Panic on the streets of Berlin, Paris and Brussels

The EU bosses are worried that if a Conservative government is elected in the UK before the Lisbon Treaty is put into force then a referendum called in the UK would vote their project down. Leaving aside the fact that if the referendum is certain to be defeated then why has the UK's Labour lickspittle government ratified it there is another worrying story emerging.

It seems that the German and French governments, as well as that of the Swedes who hold the rotating EU Presidency, are putting pressure on the Czech President Vaclav Klaus to sign the Treaty as Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, said to the signing ceremony in Poland "We do not need more delays". Meanwhile it is alleged that pressure is being put on the Czech Parliament to persuade their stubborn President to sign the Lisbon treaty, talk of impeachment proceedings or maybe stripping him of his treaty-signing powers is rife. Either of these routes would mean the Treaty being signed before any possible UK general election.

Sordid isn't it? The EU pushing a small member country to sign-up and shut-up so as to ensure that the popultaion of one of the big EU countries is denied a referendum, a referendum that they were promised by all their political parties ahead of the last general election. You might be excused for wondering why the EU are so desperate to impose the Lisbon Treaty if it is just a "tidying up exercise". Maybe it is somewhat more than that... We know it, they know it; it's just that they will continue to lie about it right up until the Treaty is in place and we are subsumed, even more than we are now, into the EU super-state.

It's the Czechs again

It was the Czechs that Neville Chamberlain sold out at Munich in 1938 and the Czechs (along with the Poles) that Barack Obama has hugely upset with his breaking of the Bush era promise to site anti-ballistic missile systems in Eastern Europe.

Now the Czech President, Václav Klaus, is apparently planning to have a group of loyal senators in the Czech Upper House refer the Lisbon treaty back to the Czech constitutional court for a second time; this could delay ratification of the Treaty for between three and six months. A six month delay would not be quite long enough for a David Cameron government to be elected and promise to hold the referendum that the UK Labour government promised but failed to deliver on, but seven months would be. Of course the UK have already signed the treaty, you remember Gordon Brown's courageous separate signing (lack of) ceremony, so with a referendum to organise maybe the Czechs could delay by say nine months.

Of course the EU is furious and worried that the Czechs are delaying matters, Nicolas Sarkozy, who helped to draw up the treaty after the French and Dutch voted against its, almost identical in effect, predecessor, the EU Constitution, has warned Prague that it faces "consequences" if it does not swiftly follow an Irish "yes" with its own ratification. The EU powers fear that an incoming Conservative government might derail the Lisbon Treaty with a referendum. The fact that 70% of Brits questioned want a referendum and intend to vote "NO" is reason enough for the EU and their placemen around the EU governments to ensure that their voice is not heard; the EU is not interested in democracy after all. Just think of all that hard work by such as Peter Mandelson, the man of whom Adam Boulton apparently said:

"By propping up Mr Brown, Lord Mandelson has delayed the Election - and quite possibly facilitated the ratification of the treaty. This will doubtless endear him to EU leaders, who in turn might look all the more favourably on choosing Mr Blair as their president.'"

Oddly the only other country that has yet to ratify the Treaty, assuming the population of Ireland fall into line,will be Poland. In 1938 Czechoslovakia was abandoned to the Nazis by a West who saw it as a "far away country about which we know little". In 1939 Poland was invaded by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Maybe that history helps to explain why these countries are more than a little wary of huge superstates looking to subsume them.