I visited Spain this week to take part in debates before their referendum on the new EU constitution. As in Ireland, I'm impressed with the quality of their debate when compared with the UK’s. Spain has its eurosceptics and its No campaigners, but they tend to be much more moderate (and honest!) than our own myth-makers.

It’s also interesting to notice that the debate in Spain goes in the opposite direction to the UK debate. There, the No campaign’s main objection to the constitution is that it is too cautious, too nation-statist, too British. This is actually the case in much of the EU – the British conspiracy theorists who pretend that the constitution is a great leap forward in federalism are definitely in the minority.

That’s another reason why a no vote would be a rather dangerous leap in the dark, by the way. If we reject the constitution, it would not be a simple matter of amending the draft and trying again. After all, what would a No vote mean? That it’s too integrationist, as our eurosceptics think, or not integrationist enough, as the Spanish No campaigners think? That it’s too British, as much of the continent thinks - or that it's not British enough, as the British think?