Other myths about the constitution are surfacing – or re-surfacing – this week.

The Times intimates that Britain and France might lose their seats on the UN security council in favour of a European foreign minister if the constitution is adopted.

But this is false. In fact, the text reads as follows:

“When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs be asked to present the Union's position.”

So Britain and France will therefore keep their seats and their votes. The only difference is that, when the rest of the EU agrees with our position, we’ll benefit from the extra weight of the entire EU behind us too! Surely this is an unambiguously good thing?

The Telegraph resurrects the hoary old myth that the primacy of EU law is (a) new and (b) bad. But this was a well established principle of the EU long before the UK joined. It is also true of other international treaties - there would be little point in making international agreements in the first place if the signatories were not agreeing to be bound by their provisions!

In any case, EU law only operates where we have already agreed that it should. The constitution makes clear that the Union may only act "within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the Member States" (Article I-11.2). Moreover, "the Union shall act only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member State, either at central level or at regional or local level" (Article I-11.3).

The constitution commits Member States to supporting a common EU foreign and security policy, just as the present treaties do. But this policy only exists when every single country agrees on a common line – so we can never be forced to do anything against our will. When there are disagreements, each country simply goes its own way.