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Dr Richard North reminds us that the EU is not a political construct. It is closer to, if not in fact, a secular religion, the only thing separating it from one of the more established, fundamental religions is that God does not lie at the core of its belief system.

Instead, the core of this religion is “European Union”, this mythical, ill-defined entity that encompasses all, the attainment of which is the ultimate goal of the “project”. European Union is no longer for anything – it does not have a purpose. It is the end in itself, the utopia, nothing less than heaven on earth. But, like the Holy Grail, it will never be found. Its acolytes simply strive, Bhudda-like, to achieve the ultimate level of attainment, without ever achieving it. There is always one more level, one more treaty, to attain.

As a secular religion, it of course has all the trappings of the more established religions. For its dogma, it has the sacred acquis communautaire. It has its High Priests in its European Commission, its Praetorian Guard, in the phalanxes of Monnet professors – the Jesuits of Integration – and, of course, its pastoral bishops and priests, its members of the European Parliament. And, of course, it has it temples, its churches and shrines, its saints and martyrs - and its mantras and incantations.

In many ways, therefore, attempting to give the EU the label “superstate”, is to compound the error. People looking for parallels would do better to look to the way the Roman Catholic church grew and, for a real parallel, the Vatican is a better model than Rome. The EU is not so much a tool of the Vatican as some would have it, it is a replacement for it.

I have lost count of the times I have read that British Eusceptisism is fed by the disreputable anti-EU British press, which by the way is owned by devious foreigners press barons, who for their own unspecified reasons will do anything and make up any myth in order to further their again unspecified nefarious designs. That to hold a referendum in Britain would be to fall into the trap of these seedy press barons, who would only use it to undermine the great campaign of the EU`s Les Grand Fromage. (Thanks Paxman)

The Guardian however puts the lid on that particular piece of insidious claptrap, all the media in France were gung-ho for the constitution if there was any truth that British were being mislead by the media, then the French to a man and woman would have voted Yes.

Serge Halimi The Guardian

There is one tiny problem with most of the analysis of last Sunday’s vote in France. Those who probe the motivations of the large majority who voted no (54.87%) forget to remind us that they, overwhelmingly, voted yes.
For more than six months, all the leading commentators in the media heaped praise on the constitutional project. France’s two biggest media owners (and weapons manufacturers) endorsed the yes side: Serge Dassault, a conservative senator, did so in an editorial in one of his many magazines; Arnaud Lagardère spoke to a pro-yes rally, cheered by Nicolas Sarkozy and most of the cabinet.
Most commentators have observed that Jacques Chirac has been stung by this defeat, but the rout of France’s mainstream media is even more impressive. From the rightwing television channel TF1 to the “leftwing” weekly le Nouvel Observateur, and including le Monde, Libération, the business press, the major radio stations, even women’s and sports publications - they all warned and railed, they all censored and twisted. Yet, their propaganda was blunted by an unexpected surge of democracy. Thousands of well-attended meetings discussed the constitutional treaty. And, bit by bit, the sense of inevitability that it would be easily ratified by a mildly interested electorate was torn apart.
Indeed the outrage about media bias became a leading issue of the campaign - not least because it encapsulated so many of the things that this referendum came to be about: representation, the elite and class.
The problem is obvious on the political side. Last February more than 90% of French deputies had backed the constitution; it garnered the support of only 45% of the voters. The gap is no less obvious when it comes to informing the people: the leading journalists, who often live in Paris, an increasingly bourgeois city, seem to write and speak for the affluent.
And the rich did vote yes by a healthy margin, just like 66% of the Parisians.
But elsewhere it was quite another story: whereas 74% of the voters earning more than €4,500 a month backed the constitutional project, 66% of the voters earning less than €1,500 a month voted against. In ultra-wealthy Neuilly (a Paris suburb where many industrial and media tycoons reside, and whose mayor is the presidential hopeful Sarkozy) 82.5% voted yes. Mining cities of northern France and the poorest districts of Marseille were equally lopsided: 84% of Avion (Nord-Pas-de Calais) and 78% of Marseille’s 15th district voted no.
Granted, Chirac has lost. Yet it should not take long for the Socialists to wonder how well a party of the left is doing when 80% of the workers and the unemployed, 60% of the young and a large proportion of its own voters desert its official position on such an important issue.

