New rules on groups, same old story from Hannan

My proposal to raise the threshold for forming political groups in the European Parliament from 20 to 25 MEPs was today adopted by a comfortable majority in Strasbourg.

This matters. Once a political group is formed they are provided with extra resources, in terms of finance and staff for their political campaigns. The current threshold of 20 MEPs amounts to just 2.5% of the European Parliament and is therefore considerably lower than what most national parliaments require. Very small, and possibly extremist groups can help themselves to taxpayers money for their political campaigns.

While the figure adopted today (25) is still below the average for national parliaments, it is a compromise that was supported by most of the smaller groups.

Modest reforms you might think, but I have been accused of being anti-democratic and of attempting to wipe out Euroscepticism in the European Parliament!

One of my accusers is Dan Hannan, who despite being an articulate and witty writer, consistently fills his Telegraph blog with untruths to back up his conspiracy theory that the European Parliament is seeking to become a dictatorial one-party parliament intent on destroying Eurosceptics. The headline in his blog today, “European Parliament bars Euro-sceptic groups”, is a prime example. This is patently untrue!

There have always been far more than 25 Eurosceptics in the European parliament and there have always been Eurosceptic groups. Euroscepticism is an important segment of public opinion which, especially in a proportional representation electoral system, is well represented in Parliament.

Any grouping of 25 MEPs elected at the next European elections, representing seven member states, will be able to form a political group. What’s more the new rules will actually benefit them if they are close to the threshold, because they allow an existing group to continue for up to two years if it slips just below the threshold! This of course isn’t mentioned in Hannan's blog because it doesn’t fit in with his conspiracy theory.

He also suggests that the adoption of my proposals broke European Parliament rules. Again this is not true. The report was adopted at Committee level and amended when it went before the whole house, a perfectly normal and regular occurance.

The amendment adopted by the House was a compromise (between the status quo and a proposal for 30) which was supported by small and large groups alike (the Greens, Left, Union for Europe of Nations, Socialist, Christian Democrat) and some of Hannan's fellow Conservatives. Even UKIP's Group wanted to raise the threshold (to 22) - if raising the threshold was a plot against Eurosceptics, as Hannan claims, then why did the most Eurosceptic Group in the Parliament support such an idea?

Increasingly every rule change in the European Parliament is being deliberately portrayed by Hannan and his friends as an attack on Eurosceptics but as the events of today show this is ultimately a paranoid and flawed theory.

Sunday sceptics praise EU legislation

It was pleasantly surprising to see stories in several of the more eurosceptic Sunday papers giving a favourable write up to proposed European legislation.

The Sunday Telegraph praises the proposed EU cross-border enforcement rules of speeding and parking fines. The inability of British authorities to be able to trace foreign drivers costs us £10m per year in unpaid fines from around 180,000 offences. These proposals will enable police to chase foreign transgressors, who currently violate our laws with impunity, who have committed offences such as speeding, jumping traffic lights, drink driving and driving without wearing a seatbelt. It's an example of when a common set of rules and enforcement mechanism is eminently sensible.

Elsewhere, the Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday favourably reported the proposed Small Business Act which would increase the role of small businesses in framing European legislation and include measures to have common starting dates for legislation affecting firms and an annual statement of legislation coming into force. Surprising, but welcome, to see that they are praising EU measures to cut red tape and business burdens rather than recycling the usual scare stories about 'meddling Brussels bureaucrats'.

Although the Mail was less fulsome, pointing out that the Federation of Small Businesses feels the proposals are "too weak", if you were a Commission press officer you'd be forgiven for asking for a lie down at all the praise!

High Court rejects Stuart Wheeler's referendum bid

It was good to see that the High Court has finally thrown out the claims of spread betting tycoon Stuart Wheeler that the Government should hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, with Lord Justice's Richards and Mackay judging that there was "nothing in the claimant's case to cast doubt on the lawfulness of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum".

Wheeler, who is one of the leading donors to the Conservative party, famously giving £5m to the party when William Hague was leader, is the second high profile Tory to have a case thrown out. Last week the renowned Europhobe Bill Cash made similar attempts to stop the ratification of the Treaty in the High Court only for his claim to be thrown out. Indeed, Justice Collins described Cash's attempts as "totally without merit" and "an attempt to pursue a political agenda through the court".

Bill Cash's attempt to take the Government to court was particularly bare-faced. Cash, whose euroscepticism first came to real prominence when he helped 'lead' the Tory Maastricht rebels in 1993, always claims that the EU undermines the sovereignty of Parliament. Deeply ironic, then, that he would go to the High Court to try and get the judiciary to overrule the UK Parliament.

These judgements should mark the end of the Treaty's progress in the UK, and the EU (Amendment) Bill will now be formally ratified and the "instruments of ratification" deposited in Rome. However, Wheeler has refused to give up, saying that he will go to the Court of Appeal despite being refused an appeal by the court. Still, if he wastes his money on that, there may be less to give to the Tories and the eurosceptic pressure group that calls itself 'Open Europe'.

The way Eurosceptics work

If ever people needed proof that phoney 'think-tank' Open Europe is nothing more than a front for Better Off Out campaigners for UK withdrawal from the EU they should look at this opinion poll.

With great fanfare, Open Europe on Tuesday announced this poll undertaken by YouGov apparently showing that only 29% of people want the UK to remain a member of the EU. Needless to say, the Tory headbangers on Conservative Home have already loudly trumpeted the poll as proof that David Cameron should heed the Better Off Out brigade and pledge to negotiate British withdrawal from the EU.

Of course, polls such as these are designed to be spun by those commissioning them, but on closer inspection, the poll itself is based on a false premise, claiming that the EU was always based around "economic co-operation" but is now responsible for making decisions on "foreign policy, immigration and crime" (carefully ignoring the fact that the EU does not govern Britain's immigration or criminal justice systems, nor can it make foreign policy decisions without the agreement of Britain and all EU countries).

Therefore, the poll offers three choices - "the UK should stay in the EU", "the UK should stay in the single market but pull out of the political elements of the EU" or, "the UK should leave the EU altogether". Faced with this, 29% chose the first option, 38% the second and 24% the third. Notwithstanding the fact that the single market is political as well as economic (a market must have rules and regulations to ensure that it is free and fair, rather than be left free to unfettered market forces, and the adoption of such legislation is a political process), the option of remaining in the single market "but pulling out of the political elements" is virtually impossible to achieve. In other words, it is a meaningless choice.

Besides, the Europhobes don't seem to have commented on the statistic that only 24% want Britain to leave the EU - a lower figure than in virtually any opinion poll since the 1975 referendum.

So there you have it - loaded questions based on false premises with bizarre choices makes for a pointless poll that reveals nothing - but don't expect Open Europe to be asking for their money back. So much for the intellectual rigour and integrity you would expect from a genuine think-tank.

