When it was written, in the immediate post-war years, the drafters felt that the people who had elected Hitler could not be trusted with plebiscitary democracy.That hardly applies to the people who stood alone against Hitler. In several European countries, a change of this magnitude would require a referendum. The Germans, of course, cannot have one; their constitution prohibits it. The result is yet another attempt to run Europe as a French jockey on a German horse.Yet Mr Blair still insists that the constitution is a mere tidying up exercise. He will have difficulty finding a single serious continental European who agrees.

They are still trying to make love on the psychiatrist’s couch. The Germans wish to escape from the guilt of their militarism; the French, from the humiliation of theirs. It must also be remembered that even if Mr Blair is not a socialist, he is typical of a certain type of Anglo-American leftist, in that he dislikes his own country’s traditions and its past. For him, Europe is a way of turning Britain into another country.The French and the Germans may know more about the past than Mr Blair does, but they want to forget their own recent history.

He is easily seduced by grand European projects: so much more satisfying than the frustration of British domestic matters. After less than two decades of being unable to sack a government which they disliked, the Scots became so upset that the stability of the UK was threatened. If the Eastern Europeans found that their ability to exercise their long-desired freedom to govern themselves was a brief interlude between Comecon and Eurocon, there could eventually be trouble.Mr Blair is oblivious to these risks because he knows no history. They even need to be allowed to make their own mistakes.But if they subscribed to the EU constitution, they would rapidly discover that their democratic rights are as valuable as Soviet-era banknotes Their response may not be acquiescent. It is easy to see why their political elites should be attracted by Europe.