Join me in a little thought experiment. For several months now, Tony Blair has been insisting that the European constitution would be a defeat for Euro-federalism. Within hours of appending his name to it, he announced that, far from creating a superstate, the constitution was about ‘sovereign nation-states co-operating together’.
Let us play along with the Prime Minister for a moment. Let us imagine that he really has seen off the Euro-zealots and protected the supremacy of national governments. What, in these circumstances, might we reasonably expect the constitution to contain?
First, there would be a proper division of powers. The EU would be confined to cross-border matters, while what one might call ‘behind border’ issues would devolve back to the member states. Brussels would continue to have a role in such areas as international trade, environmental pollution, and elements of aviation. But the nations would retrieve control over swaths of policy now within EU competence: agriculture, fisheries, social policy, immigration, defence, together with all aspects of industrial relations, employment law and indirect taxation which are not truly necessary for the functioning of the single market.
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