The resounding “no” that the Dutch referendum delivered yesterday — the first to be held in the Netherlands for more than 200 years — is a blow to the European constitution more deadly than even the massive French rejection of the ill-fated document. For whereas the French were expressing in their “non” a long-pent-up frustration with their President, their Government and the state of affairs within France, Dutch voters have focused squarely on the state of the European Union today and turned away in disgust.

Dutch voters, like the French, have defied their Government in this extraordinary rebuff to a Union of which they were founders and a vision of European integration of which they were long the steadfast champions. However, unlike Jean-Pierre Raffarin, President Chirac’s hapless Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister, is unlikely to see his Government or his career destroyed. He never staked as much on the outcome. He is under no constitutional obligation to heed the result — although it is inconceivable that the Dutch parliament will not do so. And he probably secretly shares many of the concerns of Dutch voters with the way that the EU has developed and the dangers that the constitution posed to their national interests.

Four main issues have upset Dutch voters — who turned out in force at the polls to register their anger. First, the Netherlands is, per capita, the largest contributor to the EU budget. The frugal Dutch have long complained about waste, fraud and extravagance; angered by the French refusal to contemplate any money-saving reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, they now find that they will also be paying disproportionately for the cost of EU enlargement. Secondly, they have long resented the political domination of the larger members of the EU, especially France and Germany, and have made themselves the banner-carrier of the smaller members (though with 16 million people, the Netherlands is hardly a small country). An enlarged EU, the Dutch fear, will make their voice even less audible.

The issue of immigration is still explosive. The demonstrations and attacks on mosques that followed the murder of a critic of Islamic extremism have left a society polarised, resentful of its million-strong Muslim minority and its intolerance, hostility to women’s rights and refusal to integrate. Though Turkey’s EU membership application is unrelated to the constitution, voters, including influential Christian groups, resent any enlargement that appears to dilute Europe’s Christian heritage. And finally, the Dutch fear that the long arm of the Brussels bureaucracy could eventually force them to revise liberal laws on cannabis, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. Domestic debate on these controversial issues is fierce; but no one wants outsiders to dictate how these matters should be resolved.

Disillusion with the EU crosses all political, religious and social groups. Much of it mirrors the fears and resentments in other member states. It is therefore extraordinarily foolish of those political elites that want to brush aside the Dutch “no” to speak of trying to enact much of the constitution’s content by stealth. This “no”, far more than the French one, is a rejection of the direction in which the constitution pointed the European Union. It must be respected.