MAIL ONLINE: By the end of the Tory party conference, which starts today in Manchester, it would come as no surprise to find that Jerusalem had been replaced by the Czech national anthem.
It appears that David Cameron is sweating on the Czech Republic to help him escape from the biggest dilemma he faces.
Now that the Irish people have had their arms twisted to deliver the required 'yes' vote on the EU's constitutional Lisbon treaty, a deeply unwelcome ball has been bounced into Cameron's court.
He has promised that Britain would hold its own referendum on the treaty - but only if it has not been ratified by every other country, and thus is not in operation, by the time he comes to power.
Ireland's 'yes' vote increases the likelihood that it will be in operation by the next General Election. Only the Poles and Czechs now stand in its way.
The Poles are said to be likely to roll over soon; the Czech constitutional court is considering whether the treaty is consistent with Czech law.
If the Czechs say no, Cameron is off the hook. The big question, however, is whether Cameron will hold a referendum if the treaty has been ratified. He ducked it again yesterday.
The Irish vote has changed nothing, he protested. Well, nothing - and everything.
Yesterday, Tory Euro-federalists and Eurosceptics were trading blows about this even before the conference had properly started.
However, those who are calling for the referendum pledge to be honoured, even if the treaty is in force, fail to acknowledge that it would not be possible to renounce the treaty at that point because it would have turned into the constitution of Europe.
Notoriously, Cameron merely says that if the treaty has already been ratified the Tories 'will not let matters rest there'. What on earth does this mean?
If he is seriously suggesting that he would then try to repatriate certain powers to this country as he has pledged to do, he is being - to put it politely - disingenuous.
The EU constitution that the treaty brings into being cannot be undone or unpicked.
As Cameron desperately tried to shut this issue down yesterday, he was in danger of thus giving the impression that he did not grasp why Europe is indeed an issue of overriding importance.
If this constitution comes into force, the EU will be changed, unalterably and for ever, into a wholly new entity: a 27-nation superstate with no democratic legitimacy which will nevertheless rule our lives - and, in all probability, with Tony Blair as its President.
It would be beyond intolerable if, at the very moment that the British electorate finally voted out the government he led and consigned Blairism to the bin, the man who did so much damage to Britain as its Prime Minister should be shoehorned into a post which makes him the effective ruler of this country.
For if this constitution comes into effect, Britain and the other EU member states will no longer be self-governing nations.
Foreign policy, defence, social, economic and welfare policies, immigration, internal security - every national interest will be subordinated to this new anti-democratic entity.
As such, 'President' Blair would be committing the single most treacherous act of all towards his own country - taking away its own democratic power of self-government.
And as a zealot whose aim has always been to supersede the nation state by trans-national bodies which promise the arrival of the brotherhood of man, we can be sure that 'President' Blair would make full use of the despotic powers of the EU constitution to impose upon us all a frightening degree of uniformity and control.
So David Cameron would have defeated Labour only to find himself once again being ruled by Tony Blair. >>> Melanie Phillips | Monday, October 05, 2009