Staying with Eurosceptic nonsense, the Sun came up with an inspired scare story that the French presidency wants a British aircraft carrier to be at the heart of a new EU Navy.

This 'story' is similar to the Sun's claim on St George's Day that the EU was planning to destroy Britain by dividing it into five regions (lumping the South-East in with the North of France in new super-region). Needless to say the Sun were able to find a Tory politician desperate enough for publicity to lend the story some ill-deserved credibility, with Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox saying "the EU's military ambitions know no bounds" and "we should be told whether this madness emanates from Paris or Downing Street", and, surprise surprise, Open Europe's Neil O'Brien also adds his two penn'orth.

Whilst it would be churlish to say that they've not been imaginative, (a Sun hack has certainly earned his corn with this re-writing of the lyrics to the Village People's "In the Navy") the story is fabricated tosh. Indeed, buried at the end of the story lies a quote from the Ministry of Defence demonstrating that this story is a pack of lies. Still, there seems to be nothing you can do to stop Eurosceptic tabloids writing such nonsense. Maybe the Commission should tell the press that it intends to buy up News International - now that would be a story!

Lords seal ratification of Lisbon Treaty in UK

Last night the House of Lords brought to an end the to the long and careful parliamentary scrutiny of the Lisbon Treaty and approved it by giving a third reading to the EU Amendment Bill. The Conservatives made a last-gasp attempt to derail the process by tabling an amendment to delay the vote on third reading by four months, but this was comfortably defeated by a majority of 93. When the Bill is given royal assent today, the UK will become the 19th country to have ratified the treaty.

Our ratification of the treaty coincides with the start of the European Council meeting which will take place today and tomorrow. British ratification makes clear that our position is that the Lisbon Treaty is good for the UK and good for the EU. Whether or not the treaty can be salvaged will depend in part on the outcome of this Council meeting. While the impetus is on the Irish to take stock of last week's 'No' vote and assess whether an agreement can be reached, the views of the 26 other countries who also signed the Lisbon Treaty (and 19 of whom have now ratified it) should not be blithely ignored. This is a collective problem that requires a collective solution.

Some say that we should take the Irish 'No' vote as a hint to end the reform process and focus on policy delivery. Of course, we all, even those of us most closely involved in the process of drawing up the Lisbon Treaty, want to get away from institutional reform and focus on policy delivery. The most significant policy challenges facing the EU: tackling man-made climate change, the effects of globalisation on the most vulnerable in society, energy security etc will not wait for us to reform our institutional structure. As Gary Titley, the leader of the Labour MEPs, said this week, "globalisation continues apace".

But better institutions would make it easier to tackle these and other problems, and the checks and balances the reforms would bring in would reassure people that the EU is subject to democratic control.

Indeed, this week, the Parliament adopted the report by my colleague Eluned Morgan MEP to reform the electricity market in the Europe. In particular, it included proposals for full ownership 'unbundling', whereby companies would not be able to own both the production and distribution of electricity - good news for consumers, as the competition should prevent electricity prices from being distorted. This is a classic case of the "Europe of results" that a 21st century EU should aspire to be.

Getting beyond the self-serving hyperbole of, on the one hand, the Eurosceptics, who claim that any attempt to seek a compromise acceptable to Ireland is undemocratic, and , on the other hand, some ultra-federalists, who want a hard core of integrationist countries to go it alone, the reality is that the EU is still here and still needs reform.

The European Parliament's debate on Ireland's No

Interesting debate today in the European Parliament on the fallout of the Irish referendum, punctuated by UKIP and three of the Tories coming in wearing T-shirts urging "respect for the Irish votes" - prompting one Irish MEP to comment that history would have been quite different if right-wing British politicians had started to do that a century or more ago!

The problem we face, of course, is how to respect the divergent results of different member states - both the No from Ireland and the Yes from other member states.

Some want to listen just to one side. I want to listen to both. We must then rise to the challenge of bridging the gap.

If there are by the autumn 25 or 26 ratifications, it would not be unreasonable nor undemocratic to ask the minority to consider the possibility to seek a compromise rather than to block reforms entirely.

Indeed, that was the professed view of No campaigners in Ireland, who said they want a better deal.

Yet, the UKIP/Tory/Sinn Fein/French Communist view (what an alliance! watching the acting leader of the Tories vigorously applaud the French Communist leader was instructive) expressed in the debate was that other countries shouldn't be allowed to vote on the treaty at all (presumably in case they Vote Yes).

For good measure, Nigel Farage threw into the debate a claim that a Commissioner had committed fraud - a remark somewhat undermined when the very next speaker was UKIP's shame, Ashley Mote, recently released from prison after serving a sentance for...fraud!

Several Irish members were understandably bitter at the the claims by some No campaigners that the Lisbon Treaty would have legalised euthanasia, drug-taking and abortion in Ireland, and also required higher corporation tax rates and an Irish contribution to a European army. These lies had an impact on enough voters to swing the result.

But blame was also laid at the door of the Irish government for not campaigning or explaining properly or even bothering to rebut the No claims until the last few days, preoccupied as they were with installing a new Prime Minister and re-shuffling the government.

Be that as it may, we now have to face up to the consequences rather than apportion the blame. It will be no easy task, but the need to reform the EU has not gone away and achieving this remains on the agenda.

If you want to read more on the referendum I recommend Will Hutton's excellent piece for the Observer which addresses the issue of lies and misinformation used by some of the No campaingers.

Cameron talks up the importance of Europe

Having spent the first 18 months of his leadership appeasing his Eurosceptic wing by pledging to withdraw from the centre-right European People's Party and being the only non-fascist right-wing party to oppose the Lisbon Treaty, David Cameron appears to have had a road to Damascus style conversion.

In the words of Cameron, during an interview for the Yorkshire Post:

"I don’t want to leave the European Union and I'll tell you why. This is a trading nation. Yorkshire relies on traded goods and on businesses which can trade all over the world and particularly in Europe. We export more per head of the population than America, Japan or other countries. We are a trading nation and Europe is a very important market for us. If we are not in the European Union, we would not be able to have a say over what the rules of the single market are. That is the primary reason for being a member of the European Union."

All pretty sensible stuff, and light years away from the reactionary nonsense and baseless scare-stories trotted out by himself and his front-bench colleagues over the Lisbon Treaty. However, it is unlikely that such an approach will find favour with the likes of John Redwood, Bill Cash and David Heathcoat-Amory.

When I give talks about the reasons for our EU membership to constituents and visitors to the Parliament, I often point to three sets of reasons: the idealistic, pragmatic and selfish. Cameron has at least taken up the latter. Though, even that will be too much for his right-wing MPs.

Hoping for a ban on seal products

On Wednesday, Parliament welcomed a very special guest to speak to the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals. Sheryl Fink, speaking on behalf of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), had travelled all the way from her native Canada to drum up support for an EU-wide ban on the import of all seal products into Europe.

