"I would say that any prime minister who inflicted a referendum on the country because his own right-wing backbenchers were snapping at his heels and because he was running scared of Nigel Farage was acting in his party's self-interest and against the country's interests and is therefore not to be trusted."

Tell me! Did the little fabrication above start with "once upon a time"?

As Nigel pointed out many moons ago:
The referendum was not called by the coalition. It was called by parliament. The coalition only allowed the referendum to take place once it had been voted on in parliament. The referendum vote had massive support from the labour party (your 'second-largest party'). The vote to hold a referendum was passed (ayes) 544 (noes) 53. (so with 650 MPs, if the only ones to abstain were from Labour, and all the votes against were from Labour that's only (650-544) 106 Labour MPs who didn't vote for a referendum (either by voting against, or by abstention). That means (and I'll spell it out for you) that at least 150 Labour MPs voted to hold a referendum on the possibility of the UK leaving the EU.