FIRST OF ALL the triumph. The treaty for a European constitution was a rotten treaty for a rotten constitution. It should never have been negotiated, it should never have been signed, it was essential that it should be defeated. The treaty took us a long stride closer to a United States of Europe, run by bureaucrats for the benefit of the European political class. The French and Dutch voters showed the power of democracy, and justified the use of referendums on constitutional issues. The German and British voters would have done the same, if they had been given referendums in the same week.

All of this is splendid, as good as a glass of champagne for those of us who believe in democracy. It is also pleasant, for those of us who are naturally Francophile, to emerge from the mists of the Cold War between Britain and France. That was a reaction to three extremely disagreeable French Presidents, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. We now wait in joyful hope for a new French President. Thirty years of arrogant misgovernment must surely have been enough for the French.

The treaty is dead, whatever anyone says. It has been amazing to see all the defence lines which had been prepared for a British “no” hastily manned in defiance of the French “non”. But they will not hold. The British, in the last resort, might have been shown the exit. Like one of our footballers, we might have been thrown out of the Brussels nightclub. The French cannot be manhandled like that; they think that France is Europe, and the rest of Europe suspects that that may be true.

However, triumphalism can only last so long — 24 hours is usually quite long enough. There still remains the issue of the future of Europe; despite the votes of France and the Netherlands, and the shift of the whole mood of Europe, these votes have decided only one thing. The proposed European constitution is not acceptable to the people of Europe, when they are allowed a vote.

The constitution is dead, but the project which created it is still alive. So are the institutions, the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice. All of them will continue to try to maximise their own authority, at the expense of the people and of the national parliaments.

When the French voted “non”, Europe was not on a high road to a democratic and liberal future, but was marching towards a bureaucratically controlled society, with high taxes, high costs and gross overregulation. All that has happened — and it is a great deal — is that the French voters have thrown up a road block. The European army has been halted on the road, but most of its marshals still believe that the ultimate destination is the bureaucratic prison camp that most of the peoples of Europe detest.

There are three destinations that Europe can choose. The first is simply a return to the normal sovereignty of the nation states. That is the default setting for Europe, as one can see from the condition of the single currency. If the euro fails, most of the eurozone nations will withdraw; they will return to their original independence and their original currencies, though failure will have damaged those currencies. They will not be back at square one, but at square minus one. In each field of European authority, the most likely trigger for the default mechanism is an overambitious objective, which is either rejected or perceived to be a failure.

The second possible destination is the United States of Europe. This has been the real objective of the European project from the beginning, admitted by some leading figures, concealed by others. Many of the participants have been ambivalent, swinging between the single state and the multiple state solutions.

The problems of the United States of Europe solution include the differences of national cultures and loyalties, and the obstacle of democratic consent. Most supporters of the European project have hoped to lure the people to accept the United States of Europe by gradual stages. This involves methods of deceit: frankness, even on the scale of the constitutional treaty, gets a negative answer.

The third possible destination is a common market. That goes somewhat farther than a pure free trade area, but is confined to the creation of a single, free trade market. It leaves everything else to the democratic choices of the independent European nations. Naturally, a common market creates certain sympathies and loyalties that make co-operation on other international subjects easier. So long as this remains independent co-operation, it can work to everyone’s benefit. The principle is not that of the universal veto, but that of the universal opt-out. If some nations, perhaps France and Germany, want a closer federal system, that is their affair. As well as a universal opt-out, there should be a universal opt-in to measures of integration, subject to democratic consent.

Unfortunately, the European Union has already gone far beyond the common market concept, in the direction of a United States of Europe. The referendums have shown that this is not acceptable to the people of Europe. The danger is that, at least since the Maastricht treaty, the European Union has gone far beyond public support.

A common market is not an unworthy idea. It is the only way to give meaning to subsidiarity. The European countries already have their own systems of democracy. They are best qualified to decide the social arrangements that suit them best. The French are prepared to pay the price of French social welfare; the British are prepared to work longer hours. These decisions are for them and for us. The European Union, particularly since the disastrous Maastricht treaty, has invaded the space of the European nations. We need to cut it back to size — and its natural size is that of a common market.

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