New regulations implemented by the Canadian authorities, supposedly to make the Canadian seal hunts more "humane", have done little to increase the welfare of the seals. Most hunters are ignoring the regulations and the authorities seem unwilling to take action. Indeed, the group was shown a highly distressing video filmed by IFAW proving that seals were not killed quickly or humanely.

The Eurosceptic Tory MEP Roger Helmer, who was in the audience, attempted to pass Sheryl Fink's presentation off merely as a "slick" gimmick from the animal welfare lobby. Helmer asked what effect a ban on the seal hunt would have on those who relied on the trade to make a living, and what effect would a ban have on Canada’s fish stocks. If Helmer hadn't left immediately after asking his questions, he might have heard the answers!

Canada's seal hunt is not economically viable. The C$11million industry would not survive without the subsidies paid by the Canadian government. In fact, no hunter relies on the trade for a living - the hunt only makes each hunter around £1000 extra income per year. It is merely an extra bit of pocket money for them. Add to that the fact there is no evidence that seals have any significant adverse effect on fish stocks, and there appears very little justification in continuing the inhumane seal hunt, and hopefully, an EU ban on seal products will finally see an end to it.

Eurosceptics target Ireland

A few months ago UKIP leader Nigel Farage trumpeted on his blog that the Independence and Democracy group (that his UKIP MEPs are the main part of) had decided to "donate a substantial sum of money" to the Irish "No" campaign for the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

At one level, it is amusing to see UKIP, which frequently makes shrill accusations about "Brussels meddling with Britain", trying to meddle in a referendum campaign in another country.

However, at another level, this is a serious matter and potentially illegal. The rules governing donations for referendum campaigns in Ireland are very clear. Donations are illegal if they fall into the following categories:

"A donation, of whatever value, from an individual (other than an Irish citizen) who resides outside the island of Ireland" or,

"A donation from a body corporate or unicorporated body of persons which does not keep an office in the island of Ireland from which one or more of its principle activities is directed".

Of course, UKIP knows this and will no doubt try to keep their donations quiet or find an indirect route to channel their money. The well-heeled eurosceptics from across Europe are targeting Ireland. Anyone who gets wind of such donations should inform the Irish Commission on Standards in Public Office, the body charged with making sure that the referendum is fair and that Ireland's rules on spending - which gives equal amounts of public money to both sides - are not subverted.

Jens Peter Bonde to retire

The veteran Eurosceptic MEP, Jens Peter Bonde, who leads the “Independence and Democracy” Political Group in the European Parliament, of which UKIP is the largest component, has announced his forthcoming retirement.

One of only five MEPs to have served continuously since the first European elections in 1979, he is a well known figure in the Parliament, and for more than half his period has served on the internal management body of the Parliament. He has been the most prominent euroesceptic across Europe for many years, is hugely energetic and is a prolific writer.

His euroscepticism is now very different from the nihilistic vision of UKIP. Granted, when he was first elected, he too wanted to destroy the EU or at least see Denmark leave it. But as he wrote himself in last week’s Parliament magazine:

“At first I worked to withdraw from the EU and, since 1992, have worked mainly to reform the European institutions with transparency, proximity and democracy.”

Indeed, he often said that he could make common cause with federalists on these issues. He was certainly not averse to consulting me on his publications, some of which focussed more on facts and documentation, in the cause of transparency, than on political point-scoring.

Clearly, as he got to know the EU better, he realised that his initial hostility was misplaced and he evolved to join the ranks of reformers rather than destroyers. His retirement press release refers to his desire “to focus on building a better European Union”. A lesson UKIP has yet to learn! Indeed, I know that Bonde was increasingly uneasy about the UKIP members of his Group, both in terms of their extremist positions and about their recent tactic of trying to disrupt the Parliament.

Bonde’s problem was that he was a prisoner of his own supporters. To keep his position, he needed to play up his scepticism and exaggerate the defects of the Union. His attempts to lead his movement in Denmark to a more realistic position led to it splitting in the early 1990s, but there was only so far he could go without being disowned by the more extreme elements. Similarly, in Parliament, he was a prisoner of the more extreme elements of his Group, including UKIP.

I wish him well apon his retirement.

A new myth being created

It has long been the tactic of Eurosceptics to continuously repeat untrue stories on the ground that if you say them enough times, people will begin to believe them.

From silly stories (such as the EP legislating that all bananas be straight) to more sinister ones (that ratifying the Lisbon Treaty would lead to armed foreign police patrolling British streets), no opportunity, no matter how far-fetched, is missed to portray the EU as an 'evil Empire'.

A new one is that the European Parliament has decided to "to silence dissenting MEPs", reported in several newspapers which took at face-value the claims of Farage and Hannan to that effect.

According to Private Eye, this even led to a member of the audience at a recent lecture at the LSE by President Pottering to shout out, "you disciplined MEPs for showing dissent and claimed that dissent is not acceptable." Private Eye itself referred to Pottering as "a man who bullied dissenters when they protested against the Charter of Fundamental Rights".

This really is case of breathtaking cheek. The "dissenters" were those who tried to prevent the Portuguese Prime Minister from making a speech in the Parliament. When as in any Parliament, the Speaker or President takes action to prevent such anti-democratic behaviour, it is not bullying, but protecting Parliament from bullies!

Note that the speaking and voting rights of these members were not removed, and they have their say in all debates, as the European Parliament, which contains members with a very wide range of views as it is elected by proportional representation, allocates the bulk of speaking time to each and every political grouping in proportion to its size before finishing with a "catch the eye" free debate. The variety of positions expressed is greater than in most national parliaments.

To try and portray those who shouted down an elected Prime Minister as martyrs of democracy is both spurious and wilfully misleading. It's a shame that the normally excellent Eye chose to print a piece that even the most eurosceptic tabloid would turn its nose up at.

A look at the media's reaction to the Commons vote

Over the past few months some of the papers, especially the Telegraph and Sun, have given a disproportionate amount of coverage to the Lisbon Treaty and particularly their campaign for a referendum, so how are they reacting now the country will not go to the polls?

Predictably!

The Mail complained that Wednesday's vote, "will go down in history as the day our politicians surrendered most of what was left of Britain's sovereignty and trusted the nation's future to a European superstate" while the Telegraph’s increasingly hysterical Iain Martin maintains that "when the entire story is told by historians, future generations will be surprised that the Euro-fanatics who plotted to sell out British sovereignty and democracy avoided being sent to the Tower for treason." - no less! Meanwhile, the Sun's George Pascoe-Watson is confident that, "it won't take long for the entire country to see just how much power has been surrendered to Brussels."

So no surprises but if their extravagant claims about the death of British democracy were true then surely it would be an issue of such extreme importance to our country that it would deserve to dominate their column inches and their websites for some time.

