In the end, the Lisbon summit concluded less with a bang than a whimper. Various leaders had insisted in advance that they would fight vigorously to secure their national interests – be they their share of voting rights, the number of MEPs awarded, the use of Cyrillic, or, in Britain’s case, the legal weight of the wordings on which the credibility of “red lines” would depend – but all of them capitulated by the time that the coffee was served yesterday evening. The collective determination of a cabal of politicians and the bureaucrats and judiciary that stand behind them is that if they insist loudly enough that the reform treaty that they have accepted is radically different from the old constitution on which it is manifestly based, this will be tolerated by their electorates. Only Ireland will consult its people on this project. It will be Hobson’s choice even there.

This is not an outcome that the British Government should honourably wish to be part of. Assertions about the precise difference between an “amending treaty” and a constitution ring hollow. The underlying issue is whether what has been agreed enhances the authority of the EU and diminishes that of its member states and it is obvious that Brussels is made stronger by the prospective new arrangements. The dispute over the concessions that Gordon Brown claims to have secured is one that is less about red lines than red herrings. The blunt reality is that the Prime Minister cannot know how the European Court of Justice will interpret these words five or ten years hence and even if the language proved to be watertight that would not negate numerous other provisions of this complicated package.

The core of the argument against the treaty is threefold. The first is that it will encourage more central planning and direction by EU institutions that have already damaged enterprise enough by their corporatist instincts and directives. The EU should be looking to decentralise, delegate and liberalise not only in economic policy but across the social, political and cultural realms as well. This plan is not just more of the same: it entrenches the wrong approach yet more firmly. The original treaty negotiations were also supposed, it was asserted, to include returning some powers to national governments. As usual, feral federalism has triumphed yet again.

This feral federalism comes with an inbuilt ideological bias. It has been championed most aggressively by nations and administrations that are either socialist or, in the case of both Italy and Spain, dependent on the tacit backing of political parties drawn from farther to the left of the spectrum. It has been accepted by Christian Democrats of various hues across the Continent at a time when Christian Democracy has lost faith in itself and has abandoned the advance of market values. The EU is at present a form of “grand coalition” in which political forces with a commitment to individual freedom are excluded. This treaty is the logical if loathsome consequence.

It is, thirdly, profoundly undemocratic in its character. The European public proved unexpectedly difficult when consulted on the constitution in France and the Netherlands two years ago so the elites who have long driven forward the EU’s agenda irrespective of popular opinion are determined not to allow a meaningful ballot at the second time of asking. In a sense, again, there is a consistency to this behaviour. The many articles of the old constitution and now this text devote scores of pages to the institutional architecture of the EU but none to being responsive to, never mind in the hands of, EU citizens. Democracy will be the poorer if this treaty is enacted.

The Prime Minister is well aware of all the failings of what he has embraced in Lisbon. He has calculated that the damage done to his conduct of foreign policy by issuing a veto to the treaty outweighs the domestic policy difficulties that follow from proceeding without a ballot. In a calculating manner, as we reported yesterday, he seems to have divined that there are positive advantages in excluding the voters. He believes that a protracted parliamentary discussion will bore the electorate to tears while opening up a division within the Conservative Party. By 2009, the cynical thesis holds, the country will have forgotten about the legislation that Parliament ratified but not about the sight of the Tories ripping themselves apart over Europe again.

As often with Mr Brown, this is too clever and too calculating by half. It is also the height of arrogance to maintain that what will shortly be signed by politicians is “too complex” for humble ordinary people to be able to comprehend. The fundamental question surrounding this treaty is, in fact, remarkably straightforward. It is whether or not it is desirable for the EU to exercise more influence on British (or French, German, Polish or Slovak) life than it does today. All the EU states should be putting this issue to their voters. The case for Britain doing so is now absolute.