Telegraph | News | Blair gives up on his EU dream

Meaning that he will not seek ratification of the EU Constitution, either in Parliament or by "going to the country" or any variation on that theme.

A finding of very heavy opposition to the very idea of the EU, much less subsuming Britain to a single continental government without a referendum, might have weighed in Blair's decision. But then again, Tony Blair does not always wet his finger and thrust it into the political wind. Did he do that in the context of the War Against Terror? Indeed he did not. Give the man credit where credit is due. So maybe--just maybe--he has genuinely recognized that the whole EU scheme is too badly flawed to salvage.

Things are going so badly for the EU that many countries, Italy among them, are threatening to go back to their own national currencies. The French hate that very idea, of course--Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, says that the very idea of abandoning the euro is absurd. But he might have no say in the matter, after his countrymen were the first to vote "Non" to the EU constitution.