Well actually, the Daily Mail almost instantly returned to baiting women about their weight, digs at immigrants and a story about an England rugby union player being dropped for going to a nightclub. The Sun quickly dumped the story off the front page of their website and was far more concerned by Prince Harry, his girlfriend, Paul Burrell, and a quirky haircut at a fashion show. The Telegraph was just as swift to re-focus on Burrell and the rugby though it did also manage a nod to ID cards.

Could this return to other news be because the British public isn’t stupid enough to believe the nonsense they preach? Or are we simply not that interested in Britain's membership of the EU?

An article in the Times argues the latter point is especially true. It first considers the differing and difficult relationships Britain’s political parties have had with Europe and goes on to strongly argue that these concerns are not shared by the vast majority of the British public. It states that just 2 to 7% of voters list Europe as a concern, meaning it comes well behind crime, immigration, health, defence, the economy, environment, housing, drug abuse, tax, pensions and public morality.

This relaxed attitude to the EU is a mark of the failures of the Eurosceptics, as illustrated by this blog on the Telegraph website which praises Open Europe for playing a "blinder" adding "when it seemed that nobody cared, Neil and his colleagues worked overtime to devise ways of keeping the matter in the public eye."

So there you are, the Eurosceptics admit no-one is really interested in their cause and their campaign was little more than a marketing exercise which failed in its attempts to sell Europhobia to the masses, a view backed up by the media's own desire to stop banging on about Europe as quickly as possible.

Eurosceptics at sixes and sevens

The old saying about not being able to organise a piss-up in a brewery now has a new version: not being able to organise a political event in a parliament!

Showing that there is seemingly no limit to their talent for incompetence, some hardline Eurosceptic Tories and UKIP MEPs have organised a "demonstration" against my report on the Treaty of Lisbon - but managed to choose the wrong day! Intended to coincide with the debate on my report (Wednesday), they have invited the media to come to watch their antics today (Tuesday), the day before it is to be debated.

Meanwhile, I gather that the expulsion of Tory malcontent Dan Hannan is on the agenda of the EPP Group later this evening. Today, Hannan got up in Parliament to apologise to President Pöttering for his comments last month when he compared the Parliament's President to Hitler. It is deeply ironic that an arch-Eurosceptic like Hannan who is desperate for the Conservatives to leave the EPP, is now trying to squirm his way out of being expelled from it. Has he done a U-turn, or has he been lent on from on-high to avoid further embarrassment for the Conservative party?

Later, not a single British Conservative MEP was in the chamber to hear the speech of the Swedish Conservative Prime Minister. Tory leader Giles Chichester did turn up briefly towards the end of ther debate, made a short speech, but didn't even have the courtesy to wait for the reply from the Prime Minister.

Why this striking absence? Can't they stand hearing from a Conservative leader about how good the Lisbon Treaty is? About how an effective European Union is the only way to meet common transnational challenges? Or are they embarrassed about how a Conservative Prime Minister dismisses out of hand arguments claiming that this treaty has constitutional implications or transfers sovereignty and therefore warrants a referendum?

.

So much for the British Conservatives wanting a wider and deeper debate on the future direction of Europe! They prefer to hide outside the chamber (presumably in the bar with the equally absent UKIP MEPs) than hear arguments that many of them recognise as correct, but which their public position precludes them from applauding. Another step in their self-imposed isolation from mainstream centre-right parties in Europe!

Hannan's calculated attack just an embarrassing stunt

There were controversial scenes in Parliament today as Conservative MEP, and Telegraph columnist, Dan Hannan stood up and compared his fellow EPP colleague, the Speaker of the Parliament, Hans Gert Pottering, to Hitler. Joseph Daul, the EPP leader, responded by telling the Parliament that he would propose to expel Hannan from the EPP.

This was a calculated attack by Hannan who will probably have already penned his Telegraph column which will accuse the Parliament of gagging him, and acting to ban any opposition to the EU.

Of course the reality is that anyone who stood up in any parliament would face opprobrium if they compared the Speaker to Hitler. Indeed, it was merely a petty stunt to support his claim that the European Parliament will not tolerate minority views.

This is simply not true. The European Parliament has a very wide range of political views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views are heard in the debates.

The incident which provoked his carefully choreographed outburst was a vote on an interpretation (by the relevant committee) of the rules of procedure of Parliament. The rules have not been changed, but it was confirmed that they already allow the President of Parliament to call an end to excessive use of points of order, procedural motions, etc where they are "manifestly intended to cause, and will result in, a prolonged and serious obstruction of the business of the House ."

This is a reserve power that has only once been used - by President Pat Cox some five years ago - but is there to protect Parliament, if necessary, from attempts to bring it to a complete halt. The President of the European Parliament anyway has far less drastic powers than the Speaker of the House of Commons

If Hannan and co are upset about that, it is probably because they are indeed intending to bring democratic debate to a halt, possibly next month when Parliament debates and votes on the Reform Treaty, which they oppose.

The interesting question now is whether Hannan will be disowned by his Tory colleagues in the EP (who, at committee stage, supported this interpretation of the Rule). It is certainly an embarrassment for the Conservative Party and it will be intriguing to see what David Cameron has to say about it. Probably nothing!

Better off out brigade are only lying to themselves

It was good to see the excellent points made in this week's Charlemagne column in this Economist refuting the arguments that Britain could enjoy the benefits of the EU without being a member of it.

Some Eurosceptics claim that the EU would continue to trade with us if we left it and re-joined the likes of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Indeed, they also spuriously claim that the EC was only ever supposed to be a free trade organisation, ignoring that Britain was in fact leaving a free trade agreement to join the EC which was always a political project as well as an economic one - a point which was spelt out in the White Paper by the Heath government which spoke of "an ever closer union among European peoples” not just of trade but "social progress".

Under its agreement with the EU, Norway, for example, has access to the internal market and most of the economic integration programmes. On a superficial level, this might to some to be an attractive prospect. But, as part of the terms of their agreement, each year, Norway transposes 400 EU internal market regulations into their national law, but have no say in shaping them. They have no Commissioners, no ministers in the Council to represent their national interests, no MEPs, no seat on the European Council and no civil servants in the EU institutions. They also have to make a hefty contribution to the EU budget, and receive no EU spending at all. Perhaps this is why Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has publicly stated that he would like his country to become a member of the EU.

The members of the "better off out" brigade like to think of themselves as being true patriots, defending the British national interest. But the reality is that if Britain were to leave the EU, and re-negotiate access to the common market our position would be very weak. The remaining Member States would set stringent terms for access to the common market and a big contribution to the EU budget. The notion that they would offer a favourable deal to a country walking out and slamming the door behind them is pie in the sky. As The Economist rightly puts it: "anyone who dreams otherwise is lying not just to others, but also to themselves".

