A week ago it became clear that the citizens of France had rejected the proposed EU constitution by a defining margin. A few days later the electorate of the Netherlands also voted it down in a yet more emphatic manner. Such an outcome should have inspired a little humility among EU leaders, especially Jacques Chirac, the President of France.

It has instead produced implausible posturing. The President and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, declared again after one of their regular meetings on Saturday that the ratification process should continue.

This can, logically, only mean that they favour pursuing one of two strategies. They either hope that universal approval for the constitution elsewhere will force deviant voters in two countries into line or, more plausibly, they want to share the blame for the failure of this venture by having other governments endure the intense embarrassment suffered in Paris and The Hague. Neither approach is honourable or credible.

The former would essentially involve electoral blackmail of the electors of two sovereign nations which are entirely at liberty to dismiss this constitution. The latter would turn the EU into a laughing stock as voters in places as diverse as Denmark, Poland and this country took the opportunity to hammer needless additional nails into a political coffin. The arguments being articulated by the President and the (German) Chancellor are nonsensical. Britain should not be afraid to state the obvious, loudly and clearly.

That process has to start today in the House of Commons. It has been widely briefed that Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will announce there that the British referendum has been placed "on hold" in the light of ballots cast elsewhere. It is important, nonetheless, that he makes it plain that the vote has not merely been suspended until the next meeting of EU leaders on June 16 and 17. It should be the unequivocal position of the Government that rigor mortis has set in and that the constitutional corpse cannot be revived by a French kiss of life. Mr Straw should concede that the EU will need to proceed in a very different manner from now on.

As we noted on Saturday, M Chirac and Herr Schröder are in an extremely weak political position, unable to call the shots on this or other central questions relating to the EU. The majority of the Prime Ministers from other countries and even, if privately, most members of the European Commission realise that this constitution is finished. The EU is engaged in a round of political pass-the-parcel, with leaders wanting to avoid stating the obvious. The British Government should politely tell Paris and Berlin that the music has stopped.