When the real meaning and implication of something ends up hidden behind a thousand clauses, whose opinion do I take on board when I am trying to make some kind of judgement about what it means to my country? It's no different to most other political issues, I know - that different sides will all put their own selective spin on it.
I don't even know what I'm saying anymore other than I generally wish that people were able to access and understand the important issues that they vote on. Ad astra per aspera
But currently it's one big pile of confusion. There are some legal obligations which some states have opted out of, and some stuff about who's in the new parliament, and Europe probably isn't trying to federalise or become a new country, but there's a sort of very understated suggestion that this might not be an entirely bad thing to consider in the future - and even an even more implicit suggestion that while some people want this badly, others would rather make their grandmothers drink Sarkozy's old bathwater than allow it to happen, even over their decomposing carcasses.
And so on. Clarity and simplicity are not much in evidence.
The reason they're not in evidence is because there's very little agreement about the point of the exercise. This is a fall-back CYA position result from the failure of the 'proper' constitution, which was badly argued, badly designed, and 'sold' to the public with a miserable lack of sensitivity which had the happy effect of confirming many people in their worst views of the EU.
So now we have something which agrees that more business support will be good for business, and that a Foreign Minister is needed, and er - some other stuff. More or less.
Only no one is going to be allowed to vote on it. (Because that's the only real reason this is NotAConstitution.)
The Declaration of Independence it isn't.