Bonde embraces treaty

The leader of UKIP's political group in the European Parliament, Independence & Democracy, has moved an interesting amendment endorsing the Lisbon Treaty.

Jens-Peter Bonde, perhaps the most influential Eurosceptic in the Parliament, has tabled an amendment to my report on the Lisbon Treaty in the Constitutional Affairs Committee saying "endorses the Treaty and hopes that all Member States of the Union will be in a position to achieve its ratification by 1 January 2009, by involving their peoples, through referendums, in this fundamental stage in the European
intergration process."

Whether it's an amusing error or Bonde finally embracing the treaty, it is
one I doubt UKIP will be supporting!

Bill Cash is utterly deluded

On 12 December, I quoted Bill Cash's European Journal when it described how their anti-treaty campaign was running into the sands, failing either to persuade a majority of MPs or to ignite public opinion. The holiday break allowed me to read through a long diatribe by Bill Cash in the same issue.

Cash tries to rewrite European history and to place himself as the hero of some great struggle against the might of the European superstate. Initially, he and Enoch Powell stood alone in resisting this, were gradually joined by others, and now he stands on the verge of his views becoming Conservative party policy, resulting in an immediate swing of more than 8% to the Tories, which would lead to an election victory, a "fundamental renegotiation of the existing treaties" in an Intergovernmental Conference with "Britain in the lead… at which point many other Member States would back us" and which would "unravel the undemocratic European superstate". Wishful thinking is something we are all prone to, but this must surely take some beating!

Cash’s central theme is that the EU started as benevolent economic cooperation focusing on trade with no political implications and has somehow surreptitiously been hijacked by those intent on creating a political union leading to a superstate. He says that the original aim of the ECSC and the EEC "can be described in two words: FREE TRADE" (his capitals) - blissfully ignoring the fact that Britain actually left a free trade area (EFTA) to join the EEC, which has always been a political project, but has never aimed for the mythical "centralised superstate".

The Wilson government's application to join stated that "Europe is now faced with the opportunity of a great move forward in political unity and we can - and indeed we must - play our full part in it". Similarly, the Heath government White Paper on the British application stated that "if the political implications of joining the Europe are at present clearest in the economic field, it is because the Community is primarily concerned with economic policy. But it is inevitable that the scope of the Community's policies should broaden".

Cash is so obsessed with the EU that he must know that – but deliberately ignores it. Indeed, he claims that he was the one who "uncovered" that "significant political ambitions were afoot in the 1990s" when the drive for a single European market (which, he says, "came largely from the Thatcher government", which will be news to those who recall Thatcher trying to block the IGC which negotiated the single market timetable) was, according to his conspiracy theory, hijacked by the European Commission which "abused its powers, accorded under article 100a and similar provisions, and tried to interfere excessively". Never mind that the Commission could only propose and it was up to the elected governments in the Council to actually take the decisions.

He embellishes all this with ex cathedra comments to the effect that "it can never be right for a democratic country to abandon its own self-government", that the EU means we are ruled by people "we do not elect and cannot remove" (as if Ministers in the Council and MEPs were not elected and are non-removable!) and all, apparently, with the connivance with the Conservative party leadership for which "there can be no excuse for this failure of nerve, abandonment of principle and the gross incompetence which it reflected" (a comment apparently directed at successive Tory leaders right up to the present day).

Cash takes great pride in the backbench revolt that he organised in the 1990s, describing in detail how he tabled 240 amendments to the Maastricht Bill, set up the Great College Street group of Conservative rebels to organise their own whip and briefings against their own government, and how he attempted to repeat this again by tabling some 400 amendments to the second reading of the bill on the Constitutional Treaty (which, by the way, the Commons approved by a majority of 250). Given his history as a rebel, it is somewhat hypocritical to moan, as he does, about Ken Clarke, David Curry and Quentin Davies for supporting the Constitutional Treaty despite the Tory line on that treaty - a line that his the party leader, Michael Howard, did not even turn up to support.

But then, he is a bit full of himself, describing his defeated minority report of this year in the European Scrutiny committee as "totally undermining the government's arguments for the Reform Treaty". His own arguments are themselves undermined by his distortion of facts, such as when he rails against Britain's share of the votes falling from 11.5% to 8.4% without mentioning that this was the result of the enlargement of the EU to 27 members - and also without mentioning that the Reform Treaty would restore Britain's share of the votes to 12.2% by linking them to population size.

The article also reveals some of his other political positions: that the Human Rights Act should be repealed on the grounds that it is impossible to reconcile human rights with "policies to enforce public safety". He believes that the "vast quantities of British coal could continue to supply us with virtually limitless energy" making us completely free from imported energy (and, presumably, damn the ecological consequences). He worships Enoch Powell: "only much later did most people begin to see that Enoch Powell was right", he says - without, apparently, having as a result been censured by the Tory front bench in the way that the recently sacked Tory candidate Nigel Hastilow was. He even fondly recalls tabling an amendment with Enoch Powell at the time of the Single European Act back in 1986.

To sum up, this long and rambling article does much to reveal the state of mind of Mr Cash, his obsession with destroying the European Union by any means and his self-belief as the hero who will save Britain from having to cooperate with its neighbours.

Facetious Farage ignores the facts

I laughed when I saw that Nigel Farage had put out a press release complaining that there was insufficient television coverage of his attempt to disrupt the ceremony signing the Charter of Fundamental Rights last week in Strasbourg. He considers this to be an act of censorship - though from what I saw of the written media, his little protest got ample coverage, even on some front pages. In terms of censorship, let us not forget, it was he himself and his allies (including Mr Le Pen's Front National, various right-wing Polish parties and several British Conservatives) who were trying to shout down the Portuguese Prime Minister so that he couldn't be heard and to disrupt parliamentary proceedings - behaviour that in any national Parliament would have led to their suspension.

In a similar vein, it was strange to see that Bill Cash has complained of "the deliberate playing down of these arguments in the media" - referring to Eurosceptic arguments in the British media! Does the man live on another planet?

European Journal admits defeat

Encouraging news from the opposition camp – Bill Cash MP’s European Journal – the magazine which attempts to give academic credibility to the Eurosceptic cause, reports in the leader of its latest edition that the campaigns in favour of a referendum in order to oppose the new Reform Treaty have "failed to rouse anything more than a minor public interest in the impact that this treaty will have". It goes on to say that "the effective opposition to this treaty does not look good".

Indeed, in his own article, Bill Cash points out that the I want a referendum campaign has so far mustered just 30,000 supporters while newspaper petitions have mustered a further 137,000 signatures compared to the anti-Maastricht Treaty campaign in 1993 which gathered 500,000 signatures.

All of which leads me to give them one piece of advice: give up trying to make people think this new treaty is the end of the world as we know it. Most people just don’t believe you!

