The leading anti-European campaigner Dan Hannan MEP, who moonlights as a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph, has attempted to avoid the awkward fact (from his point of view) that the amendments agreed at the European Council to replace the Constitutional Treaty amount to very little indeed in the way of major constitutional change for Britain, by arguing that we should have a referendum instead on the accumulated changes to the EU that have taken place since we first joined.

This is akin to saying that the changes to the composition of the House of Lords should trigger a national referendum on the whole of the British constitution. After all, this too has evolved by incremental changes, none of which have been subject to a referendum.

Such a vote - also mooted by those arguing for the British constitution to be codified in a single document - would have some interesting parallels with the French vote on the now abandoned Constitutional Treaty. A vote on the British constitution as it stands would have no guarantee of it being approved. Some would vote against it because they object to a hereditary monarchy, others because they disagree with the electoral system for the House of Commons, still more because they don't like the House of Lords (as it is or as it is mooted). Some might vote against because they think their part of the UK should leave and become an independent country. And yet others would ignore all these issues and relish the opportunity just to vote against the government or the "establishment".

This coalition of "noes" would not get us anywhere in solving any of the individual issues currently being discussed in terms of reforming the British system. But it does illustrate the inherent dangers of holding single Yes/No referenda on an amalgamation of complex inter-related issues.