Battle resumes over EU constitution

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it's a duck.

That was William Hague's view of the evolving EU, and it pretty much sums up the current thinking of his party's leadership.

Tories believe EU is becoming superstate

Now the opposition believes the waddling, state-like beast currently known as the European Union has quacked.

By adding a constitution and president to its existing flag, anthem and law-making powers, the EU project is finally being revealed for what it is - the creation of a European superstate, they claim.

If the Labour government insists on supporting the new European constitution without asking the people what they think, it will amount to an historic betrayal.

It will mark the irreversible creation of a political union - the long-feared United States of Europe.

Deformed debate

It is a powerful argument which appeals as much to people's emotional commitment to Britain and latent fears of being governed by a "foreign" power as it does to the actual content of the constitution.

And it would come as no surprise if the demand for a referendum on the constitution gained widespread popular support.

After all, if the government can offer referendums on the creation of a mayor for Hartlepool, for example, why not for something as fundamental as this?

In any case, what harm can it do?

Straw and Blair have drawn red lines

Quite a lot, according to Downing Street thinking.

Tony Blair fears a referendum campaign would grossly deform the debate.

Instead of it being about the details of the constitution - which ministers insist pose no major threat to national sovereignty - it would, in effect, be a vote on whether the UK should remain a part of the evolving EU or pull out altogether.

Indeed, the government believes this is exactly what the Tories want.

Back door

Arch Eurosceptic Iain Duncan Smith has a not-so-secret agenda to withdraw from the EU, it claims.

And Mr Duncan Smith's past form as a leading Maastricht rebel who regularly harried his leader, John Major, over Europe plays to that allegation.

"Rubbish" insist the Tories. It is Labour that has the secret agenda - to drive the UK into a superstate through the back door.

They don't want a referendum on the constitution because they know they would lose it and, therefore, be forced to call a general election.

Hain has played down importance of constitution

There are key policies in the proposed constitution, such as an extension of majority voting and the weakening of the UK's voting strength compared to other states, that fundamentally destroy national sovereignty.

Ministers flatly deny that, insisting the constitution makes the division of powers between Brussels and the individual nation states clearer than ever before.

And in any case, the government has set non-negotiable red lines and would veto the entire project before crossing them.

Winners and losers

But it must be said, ministers have not helped their own case.

One minute the constitution is being described by Peter Hain - Britain's representative on the body which drew it up - as a tidying up exercise.

The next minute he is revealing that Tony Blair believes it is a fundamental development that will define Britain's relationship with the EU and have consequences lasting generations.

And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw takes the tack that it will actually strengthen Britain's nation statehood.

But this is only the start of what will be a lengthy period of negotiation over this document.

Tony Blair will travel to Rome next month for the formal launch of the intergovernmental conference which will then start the process of refining the draft constitution to meet every nation's demands.

By definition, some will win and some will lose. In many ways, that is when his troubles will really start.