The core fallacy here is comparing the EU treaties and documents with constitutions: it's like saying the body of UK law should be written on one side of A4 paper.

This is an interesting perspective for two reasons: First, comparing the treaty to 'the body of UK law' suggests that it is reasonable to expect people (or parliaments) to take an up-or-down vote on 'the body of UK law' - is there any democratic country in the world that does things that way?

Secondly, I disagree vehemently with the assertion that comparing the treaty to a constitution is a fallacy. A document that establishes division of power between states, a federal level, and the People is, by definition, a constitution (or a constitutional amendment). The fact that it's bundled with a bunch of other legislation does not make it any less so.

As an example, would the Danish constitution cease being a constitution if it was packaged along with some copyright law, a bit of environmental regulation, some agreements on infrastructure policy, etc.? I would say no, that wouldn't make it any less a constitution, it would only make it more of a mess.

Separate the wheat from the chaff is what I say: Let us have a Unionwide referendum on the parts that govern how the Union is structured and how the power is distributed (i.e. the constitutional parts) and leave all the other stuff (infrastructure, environmental policy, deregulation) for the parliament to sift through.

But of course, that would require admitting that the Union is, or will shortly become, a federation. And for some reason our politicians are scared by that perspective.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.