Lisbon is as close as we’re going to get to a United States of Europe

THE Lisbon referendum has left a bitter aftertaste. It was a convincing win for the Yes side on a decent turnout, but there is a strong sense that another No would not be accepted in Brussels. It wasn’t last year, after all: the Irish people were denounced as ungrateful ignoramuses. What kind of country is it that gives everyone a say on changing their constitution anyway, the Eurocrats asked? Answer: a democracy.

It is not the Irish people’s voice that EU officials respect, but their ability to give the “right” answer. The people are not there to decide, merely to rubber stamp. The EU is becoming a union of rulers united in mistrust of their citizens.

The campaigns themselves — both Yes and No — were pretty unedifying too. The No side was accused of being against economic recovery while the Yes side was portrayed as somehow anti-Christian. Some of the claims — about jobs, about the minimum wage — were pretty fantastic.

No one can argue with the result, however, and there might even be a juicy Irish portfolio in the next EU Commission as a reward.

The Lisbon Treaty is almost a fait accompli but not quite. The Poles have signed and the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, is strongly hinting it is too late for him to stop the document taking effect. The Czech constitutional court has agreed to fast-track its examination of a complaint that the treaty violates their constitution.

So long as Klaus jibs at signing, he will face mounting threats such as ensuring the next Czech commissioner gets responsibility for paper clips, but Klaus is undeterred. He is now holding out for clarification or derogation from the charter of rights because he fears it would allow foreign judges to decide the property claims of Sudeten Germans thrown out of the then Czechoslovakia after the Second World War.

If Klaus can delay his signature until the Conservatives take office in Britain — after the general election that is due by next June — David Cameron will hold a referendum on the treaty. That is not an impossibility given the opaque nature of Czech constitutional law. The result would almost certainly be a No, and that would be the end of the Lisbon Treaty (Equality is fine in principle, but big states count for more than little states, you see).

Still, the likelihood is that Klaus will find some face-saving device and sign before any British general election, to the great relief of the Brussels bureaucrats. What will the British Tories do then? Cameron insists he “would not let matters rest there” and “will set out how we would proceed in those circumstances if, and only if, they happen”.

Britain’s most senior elected Conservative, Boris Johnson, has caused ripples in his party by stating a more definitive position. He wants a referendum on Lisbon no matter what stage the ratification process is at. And the blond bombshell is not alone. Cameron will be under huge pressure to take a hard line on Europe — from much of the British media, most of his party members and many of his newly-elected MPs.

But to reopen the treaty process after it had run its course would be tantamount to refusing to co-operate in the procedures of the EU. Legally, Lisbon would have taken effect and could not then be amended or revoked except by further treaty. Britain would need to get the agreement of all other member states for that.

To hold a referendum in those circumstances really would be tantamount to a vote on Britain’s whole EU membership. What better way of making the EU accept British demands for concessions than threatening just that, Cameron’s hardliners argue?

In the real world, there is no way the Conservatives would spend their first months in power expending political capital on a referendum on Europe if Lisbon had already been ratified. As a political priority, Britain’s debt crisis puts Europe in the shade.

But can they just hack the treaty? That seems unlikely too. One option would be to call a referendum, asking voters if they wanted some powers returned, then use a subsequent Yes vote as a mandate for taking a hard line in negotiations. Cameron has already hinted that he has the EU’s social and employment legislation in his sights and would like some of the powers over justice matters repatriated too.

Ironically, the Tories become even more exasperated and truculent and unable when one particular apparent concession to Britain is mentioned: Tony Blair as president of the Council of Ministers. Or, as Boris Johnson puts it, “Blair suddenly emerging, suddenly pupating into an intergalactic spokesman for Europe”.

The thought of British voters kicking Labour out only to see its grinning former leader secretly returning to power by the back door thanks to a deal stitched together by unelected expense form-fillers drives many Tories mad.

But how realistic is the prospect of President Blair anyway? Some Euro-federalists, that shrinking band of United States of Europe enthusiasts, turn almost as pale at the idea as the Tories. Where is his commitment — in deeds as well as words — to the European project, they ask? Did Blair take Britain into the euro or the Schengen borderless area? He did not. Did he support George Bush over Iraq? Yes, he did. Does he believe in free markets? Yes, he does.

Others, such as the Swedes, worry that a “big name” would crowd out smaller countries. And would the likes of Sarkozy, Merkel and Barroso really want to share the international limelight? On the other hand, they might rather enjoy poking David Cameron in the eye, especially after he withdrew from the group in the European Parliament to which all their parties belong.

FRANKLY, though, it is still not clear what the EU president’s role will entail in practice. Will he be a leader, a deal-maker, an administrator or simply a spokesperson for Europe? Whichever it is, he will be the face of the European institutions for ordinary men and women in the strasse.

Other names have been bandied about, mainly nonentities from the Benelux countries. Not one, bar Felipe Gonzales, the former Spanish prime minister, has any name recognition whatsoever beyond their own countries’ borders. Gonzales’s problem is that he can’t really speak English which has replaced French as the language of EU business since the eastern states joined.

The one good thing about the acrimonious Lisbon ratification process is that it has killed off any federalist dreams of yet more empire-building for a generation.

Lisbon was eight years in the making (and counting). Everyone is exhausted. Does any future Taoiseach want to go through what Brian Cowen has gone through? Would the Germans risk a challenge by their own constitutional court? And what would be the point of even proposing a deeper relationship if the Tories are in power in Britain?

Tony Blair might help the Eurocrats make a virtue out of necessity. His communications skills would help the EU get its message across and inspire it to move on from sterile institutional questions towards global challenges such as the environment, energy security, relations with Russia and how to keep free trade free. On these questions, Ireland and Britain are broadly in agreement. And, ironically, that includes the Tories.