The latest proposals from Valery Giscard d'Estaing's blueprint for federation by another name has just been published.

This Constitution, if adopted, will not only hand more power to remote and unaccountable EU institutions it will also add significant costs onto business and damage Britain's competitiveness in the global market place. The Charter of Fundamental Rights will prove costly as will the Union co-ordinating the UK's economic, employment and social policies. Britain taking lessons from the European Union over such matters (EU policies have helped to create high unemployment on the continent) is truly ironic.

It will also undermine the freedom of Britain to set its own foreign and defence policy. Tony Blair must wake up and realise that there can be no more grandstanding for him on the world stage if an EU Foreign Minister and EU President are created, unless of course he sees himself in either of those roles.

David Heatcoat-Amory says, "the Foreign Office 'triumph' in getting Giscard to drop the word federal has proved to come at a high cost. For instance, while 'Federal' has gone out a common defence identity for Europe has crept back in."

New Labour will try and spin this draft as a much watered-down document, they may even claim it a success. Yet in reality it will endorse Eurocreep and gives too much away from our parliament to the European Court of Justice for Britain to still call itself an independent nation-state.

This must not be forced upon the British people without the Government first winning their consent in a referendum.