MAIL COMMENT: Ireland's courage, Britain's challenge

Of course, nobody in Brussels dreamed the Treaty would suffer such an embarrassing setback.

Ever since France and Holland rejected the constitution in 2005, eurocrats have schemed to reintroduce the measure in another guise, while ensuring Europe's 500million voters have no say on how their lives are run.

Thus Brussels cynically framed the Treaty in achingly obscure language to disguise its threat to national sovereignty.

Businessman Declan Ganley was a key figure in the no campaign against the EU's Lisbon Treaty

Thus it sought to chill the blood by warning of 'chaos' if it wasn't nodded through. Thus it tried to prevent further defeats by discouraging referendums.

So in 26 of the EU's 27 member states  -  including Britain  -  the issue is being left in the hands of politicians.

Could there be a more depressing example of the damage being done to our democracy than the way Labour has broken its promises of a referendum?

Or anything more unedifying than the squalid performance of the Lib Dems who promised a referendum, abstained when the issue came up in the Commons and voted against it in the Lords?

So the stage seemed set for another European stitch-up. Only the Irish would hold a referendum, because they are bound to do so by their own constitutional laws. And anyway, nobody expected little Ireland to cause problems.

But something quite astonishing has happened. The Irish have become ever more disenchanted by a political elite that  -  as in Britain  -  is remote, unresponsive, and up to its neck in sleaze.

Voters were even more disenchanted with a Treaty that nobody understood and that even Prime Minister Brian Cowen said he hadn't read properly.

This wretched document does nothing about EU corruption or waste, the disgrace of the Common Agricultural Policy, the ruinous fisheries policy or the embezzlement that is being covered up, as we reveal on Pages 30-31 today, in a European parliament riddled with sleaze. No wonder the Irish rebelled.

And now? In theory, the Treaty should be as dead as a dodo. The measure can't come into force until it is unanimously accepted by all its members.

So can we now expect a contrite Brussels to abandon its imperial pretensions? Dream on.

Haven't we been here before? When the Danes voted against the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the EU ordered them to run their referendum again.

The same thing happened to the Irish when they rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001. On past form, the EU will keep trying to sneak the EU constitution in through the back door.

Isn't all this a chance for Gordon Brown? Nothing  -  not even our current economic vicissitudes  -  has done him more damage than his refusal to honour his promise to hold a referendum.

The public has not forgiven him for breaking his word. But doesn't this result give him a wonderful opportunity to think again?

Using the Irish vote, he could justify a change of tack, offer Britain a referendum and do much to restore his reputation.

For David Cameron, too, this result is a challenge. Though he is genuinely against the Treaty, he has yet to campaign against it with the passion it deserves, because he fears too enthusiastic a display of euroscepticism will remind voters of the Tories' past difficulties on this issue.

But shouldn't the courage of the Irish give him new confidence to put this issue centre stage? What a tragedy if our politicians failed to grasp this opportunity to restore some integrity to British democracy.