It looks as if the British government, seeing the way the European Union’s proposed constitution flopped in votes in France and the Netherlands, has decided to follow a new twist on an old adage:
“Quit while you’re behind.”
Reuters reports that the constitution is basically considered a dead issue in London:
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is expected on Monday to shelve plans for a referendum in Britain on the new European Union constitution, already overwhelmingly rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands.
The move is one step short of publicly declaring the constitution dead, an act for which no EU government wants to take the lead for fear of being blamed for its demise.
However, political analysts say it is in effect the death knell for a charter that advocates argue is vital to streamline the 25-nation bloc’s cumbersome bureaucracy but opponents say would move too much power to Brussels.
“I will be amazed if Straw doesn’t explicitly or implicitly make it clear that Britain will not go ahead with the referendum plans,” Anthony King, professor of politics at Essex University, told Reuters.
My guess is that he will signal — even if he doesn’t say in as many words — that he and the British government regard the constitution as dead,” he said after voters in two of the EU’s founder member states threw the bloc into crisis by rejecting the charter in referendums last week.
Straw is due to address parliament at 3:15 p.m. on Monday. When the government announced its referendum plan late last year, it was clear the intention was to hold it in the first few months of 2006.
The air of doom and gloom is confirmed by a piece appearing in England’s Telegraph — which basically says Prime Minister Tony Blair is now giving up the EU ghost:
Tony Blair has given up on Europe as an issue worth fighting for, senior allies of the Prime Minister have told The Sunday Telegraph.
A leading Blairite cabinet minister made the admission last night as the European Union descended into deeper turmoil, with doubts surfacing over the future of the single currency.
Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of his administration on to poverty in the Third World this week during talks with President Bush, has told his closest allies: “Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not.”
The signal is an astonishing U-turn for a leader who said three years ago that the euro was “our destiny” and who announced a British referendum by proclaiming: “Let the battle be joined.” But one of his closest allies said that Mr Blair no longer believed that putting Britain at the heart of Europe could be his legacy: “Europe is back to the drawing board. Africa will become more important.”
Some now say that the EU Constitution fiasco means Blair is needed more than ever. The Scotsman:
Tony Blair was today urged by his old ally, Peter Mandelson, to stay on as Prime Minister in order to sort out the crisis in the European Union following the French and Dutch “no� votes.
It had been widely expected Mr Blair would stand down after the UK referendum, which had been due to take place early next year, to make way for Chancellor Gordon Brown.
However Mr Mandelson – who is now Britain’s EU commissioner – said that events in Europe could give him a “fresh calling�.
“What he’s got to do is help other European member states and heads of government come to terms with what’s happened, understand, realise how Europe’s got to move to a different place if it’s going to overcome that malaise about Europe that exists amongst the public,� he told ITV1’s Jonathan Dimbleby programme.
“I think he can help do that, so I think that he’s got a great contribution to make.�
His comments are likely to infuriate his long-time rival, Mr Brown. Although Mr Blair has said that he intends to serve a full third term, most MPs expect him to stand down long before then.
Prediction: the drive to come up with a workable EU constitution isn’t over by a longshot — as this shorter (perhaps more sellable) version pitched by the Daily Telegraph shows.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.