Tony Blair was left looking like the big loser last night despite never having formally applied for the job of European president.

As the EU’s 27 leaders picked two virtual unknowns for its top jobs, the man everyone said would “stop the traffic” in Washington, Beijing or even Brussels was left back in London wondering what might have been.

Gordon Brown called Mr Blair shortly before the summit got under way to explain that he had had one final try in front of the European socialist leaders, whom he had told three weeks ago to “get real” and choose his predecessor as their nominee for the top post.

In fact, both men knew that it was almost certainly all over before Mr Brown left for Brussels yesterday.

The day before, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister, charged with getting agreement on Europe’s top three jobs, had finally, and almost unnoticed, published the job description for the post of president. Britain always wanted the job to be a presidential one and, as The Times revealed at the end of last month, Mr Blair had decided that he would enter the race only if the role were substantial.

Mr Reinfeldt ruled, after weeks of consultation, that the holder should be a chairman of European Council meetings rather than a big figure to represent the EU on the world stage.

Mr Blair could easily have pulled out on Wednesday, but he and Mr Brown decided that he should hold on one more day in case a deadlock at last night’s summit had unexpectedly propelled him back into the running.

But yesterday was the day that his past caught up with him. His alliance with George Bush in the prosecution of the Iraq war was deeply unpopular with most EU countries.

But according to diplomats, Mr Blair was always facing an uphill struggle as he was not popular with the Socialist leaders. As Prime Minister, they said, he was never a regular attender at the pre-summit Socialist Group gatherings, was thought to get on badly with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, and often seen as too close to centre-right leaders.

Had the Socialists wanted Mr Blair he might well have got it. Instead they went along with an arrangement under which the Centre Right got the president and they got the high representative for foreign affairs. Their first choice was David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, but he ruled himself out last week. When Mr Brown realised that even after losing Mr Miliband, they could not stomach Mr Blair, he switched his support and, astonishingly, Baroness Ashton of Upholland was suddenly picked.

Mr Blair was said to be relaxed and philosophical last night. A friend said: “We pretty well knew that this was coming. Tony has been talking to various leaders and they told him that it did not look good.”

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