No France bashing intended, no doubt the UK is not paradise either.

Where I see a problem though is if one of the big beneficiaries, and obviously the principal architect, of Europe, is rejecting this treaty, where now? In truth it seemed to me the treaty was no more liberal than the current treaties. Possibly in the UK this does not worry us because we are already so used to other member state nationals working here. There's a French and an Italian lawyer down the corridor, my hair is cut by a Pole and my local pub has long had Czech barstaff.

In the old days, you might have gone away, come back with a more "french" approach, and if the UK rejected it, well, maybe the Islanders were more trouble than they're worth anyway. But I can't see the new members agreeing to anything that might look like freezing their workers out of the affluent western employment market. Indeed if we are going to develop eastern Europe, which is in all of our interests, we should be hoping that migrant workwers will come to the west for a while to earn wages that they will then use back in their own economies.

So it looks like an impasse. I imagine they will try again with a much, much shorter document covering only reforms in governance.

As for Fischler, at least she's honest.