The British and the European constitution Finally, the British government has announced that it will hold a referendum on the European constitution. A United Kingdom referendum on the draft European constitution was always in the works. Inevitable No mattter what Tony Blair was stating officially, it has been dawning on the British government that the European constitution is not such a good idea after all. Indeed, the doubts the British government had over the European Constitution became clear when Blair played the somewhat perplexing role of just not quite working effectively enough with those resisting the constitution, that is Spain and Poland. According to SACI, French officials suspected that the British government was in fact working agaisnt a conclusion on the European constitutional draft while Spain and Poland took the blame. But this was bound to be the case because these countries made open statements as to their refusal to accept new voting weights. SACI says that since mid 2003 it has been clear that the British government has begun to sense that the Constitution is not necessarily good news. Not what it seems The analysis, even partially supported by Blair in his Commons annoucement, that the government has had to cave in to Conservative pressure and the ongoing campaigns by referenda groups, the Murdoch Group and AP Europe, is only partially true. Tony Blair is undertaking a strategic act which can provide the United Kingdom with more clout to get what it wants in the final form of the constitution. Unfortunately the demands made by the United Kingdom government have not been strong enough and broadly speaking overlook a range of fundamental British constitutional issues. Strategic analysts say that even if the UK government "succeeds" in achieving agreement on its "red lines" the package they will put to the British people will not gain acceptance. Blair more in touch with Europe than the UK This is paradoxical because Tony Blair has developed an edge in his understanding of European affairs which does not surface much simply because it upsets either the French or the German interests. For example Chirac, admittedly caught on a bad day, exploded when Blair, with justification, criticised the inequitous and wasteful agricultural policies of the European Union. Blair on this issue is less hypocritical than most other politicians. He stated correctly that it is no good talking about assisting in development when our agricultural policies undermine the exports of the very same countries we are stating we wish to help. Also, he fully understand that with enlargement the new balance of power greatly enhances german power. According to SEEL, Germany has been actively investing in Central Europe during the last 15 years and has built up a significant defacto economic and financial hegemony. This will eventually include Poland. This translates into massive voting power and an ability to buy off other small countries to tip the balance towards Germany's wishes, even with qualified majorities. For the United Kingdom and France, this means an absolute loss of power under the constitutional arrangements of population proportional voting. No respectable democrat can argue against voting weights being proportional to population numbers. This being the case it is becoming apparent that the best option is to kill off the European constitution. A gap - defence of the individual against arbirary governance Deft handling poor outputThe European constitution has been criticised by the UK-based European Campaign for Jury Rights (ECJR). The coordinator of the ECJR, Hector McNeill, predicted the outcome of the convention formed to draft the constitution, with some precision. He has become particularly critical of British politicians, of all colours, in both the UK and European parliaments for failing to fully comprehend and articulate what was at stake for Britain in terms of basic freedoms. Indeed he notes that this topic was not even mentioned at the convention. The British convention participants made no efforts at all to sustain such things as independent juries nor did they effectively question the lack of oversight of the juty-less European Court. As a result the current constitution represents a real danger of a European governance, administration and judiciary being capable of arbitrary, unchecked and damaging decision making affecting individuals or groups in Europe. Options for a European constitution McNeill has completed a book entitled, "Islands under threat" which sets out a range of alternatives to the current constitution which effectively contain German power whilst providing voting in proportion to the populations and includes decision making structures which sustain key aspects of the British constitution. Although McNeill severely criticises what he considers to be an endemic European tendency towards collectivism, his book can not be considered to be Eurosceptic. He is just as critical of the British political establishment for its failure, as he sees it, to uphold what is important to the people of Britain. Public information initiatives Amongst those who accurately predicted the "change" in UK government position is CybaCity, the UK-based political intelligence group. They have already set up two web sites to support the public dialogue on the British constitution and the UK referendum on the European constitution. These sites both have email list forums and printable briefs for group discussions. The referendum site has a voting system on key issues within the European constitution. Work commissioned by CybaCity includes a full description of teh British constitution and an impact analysis of the proposed European constitution on this. According to a CybaCity spokesman their sounding so far suggest that there is little real interest in the government's red lines and the arguments will involve other more basic issues.