Bye-bye Britain
The Telegraph editorializes on the EU constitution:

If anything, it is worse than expected. The past week saw some hopeful briefing to the effect that Britain had succeeded in removing the most objectionable clauses from the draft EU constitution. But the approved draft reveals no such thing.

Read the text for yourself: a summary appears on our news pages. Look at the number of areas in which EU jurisdiction is specified: economic policy, employment, foreign affairs, defence, monetary policy, trade, agriculture, fisheries, competition, transport, energy, immigration, social policy, consumer protection.

Three weeks ago, we warned that the only Whitehall ministry left wholly in control of its own affairs would be the Department of Health. Now, even this claim seems over-optimistic, public health having been included as an area where Brussels will have jurisdiction. Some tidying-up exercise!
...
This is it: the moment we have repeatedly been told would never come about. Forty-seven years after the Treaty of Rome, the EU is ceasing to be an association of states and becoming a state in its own right. In fact, it is adopting a more prescriptive and intrusive constitution than virtually any nation.
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The EU is to be given a "Minister for Foreign Affairs" and a unified diplomatic service. It will establish its own legal system, complete with a European Public Prosecutor and a federal police force, Europol. It will acquire legal personality, authorising it to take over from its member states in the UN, or other international bodies.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights will be given legal force, opening huge swathes of national life to the capricious rulings of European judges. A mechanism will be put in place to punish recalcitrant members by suspending their voting rights.

Faced with this litany, Labour ministers make two mutually contradictory claims. On the one hand, they tell us that this version is not final, and that the most obnoxious passages can still be removed in next year's intergovernmental conference. On the other, they tell us that it doesn't really amount to very much, which is why there is no need to hold a referendum.

Hmm, time for a little secession.