An EU treaty referendum would be un-British

Not having read the EU treaty - it would be double-Dutch to me - the last thing I want is the responsibility of deciding if Britain should sign or not. Possibly those calling for a referendum have read it, or intend to. Possible but not likely.

In other words, if there is a referendum, most of the participants will not know enough about the question to answer it in a thoughtful way. They will be voting on a gut feeling; a gut feeling which, in many cases, will have little to do with the details of the treaty itself.

Gut feelings, of course, are not to be despised since on some occasions they can go to the heart of the matter better than more subtle reasoning. This particular EU treaty, however, does not strike me as one of them.

Whether to go into Europe in the first place, now that most certainly was a gut feeling question which

It is possible that those calling for a referendum on the new EU treaty have read it – but not likely

should have been put to a referendum. But this new treaty sounds with me like a small step compared to that great plunge and whether, on balance, it would be in Britain's interest to take it is a question for the poor devils in Parliament whose job it is to study the treaty in detail.

Advocates of the referendum who cry out that this is not democratic really are wide of the mark. True, it is not plebiscitary democracy - a form of democracy very popular on the Continent, which this country has always abhorred - but rather parliamentary democracy. The sort of democracy which, in the past, has served this country so well.

Of course Parliament may get it wrong. But in that case we can always blame the MPs, rather than ourselves!