So, a European Council summit convenes and Britain has a treaty which contains all the things it asked for at the June summit. This time Britain is not going into the meeting with major battles to fight. All of the Government's so-called 'red lines' have been agreed, and Britain keeps its ability to pick and choose whether to opt-in or out on justice and home affairs policy. The treaty discussions are expected to be wrapped up fairly swiftly. If there are any last minute hitches, they will probably be Polish or Italian quibbles. It should be a successful (and low-octane) first summit for Gordon Brown as our Prime Minister.

Of course, this is unlikely to assuage the obsessive Euroscepticism of the Murdoch press, the Telegraph and the Mail. You can expect to read the usual wild-eyed diatribes and baseless scare stories about the contents of the Reform Treaty and how it will lead to a centralised superstate.

However, the reality is that most people are not interested in such shrill little-Englanderism. I gather that the Sun's readership has fallen by over 100,000 each day its front page has been dominated by demands for a referendum on the treaty. Meanwhile, Mark Mardell's blog points out that more people declared their religion to be "Jedi" in the last census than have signed the Sun's petition. When looking at the substance of the text, such apathy is unsurprising - are people really suggesting a referendum should be held on whether we replace the 6-month rotating presidency of the European Council with a 30-month one, or apply qualified majority voting to the composition of the comitology committee?!

Let us be clear: this treaty is good for Britain and for the EU. It abandons the previous concept of a Constitution that swept away all the existing treaties and replaced them with a codifying Constitution, and the various symbols and controversial elements that some countries felt had the trappings of statehood. At the same time, it preserves the practical adjustments to the EU institutions contained in the Constitution: the strengthened role of national and European parliaments in EU decision making, reducing the number of Commissioners, merging the two EU foreign affairs positions into one role of High Representative, replacing the six month rotating Council presidency with a 30-month permanent position.

In short, it is a compromise between the 18 countries that had said 'yes', the two who said 'no', and the seven who were waiting to see on the constitution - but a positive compromise that should put an end to the years of institutional wrangling and enable EU decision making to be more effective and efficient. For those of us who believe in Britain's place in the European Union, this is a result to be welcomed.

P.S. I was pleased to read the position of Business Europe (the CBI and its European partners) welcoming the Reform Treaty. In their words, "the proposed Reform Treaty is a good compromise providing an improved framework for decision-making with 27 Member States".