As a son of the manse, Gordon Brown must appreciate the old Scottish hellfire sermon: “A’ve kent o’ better folk than you, after they were deed, in the place where the wurm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, callin’ out tae the Lord in their agony, ‘O Lord, A niver kent it wud be as bad as this.’ And the Lord, out of His love and tender mercy vouchsafed the answer, ‘Well, ye ken noo’.”

For breaking Labour’s promise to hold a referendum on the European constitution, the prime minister will be roasted for months by an angry Eurosceptic press and singed by his own backbenchers. This wasn’t done in ignorance. He must have kent it.

Why then did he get into this quixotic crusade to champion the treaty? After all, Mr Brown’s views on European integration are tepid.

Admirers claim that Brown has been consistently pro-European throughout his political life. He has a funny way of showing it. As chancellor, he decided the time wasn’t right to abolish the pound. He made no secret of his boredom with the interminable meetings of his fellow finance ministers in Brussels. He upset them, too, with his sensible lectures about the need to liberalise markets in goods and services. Brown was also horrified to find out it wasn’t just Eurosceptic propaganda that so many of them wanted to harmonise taxes across the continent.

So not for Brown the quasi-religious zeal of the Conservative pro- and anti-European factions that tore their party to pieces over Maastricht, monetary union and all. For him, Europe was never a defining issue of principle. It has been a political tool, a weapon of war. Used deftly, it would stoke up tensions among the Tories: nowadays he accuses David Cameron of being “isolated” from Brussels as well as America. Europe is a weapon that cut two ways: Brown the chancellor reduced Tony Blair to whining impotence by retaining control over the timing and tests for Britain’s entry into the euro. Later, as “the man who kept the pound”, he multiplied his appeal tenfold to the Eurosceptic tabloids.

Blair played these games, too, despite his greater enthusiasm for Brussels. Here he is, writing in The Sun on April 22, shortly before his 1997 election victory: “Tomorrow, on the day we remember the legend that St George slayed a dragon to protect England, some will argue there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe.” Peter Mandelson, a European true believer, shamelesly used a British bulldog in a party political broadcast.

Pragmatism usually comes before principle in new Labour. It was Blair who conceded a referendum on the European treaty. The voters didn’t like the smell of something called a constitution and the Tories wanted to campaign against it. Urged on by Jack Straw, and Brown, a referendum promise was included in Labour’s manifesto. Tally ho, the Tory fox was shot.

Better and better, the Dutch and the French voted down the constitution treaty in referendums of their own. With one bound, the British government was free. But, as is the way with Europe, it was a case of, the treaty is dead, long live the treaty. It came back with a few shaky red lines and opt-outs negotiated by Blair during his last days in office, with Brown ticking off the deal at the end of a telephone line. Once so committed to the result, he was in a trap of his own making. Concede a referendum and accept the high risk that you will lose. Deny one and break a binding promise.

A better way would have been to have rallied a coalition of antipolitical union forces against the treaty. But that would have demanded a strong view. Brown hasn’t got one although, like most prime ministers, he doesn’t like rocking the Brussels boat. He calculated that the changes were too small to cause real trouble back home and disliked the idea of another long, ill tempered round of negotiations with his European partners. There is, however, the question of good faith.

Blair lost everything by fighting for something he believed in - the Iraq war. Brown now has to fight a gruel-ling campaign for something about which he has no strong feelings. He claims the new treaty is different from the old constitution. But, to quote Mr Blair against him: “What you can’t do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go.”

Do Brown’s MPs believe it’s new? No. The Labour-dominated Commons European scrutiny committee says the treaty is practically the same item. European leaders such as Angela Merkel of Germany agree: “The fundamentals of the treaty have been maintained in large part.” The public wants a vote. The prime minister will tough it out, hoping that a long process of scrutiny in parliament will bring out Tory divisions. But his own house looks divided, too. Gisela Stuart, the German-born Labour MP calls his position “neither honest nor coherent”.

On the sidelines the Europhiles cheer Brown on in their own inimitable fashion. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform articulates the ugly blackmail threat, or rather bluff: “If Britain said no, the country would be given time to reconsider. If it did not change its mind, it would be offered a status similar to Switzerland or Norway.” In other words, your vote will be disregarded; you will get it right next time or face expulsion. As Bertolt Brecht put it of the East German communists after the 1953 rebellion: “Would it not be easier for the government to deselect the people and elect another?”

This is Europe at its undemocratic worst. When the voters are allowed to express an opinion about Europe, they often reject it. The Norwegians said no to EU membership. The Danes said no to Maastricht; the Irish, the treaty of Nice; the Swedes, the euro. Each time, the governing class sent the people back to the polls to get it right. Or else they tried a back door manoeuvre.

But after Blair’s unskilful negotiations we contribute so much to the European budget that they can’t even plausibly threaten to kick us out without bankrupting the Common Agrcul-tural Policy. French farmers and Bavarian barley barons wouldn’t like that.

The government tries one track after another. When it was called a constitution, it said the treaty was a harmless tidying-up exercise to help with the enlargement of the European Union. Then it negotiated changes and said all clauses dangerous to Britain had been removed. Make your mind up, chaps.

An enlarged European Union has not been reduced to paralysis without this treaty. Even if it is sensible to reorder some elements of its voting and modify the rotation of the presidency to cope with new members, this does not mean that a charter of fundamental rights and majority voting on energy and justice should piggy-back on it. Our tax and benefit systems are not safe from Europe as is claimed; our freedom in foreign policy will be curtailed. The abolition of further national vetoes is unnecessary. This is a project to further political union.

British opt-outs can, moreover, be challenged and overturned in the European Court of Justice. The government refuses to take Europe seriously. Well, the European Court of Justice takes itself very seriously indeed. Like its US equivalent, the Supreme Court, which has often decided the fate of that nation, it arrogates power to itself. The court has torn up one of our earlier prized opt-outs, the working time directive. It will do it again.

Brussels, the Europhiles say desperately, needs a foreign minister in order to stand up to Russia. How so? Ger-hard Schröder of Germany didn’t want to stand up to Russia. Merkel, an altogether better leader, does. Standing up to anyone depends on the leaders of the big three European countries being in agreement. Even then, they can’t put on a convincing display of military might. Alas, Brussels couldn’t even stand up to Milosevic of Serbia without the United States.

Perhaps Europe really does want this superpower status, this ability to stand up to Russia, China or Iran without Washington. But I see precious little sign of anyone willing to pay for it in blood and treasure. Either way, we have not been consulted. If that is the big idea driving this treaty, surely Brown should allow us to vote on it.

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