Jenkins later wrote: "I was convinced that it was one of the decisive votes of the century, and had no intention of spending the rest of my life answering the question of what did I do in the great division by saying 'I abstained'. I saw it in the context of the first Reform Bill, the repeal of the Corn Laws, Gladstone's Home Rule Bills, the Lloyd George Budget and the Parliament Bill, the Munich Agreement and the May 1940 votes". Jenkins' action gave the European cause a legitimacy that would have otherwise been absent had the issue been considered solely as a party political matter. However, he was now regarded by the left as a "traitor". James Margach wrote in the Sunday Times: "The unconcealed objective of the Left now is either to humiliate Roy Jenkins and his allies into submission – or drive them from the party". At this stage, however, Jenkins would not fully abandon his position as a political insider, and chose to stand again for deputy leader, an act his colleague David Marquand claimed he later came to regret. Jenkins promised not to vote with the government again and he narrowly defeated Michael Foot on a second ballot. In accordance with the party whip, Jenkins voted against European Communities Bill 55 times. However, he resigned both the deputy leadership and his shadow cabinet position in April 1972, after the party committed itself to holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC. This led to some former admirers, including Roy Hattersley, choosing to distance themselves from Jenkins. Hattersley later claimed that Jenkins' resignation was "the moment when the old Labour coalition began to collapse and the eventual formation of a new centre party became inevitable". In his resignation letter to Wilson, Jenkins said that if there were a referendum "the Opposition would form a temporary coalition of those who, whatever their political views, were against the proposed action. By this means we would have forged a more powerful continuing weapon against progressive legislation than anything we have known in this country since the curbing of the absolute powers of the old House of Lords". Jenkins' lavish lifestyle — Wilson once described him as "more a socialite than a socialist" — had already alienated much of the Labour Party from him. Wilson accused him of having an affair with socialite Ann Fleming - and it was