Surbiton MP votes against EU referendum

Last night Ed Davey MP voted against giving the people of Surbiton and the UK a vote in a referendum on the European Union.  All Labour and Coalition MPs were instructed to vote against the motion that would have given people a say on the UK's future within the EU. 

The motion was lost by 483 votes to 111.  79 Conservatives, 19 Labour and 1 Lib Dem MP voted in favour of the EU referendum and against the wishes of their party.  The debate and motion came about after 100,000 people signed an online petition demanding one.

Ed Davey MP has previously supported the Lib Dem pledge for an in/out EU referendum.  In fact he was reportedly so much in favour of an in/out EU referendum that he was ordered out of the House of Commons for aggressively demanding one in 2008.  So if he was so passionately in favour of a referendum, why did he vote against one yesterday?

He has either completely changed his mind, or is simply doing what he is told.  Or perhaps, as many political commentators at the time suspected, he was never in favour of a referendum in the first place and merely playing politics.  Hopefully he will come out and explain the reasons for his vote soon.  An ICM poll in The Guardian indicated that 70% of voters are in favour of a referendum.