Amid a fairly quiet weekend for the British media, one event was conspicuous for its failure to attract press coverage - the Pro-Referendum Rally in central London. Even sympathetic newspapers (i.e. most of them) could not bring themselves to talk up a poorly attended flop.

Not even the Sun gave the rally much of a mention, preferring to do a front page splash on another royal family scandal. This may have something to do with concerns that the Sun's circulation has, so I hear, fallen by 160,000 each day it has led with demands for a referendum.

It was interesting to see the speakers list: Nigel Farage, Bob Spink MP (a Tory member of Better Off Out), Roger Helmer MEP, Neil Herron of the so-called Metric Martyrs and Councillor Steve Radford of the “Liberal party” (not the LibDems). In other words, a rag-bag of assorted cranks, all of whom are committed to Britain leaving the EU. Save for Mr Spink, not a single MP attended, although a sizeable contingent from the BNP were present amongst the demonstrators – who numbered a few hundred instead of the hoped-for thousands.

The high hopes of the Eurosceptics that they would be riding on a wave of popular protest seems to have fizzled out in a damp squib. Most people just aren’t screaming for a plebiscite on whether to replace the rotating presidency and reduce the number of commissioners! And perhaps people have realised that most campaigners for a referendum are not interested in the Reform Treaty, they just want Britain to leave the EU.

Interesting point by Peter Preston in today’s Guardian: if UKIP and some Tories got their way and Britain were to withdraw from the European Union, then the "route to the exit is littered with obstacles: four decades' worth of directives to unscramble and replace, funding promised or under way to be reappraised, fishing and agriculture deals to be haggled afresh, trade and immigration understandings to be understood again. This won't be like breaking your tennis racket and storming off court. This has to be a long, deadly serious business"

Not to mention that there would be precious little goodwill from our partners if we were to storm out slamming the door of the house we have helped to build over several decades. Nor could we rely on economic muscle: we represent a smaller percentage of their trade (under 10%) than they do of ours (62%). And once we were out, we would no longer have a voice around the table in making the common rules for the common market - our main export market which our producers have to adapt to anyway.

Seems to be a no-brainer – maybe that explains who is supporting it!



PS I see Mark Mardell has also blogged on this today for the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/

It is a sad reflection on the state of debate in Britain on European affairs when the chair of the House of Commons EU Committee starts to compare negotiations on the details of the EU Reform Treaty with Neville Chamberlain caving in to Hitler at Munich in 1938. Munich was about appeasing a totalitarian dictatorship. The Reform Treaty is about us agreeing with 26 other democratic states in Europe on how we make adjustments to the voluntary co-operation we have established with each other over the past half century. To compare the two is insulting to the intelligence of any objective observer.

Of course, backbenchers in the House of Commons rarely get an opportunity to be in the limelight. They are tempted to gain their 15 minutes of fame by saying outrageous things or by becoming a temporary thorn in the side of the Government. This case seems to be no exception. Having scoured the draft of the new treaty for something to object to, he first made a song and dance about a new provision strengthening the role of national parliaments in the European Union (something Britain had wanted) by claiming that this imposed a legal obligation on the national parliaments to be constructive. Now, he is focusing on one of the most complex parts of the treaty to stir up unwarranted fears, knowing that the very complexity will be a barrier for most journalists and many of his colleagues to actually get to grips with the detail and contradict him.

The matter concerns Britain's opt in/out arrangement for the Justice and Home Affairs responsibilities of the European Union. To maximise Britain's right to choose not to opt in to legislation in this field, the Government had secured the right to re-consider its position should legislation that Britain has already opted in to, be amended in the future. This logically implies that Britain may, if it goes down that route, be excluded from legislation that it currently opts in to. For eurosceptics to now fret about Britain being excluded from European legislation, when they normally oppose its very existence, is of course new - but then they have never much worried about having logic on their side!

Similarly, the treaty contains a provision to cover the case of Britain having to cover the costs of opting out in certain situations. For instance, if Britain were to opt out of the Eurojust agency (for cooperation amongst prosecuting authorities in cases of trans-frontier crime and international investigations, such as on child abductions), then British officials in Eurojust would obviously lose their jobs. Not unreasonably, the other Member States say that, in such circumstances, Britain should pay the cost of their redeployment or redundancy. These will not be big amounts in the grand scheme of things, yet it is now being hyped up that Britain will have to pay a fortune to pay for its opt-outs.

Finally, Mr Connarty seems to object to the Court of Justice being given jurisdiction to settle disputes over the interpretation of texts that Member States have agreed to. This can only happen, of course, when the text in question is something that Britain has chosen not to opt out of. Just as in every area of EU law, such disputes are settled by the Court. This is in our interest, lest other countries simply ignore their obligations (in a different field, remember how we were able to bring France to book for continuing to ban British beef after it was safe, thanks to taking them to the Court). The Court cannot, of course, create law - it can only rule on disputes that are referred to it. Its members are appointed by the Member States, not by the Commission or the European Parliament, so it is unlikely to show bias in favour of the EU institutions as opposed to Member States. Yet, for some reason, British Eurosceptics have placed the Court in their sights, not because they are confident that all other Member States will always respect the agreements they reach with us, but because they know that eliminating a means of arbitration is likely to increase unresolved disputes within the European Union - a prospect they relish.

I was delighted to speak, along with David Miliband, Gary and Mary Creagh (with an impromptu contribution from Neil Kinnock) at a packed LME meeting at Labour Party Conference yesterday.

The thrust of the debate was on how Europe could help achieve environmental targets, fight climate change, amplify the effectiveness of development policy, boost economic growth, help combat trans-national crime and so on. The proposed Reform Treaty was also mentioned, but aroused little controversy, with no-one opposing it or calling for a referendum. The Sun's bus, spouting fumes and causing traffic jams as it drives up and down the road outside the conference centre, and displaying posters predicting the end of the world as we know it if the treaty is approved, has not impressed delegates.

I wonder how much The Sun has spent on its attempt to sabotage the reform of the EU. Double decker advertising hoardings, thousands of leaflets and the first six pages of today's issue, must constitute one of the most blatent attempts ever to bounce a government into following the agenda of a media baron.

A good example of how eurosceptic media shamelessly and deliberately distorts stories was inadvertently provided by the Sunday Express. This concerned the so called "European Gendarmerie Force" (EGF). The Sunday Express duly reported that "there were no circumstances in which the EGF could be deployed in Britain" as it is in fact not an EU initiative but "an initiative of five EU Member States. It is not an EU proposal or agency and has been set up outside of EU structures. There is no connection with the European Reform Treaty". So, nothing to do with the EU, "Brussels", Britain or the new treaty, but a cooperation between five states which want to do this among themselves.

However, this accurate description came in the very last paragraph of an article with the headline "fears that Brussels riot squad could soon pound the beat on British streets" and which reported that "Brussels has set up a new EU police force" which is "the first police organisation to come under the direct control of the EU and is seen by some as another step towards the creation of a superstate". It quotes unnamed critics as warning "that the force could eventually patrol the streets of Britain".

