David Cameron’s veto of the proposed new European constitution was the right decision, possibly for the wrong reasons. As has been explained ad nauseam, the British prime minister was heavily influenced both by the perceived need to satisfy his Tory backbenchers and by one interpretation of the needs of the City of London. It is difficult to say whether the proposed rules would have done more to promote much-needed banking reform or to harm the legitimate interests of the City as a top export earner and source of employment. But as the European Union has been lurching for years in the wrong direction, a line had to be drawn somewhere and this is where the opportunity arose.
A statement frequently repeated by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, is: “Without the euro there can be no Europe.” This is a banal untruth, uttered with an air of spurious profundity designed to embarrass people not on board for their project. Europa in Greek mythology was