Europe’s elite will be heartbroken by the Irish No vote, which will be seen as a damning verdict on the EU for failing to deliver what its citizens really want.

Instead of focusing on real-world solutions to rising energy prices, the credit crisis and the cost of living, the EU machine will be criticised for spending too much time and effort tinkering with how it is organised and trying to seize more control over national powers.

The rejection will be felt most personally in Paris and Berlin, where Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel were preparing to claim credit for saving the European dream after the shock No votes by the French and Dutch, which sank the EU Constitution.

Mr Sarkozy came up with the idea of a mini-treaty to revive the key parts of the Constitution while Mrs Merkel drew it up under the German EU presidency last year.

Most of the essential changes of the Constitution were preserved in Lisbon and some may still go ahead without the treaty, such as a beefed-up “external action service” - a foreign office for the EU.

But the treaty cannot come into force without ratification from all 27 EU nations and European leaders meeting for their six-monthly council in Brussels next week must know that it would be crazy to forge ahead as if the Irish had never voted.

Plans for a new President of the EU Council and EU “foreign minister” to start work next year will be put on ice - ending for now speculation over whether Tony Blair would make a dramatic return as the first European President.

The European Parliament will be bitterly disappointed because it was to get more powers under Lisbon.

The Irish could be offered some extra guarantees, as they were after they voted No to the Nice treaty in 2002, and which led them to vote Yes at the second attempt a year later. But Ireland already has the same ability as Britain to opt in to justice and home affairs decisions, as well as clear guarantees about Irish neutrality from EU defence measures. It is hard to see what more could be offered to swing voters behind an amended treaty.

A No vote will do precisely what is likely to turn voters off the EU - plunge eurocrats back into navel-gazing about the structure of European institutions rather than concentrating on everyday issues.

That is why Mr Sarkozy will be keen to push ahead with his grand plans for France’s six-month presidency of the EU, which starts on July 1. He wants to hammer out Europe's response to climate change, tackle illegal immigration and reform EU defence systems.

And while Mr Blair looks like one of the losers today, Gordon Brown will enhance his credentials with his fellow EU leaders if he continues with British ratification of the treaty, currently in its final stages in the House of Lords.

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