It then goes on, totally unabashed, to say that "the best ways to stop these fellows demonstrating their skills on a high street near you is to make sure that people in Britain know what is going on, put pressure on politicians to hold a referendum before ratifying any EU treaty covering justice and home affairs."

Breathtaking hypocrisy!

All this week I will be debating Britain and the EU with Neil O'Brien of Open Europe on the Economist's website.

You can follow the debate by clicking here.

I have also had a column published on the Guardian's Comment Is Free website, which is particularly relevant to this week's TUC conference. You can read it by clicking here.

Back at work in the European Parliament

David Cameron and his Tory Party are really plumbing the depths in the debate on the Reform Treaty. Cameron's article for this morning's Sun was rabid and riddled with untruths.

In particular, his claim that the Reform Treaty would "transfer power from our elected Parliament to the EU's unelected bureaucrats" is a flat out lie. In fact the opposite is the case. The Reform Treaty specifically increases the power of elected parliaments not bureaucrats by increasing the role of national parliaments and the European Parliament. It strictly limits EU action to the policy areas agreed by Member States in the treaties. Mr Cameron has either not read the Treaty or has no understanding of its contents - perhaps not surprising since he is too arrogant to meet with his right-wing counterparts in Europe.

He talks about Gordon Brown's "shameless arrogance" as being a "big cancer eating away at trust in politics". On the contrary, it is Cameron who is displaying shameless arrogance by telling lies to the British people.

Cameron's dishonest assertions follow on from William Hague's barmy claim that the Reform Treaty would see the EU take Britain's seat on the UN Security Council. This is simply not true.

Cameron thinks that he is a "euro-realist" and pledged to create a new-centre right group in Europe which would include the Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topalenek's Eurosceptic Civic Democrat Party. But the Czech PM is refusing to hold a referendum on the Reform Treaty as it does not create any new powers for the EU. Topolanek's stance speaks volumes about the Tories' opportunism and obsessive Europhobia.

David Cameron and his party seem to be pursuing a policy of 'little Englander' isolationism that would greatly damage Britain's national interests. For a man who hopes to become Prime Minister, his tactics and arguments on the Reform Treaty have been gutter politics of the highest order.

The Telegraph published a bizarre insight into the world of Euroscepticism recently in this article by Ruth Lea.

She wondered "who will raise the alarm" about Brussels "being out to clobber the City". Perhaps the reason no-one has, is that there is nothing to be alarmed about.

"Brussels", after all, is simply where we meet our fellow members of the EU to negotiate on common rules for our common market. The idea that the rest of them are out to get us is uttertly ridiculous, especially as they all benefit from a well-performing City!

By all means, work hard to get the details of the Financial Services Action Plan right. If we do, the City will reap substantial benefits. But to brand the whole idea as a "Brussels" plot on the basis of figures from "Open Europe" - an anti-EU campaign group - and to dismiss the constructive approach of the government as biased is standing the world on its head!

So, the Tories seem to have abandoned their short-lived, "moderate" strategy and taken a turn to the right and deeper into anti-European territory.

The move comes in a desperate attempt by Cameron to boost his lagging popularity. It might help him placate the right wing of his party, and save him from attempts by them to oust him, but it will not help with the wider public.

The manoevre comes via a report drawn up by former cabinet minister John Redwood who claims his “war on red tape” will cut £14 billion, in what he described as “a tax cut by any other name”. But this money isn’t going to magically appear out of thin air. It will come at a cost: less safety protection at work, no statutary paid holidays for employees, no guaranteed maternity or paternity leave, lower standards of consumer protection and more damage to the environment.

Such ‘magic money’ is guesswork as to how much it will really save companies, but it is extraordinary to focus on cutting health and safety legislation where any short term saving will be outweighed by long term costs to the Health service.

Will they spell out to people that "we’ll give you tax cuts, but by the way you might not be able to have any paid holidays any more at work"? A strange way to win hearts and minds!

As to the promise to opt-out of European legislation, they have (of course) totally ignored the point that many of these rules are intended to cut red tape. The fact that a small firm can now register a trademark once and it is valid across 27 European countries, instead of having to go through 27 different national procedures each with their own forms, fees and hassle, is a benefit from EU legislation. So is the ability of British lorries to take our exports to, say, Milan, showing only a single administrative document at frointiers instead of the dozen or so at each frontier that used to be necessary.

And unilaterally opting out of the common rules for the common market that we have agreed with our European partners is not so easy. Do the Tories really think that they will say "yes, by all means, play to a different set of rules from the rest of us, we don't mind"? Would they let British companies alone not abide by minimum standards for environmental protection, consumer protection, workplace safety, decent treatment of staff and so on?

Of course they wouldn't. It would mean the end of the common market. The Tory Eurosceptics know this. They see it as part of their strategy for leaving the EU, by making demands they know cannot be met, but they prefer not to spell that out openly.

All this is further evidence of a clear lurch to the right, even beyond traditional Tory values, to a new hard line approach that even traditional tories should find difficult to swallow.

The anti-EU campaign group that goes by the name "Open Europe" has taken issue with what I wrote in my last blog on Frank Field’s lie about Britain losing its seat on the UN Security. On their blog, they claim that the proposed EU Reform Treaty "will all too quickly be followed by the EU taking Britain's seat at the UN Security Council", and they challenge me to reply on my blog.

Well, the answer can be found in their own blog. They justify Frank Field’s lie by claiming that in his piece he was merely "predicting that this will eventually happen, rather than saying that it will immediately happen". So, that’s all right then – indulge in wild speculation about imaginary future decisions and let people think that they are an inevitable consequence of the Reform Treaty! And don’t let on that such future decisions would, if ever mooted, require Britain’s agreement anyway.

This seems to be a common tactic among the anti-european campaigners. That, and a tendency to make people believe that a particular issue is somehow a radical new development when it isn’t. Take Frank Field again: "Sovereignty is to be transferred in the most fundamental way. Under the treaty the EU will assume a legal personality. As a consequence it will be the EU, and not member states, that will sign international agreements on foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial matters. The EU will begin to take on the appearance of a separate country in all but name." That will no doubt stir reader’s passions – unless they take the trouble to check the facts.

A quick check of Wikepedia will show that "Legal personality is given to any organization which is a subject of legal rights and duties". The EU obviously is. Indeed it is perfectly normal for international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, to have legal personality. The legal personality of international organisations was recognised by the International Court of Justice in 1949 ( ICJ 174). The European Community itself has always had it.

But anti-European campaigners won't tell you that. No, they insinuate that legal personality is unique to states, that if the EU has legal personality it becomes a state, in place of its member states. Field’s wording, that "the EU, and not member states" will be able to sign international agreements will, presumably intentionally, make people think that member states, including Britain, will lose their right to sign international agreements. Nor will they point out that for the EU to sign up to an international agreement in the field of foreign affairs, it would require the approval of the governments of all EU countries in the Council of Ministers.

