Blair claims, just like all the other 26 EU leaders, that he achieved something at the EU summit on the draft Treaty, last week. He says he prevented them from crossing his "red lines" - including his opt-outs on observing labour laws and human rights(!).

Of course, all of the EU leaders went back home claiming victory. The French PM, Sarkozy, for instance, said he had won the right for governments to "protect" their own national capitalists. This was because he had managed to delete, in the EU Treaty's "objectives", the commitment to free and "undistorted competition".

But as everyone pointed out, this "undistorted competition" has been kept everywhere else (in 13 places) and in the protocols. Indeed, Blair takes credit for ensuring this!

This is why it is nonsense to claim, as right-wing ranters do, that Blair "sold out" on obtaining the freedom of the British people from state interference (i.e., in this case, the right to subsidise companies)!

Anyway, the British capitalist class certainly does not want to deprive itself of all the state hand-outs, tax rebates and allowances, which it relies on! No, it is very much in favour of such "state interference"! As for keeping the British judiciary free, it remains the case that all EU Court decisions have to be endorsed by a British court before they are valid.

So all this hoo-hah over "sovereignty" and referendums is pure posturing. EU institutions have never had the means to dictate anything at all to the member states against the will of their governments i.e., the will of national capital. Neither will any new Treaty change that fact.