory backbench discontent had been simmering. But this was the moment when it boiled over and changed party policy. Backbenchers, led by John Baron, a rebel on a variety of issues, put down an amendment regretting the lack of a referendum Bill in the new legislative programme. This was the annual debate on the government's programme of new laws for the coming year; and an amendment regretting its contents is usually a matter for opposition rather than government MPs. The Baron amendment was made possible by a convention-stretching ruling by Speaker John Bercow, who decided that, in addition to the usual two amendments granted to the official opposition and the one allowed for the biggest minor party, he would also allow the backbench amendment. The pro-EU Liberal Democrats were never going to permit a referendum Bill in the coalition government's programme, but the backbench uprising forced David Cameron to permit an unprecedented free vote, and promise to back a private members' Bill to hold a referendum in 2017. John Baron said MPs on all sides believed the time had now come to give the British people a say – adding, during a fractious exchange with the shadow chancellor Ed Balls, that if the referendum was held tomorrow he would vote to leave. But that could change if the Prime Minister succeeded in negotiating a new relationship based 'on trade, not politics'. The debate was prefaced by exchanges at Prime Minister's Question Time, where the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was standing in for David Tory backbench discontent over Britain's relationship with the EU boiled over in the debate on the 2013 Queen's Speech Europe controversy resurfaces yet again Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg came under heavy fire from Eurosceptic Conservatives over an election leaflet quoting him as promising an in–out referendum In the end, 525 MPs voted for intervention, with 43 opposed. Those against included the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, the Green MP Caroline Lucas and Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat backbenchers.