Similarly, coming back to the Security Council, Open Europe makes much of various alternative wordings that were suggested for the presentation of a common EU position, when there is one, by the EU’s representative. Again, they don’t mention that, for there to be a common position in the first place, Britain would have to have agreed to it.

Shame that a couple of Labour MPs, who lost their ministerial jobs several years ago and are no doubt disappointed at not returning to ministerial office under Gordon Brown, have sought to embarrass him by calling for a referendum on the proposed EU Reform Treaty.

They made their calls in the Eurosceptic Tory press (Frank Field in the Sun and Gisela Stuart in the Sunday Telegraph), knowing that, there at least, they would obtain a headline or two. I somehow doubt Gordon will be impressed by such disloyal tactics, but there is always a danger that it might influence the odd party member, especially if they believe the nonsense that they wrote on the subject, which could well have been drafted for them by Bill Cash or UKIP. Frank Field even tells the outright lie that the new treaty would mean Britain giving up its seat at the UN Security Council.

The Telegraph and the Mail claim today that the BBC is to investigate "allegations that the Radio Four 'Today' programme is biased in favour of the European Union"! That will be news to most objective observers, as Radio 4 is widely held to be a bastion of euroscepticism. This is clearly an attempt by the eurosceptics to bounce the BBC into adopting a more eurosceptic position. They are of course, irritated that in the main, the BBC is normally a source of factual and objective information and does not come out with a constant one-sided diatribe against the EU that they would like.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a UKIP member, has apparently claimed that only one interviewee in five supports British withdrawal from the European Union. I suppose he will claim that BBC coverage of Westminster is equally biased as only a minority of interviewees support the break-up of the United Kingdom. Come to think of it, 'flat-earthers' don't seem to get anything like 50% of the air-time either.

It is curious to see Tony Blair lambasted in Conservative and UKIP circles for having "sold out to Europe". In much of the rest of Europe he is considered to have done precisely the opposite!

To read the Belgian or Italian press, for instance, you would have thought that Blair had single-handedly prevented the rest of Europe from carrying out the modest reforms it sought to the current EU system - or where he was unable to do so to negotiate instead an opt-out for Britain. Blair is, along with the Dutch, blamed for killing off the notion of an EU constitution. He blocked certain changes from unanimity to qualified majority voting. He has an opt-out of the Charter of Rights and kept Britain out of the euro and Schengen. He even opposed a reference in the treaty to the long standing primacy of EU law. I could go on - and many of the criticisms are unjustified. But they do illustrate how the Eurosceptic attacks on Blair in Britain are, to put it mildly, somewhat one-sided in their analysis.

Federalists are in despair. Far from being delighted with the outline for a Reform Treaty agreed by the European Council in June, as most Eurosceptics would lead you to believe, federalists have much to moan about.

The idea of a "constitution" has been abandoned. Ditto for the EU's Foreign Minister. The president of the European Council will become semi-permanent with a 30 months (instead of the current rotating six month) term of office - meaning that the president of the Intergovernmental European Council, chosen by the Prime Ministers of the member states, will become more prominent at the expense of the President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament. There is to be no qualified majority voting on tax, on foreign policy or on security. Foreign policy is to remain firmly intergovernmental. The Commission's "embassies" around the world are now to come under the joint responsibility of the Council and the Commission, allowing member states to have greater control over them and to place their own staff in them. The Charter of Rights has been partially neutered. There are more opt-outs for member states, not least the UK.

Either Britain's Eurosceptics are far too blinkered to notice this, or else they are deliberately ignoring it because they want to frighten people into believing that any changes to the current EU treaties mean a step towards a more federal system, which they anyway characterise as a centralised superstate. Don't expect any of them to dwell on any of the above subjects.

So, the deal has been done - in the early hours of this morning. Many of us in the Council building feared that Polish intransigence would last throughout the night and longer, but eventually they too compromised at about three a.m.. I've lost count of the number of interviews I've done for British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg TV and radio throughout the long day and night, but hopefully there will be no need for another summit on these issues for many years to come.

The Constitutional Treaty has been replaced by a practical set of reforms to the current European Union. They will make it work more efficiently and will improve parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability. This is a result to be welcomed. Euro-obsessives that want Britain to leave Europe (and, presumably, become part of America) will try to scare people with their ususal froth, but any objective look at the agreement shows that their complaints are fibs or exaggerations. Indeed, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was looking distincly forlorn, not sure what he could complain about, when I debated with him on BBC this morning - he fell back on quoting an article that has been in the treaty since Maastricht, 15 years ago.

Indeed, of the issues that the Eurosceptics focussed on, almost all have disappeared or been neutralized:

* The term "constitution" has been abandoned.

* On the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a new clause says "In particular, for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in title 4 of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom."

* On the Foreign Minister, the role stays as High Representative, as it is called already now, and EU foreign policy will be decided by "The European Council and the Council acting unanimously", without the European Courts having a say over it. It is specified that none of this will effect the "existing legal basis, responsibilities, and powers of each member state,"

* In the field of justice and home affairs, where there is a switch from unanimity to majority voting, there are opt-outs for Britain.

Curiously, two items which Eurosceptics continue to criticise are things that, if they thought about them for a few seconds, they might appreciate.

* One is the longer-term president of the European Council (30 months instead of six months). This could lead to a strengthening of the intergovernmental European Council presidency at the expense of the Commission presidency. That is certainly why the anti-federalist French support it.

* The other is the "External Action Service". At present, EU external representations across the globe are run by the Commission. This change is designeed to give Council (i.e. national governments) a say in running and staffing them. Another step away from, rather than towards, a federal system.

However, Tory and UKIP critics just don't want to know and are simply focussed on finding fault with any change.

On the other side, federalists will be disappointed. The Italian and Belgian governments are muttering about too much having been sacrificed to placate the Brits, the Dutch, the Poles and the French. The European Parliament will be unhappy, as will the 22 countries who wished to retain the Constitutional Treaty intact.

BBC Europe chief and blogger Mark Mardell's assessment is interesting. Although BBC impartiality means he has to treat the Eurosceptics seriously and give them coverage they don't deserve, he clearly proclaims a victory for the government, saying: "Tony Blair can claim that he has won all his red lines. Of course, many will feel this was utterly predictable and of course Conservatives and other will say that there is plenty here that deserves a referendum. But Mr Blair has made their job that much harder."

Indeed a referendum seems hard to justify. Britain has never had a referendum to ratify an international treaty, and it would be odd to start with a minor one. We similarly have never had a referendum on issues that are far more important and that really interest the public, like the creation of the national health service, compulsory education, university fees, the death penalty, the monarchy. We