BBC Newnight
Construct a constitution
Some figures for our numerate Newsnighters:

Pencils and crayons
Tools at the ready - now write a constitution
The United States Constitution consists of 4,543 words (including signatures). It might take about half an hour to read.

The Declaration of Independence is made up of 1,458 words (also with signatures) and might take about ten minutes to read.

The Magna Carta consists of 4,800 words and might take a little over half an hour.

The proposed European Constitution consists of around 67,000 words and would probably take up to eight hours to read in the unlikely event that this was done in one impressive sitting.

At Newsnight, we think 250 words is a nice round figure. 250 words, about one side of A4, might take three or four minutes to read. Lovely.

So, as our invitation for suggestions as to how to “fix” Europe has encouraged such a large number of contributions, we’re now inviting you to send us your constitutions.

Draft your own, alternative EU constitution, one that you believe could work to harmonise Europe - or deconstruct it - and on which all the people of Europe could agree. Then send it to us via the feedback form below.

As we’ve been all out of Jeremy’s sizzling sauces since the Su Doku competition, we’ll be coming up with a suitably irrelevant first prize in celebration of our viewers’ inspired attempts to tackle the European issue.

Make history. Write a constitution. But keep it brief.

The Telegraph reports that Jack Straw and Tony Blair are likely to call on Jacques Chirac to state whether he intends to hold a second referendum or not. They hope to force him in to conceding that this would be impossible, thus making the French responsible for killing off the Constitution.

Two of the main architects of the Constitution John Kerr and Giuliano Amato, Tony Blair the Labour spin machine Kinnock from the House of Lords, even Denis MacShane are all calling for the end of the referendum process. Arguing that the rejection of the constitution by the French and the Dutch means the Constitution is dead. Whilst on the other hand all the other EU States leaders and Commissioners are demanding the process should be continued. The Commission President Barroso was on Newsnight last night insisting that as all the 25 member state leaders had signed up to a procedure set out in Declaration 30, they should all “respect the procedure” because every member state has a right to give its opinion on the treaty.

However listening to those who want to scrap the process they are not suggesting that the proposals should also be scrapped, again last night Denis MacShane almost fell out of his chair when Paxman suggested that stopping the referendums would also mean no changes to the present treaties. Not the case at all there is still a need to bring in the changes, but this time they will not be asking the voters to give their consent, this time they will bring it in through the back door, of course MacShane did not say that in so many words but that is exactly what he meant.

It is obvious why Tony Blair wants to get himself out of a promised referendum he has little chance of winning and can only damage him politically, it is equally clear why those who put together the Constitution in the first place want to prevent any more damage to their dreams. As Giuliano Amato there may be nothing left of the constitution to rescue if ratification continues in other countries.

But what of the arguments for continuing Declaration 30 “The Conference notes that if, two years after the signature of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, four fifths of the Member States have ratified it and one or more Member States have encountered difficulties in proceeding with ratification, the matter will be referred to the European Council.” Note “If four fifths of the Member States
have ratified.” This is not the same as an obligation on them to proceed with ratification. If one Member State has said No and the others decide to respect that No, States are free to abandon the ratification process if they choose. It boils down to a decision on whether to respect the results of the referendums in France and Holland it is not up to Tony Blair to pronounce on a decision that can only be taken by the French and the Dutch leaders. If they take the view that they have asked their citizens for a mandate to ratify and that mandate has been refused, that is the end of the Constitution because it must be ratified by all 25 states. If on the other hand Chirac and Balkenende say the process should continue, they are saying they will not respect the results of the referendum, and intend to work around the no votes at a later date either by ignoring the votes and ratifying anyway or by asking the people to vote again.

Chirac has already written to the commission asking for the process to continue and Balkenende, in a press conference after the result had been announced, called for all other member states to continue with the ratification process. Thus both the French and the Dutch referendums are to be sidelined, this leaves Tony Blair as the only leader who has yet to agree to continue with the referendum. The meeting of the heads of state on 16th 17th June is going to be interesting and I suspect that we will have to wait until then to see if we in Britian are going to be allowed a voice in the process or if Blair will win the day, if he does that is still not the end, because they will be bringing in the major proposals anyway.