The London Times today has a report on that recent TV survey (discussed a day or so ago on the always ahead-of-its-time Corner) showing that the ‘no’ side was pulling ahead in the Dutch referendum on the draft EU ‘constitution’. Meanwhile, the Dutch PM (no hero, despite his uncanny resemblance to Harry Potter) is saying that a no vote will “harm the reputation of the Netherlands internationally”.

That’s nonsense, but more importantly it doesn’t matter.

The Dutch people would vote according to their interests – and only their interests. The demands of some imagined ‘international community’, in reality the international bureaucratic class, are an impertinence and should be an irrelevance.

And there’s more here from the Daily Telegraph:

“A staff member of the finance ministry asked not to be named as he admitted that he would be voting No. “There should have been a referendum on the euro, there should be a referendum on Turkish entry,” he said. “I’m voting against the constitution because politicians cannot tell me why I should be voting for it.”

Of course, they cannot. Admitting that the purpose of this constitution (so beloved, apparently by Condi Rice) is the overthrow of what little remains of national sovereignty in favour of a corrupt – and unaccountable – elite.

That’s not really a vote winner, is it?

UPDATE

Arjan at Zacht Ei tells it how it is:

“True, rejecting the constitution won’t bring back the guilder. But we were cheated back then. First, by allowing Greece into the Economical and Monetary Union while their economy didn’t meet the criteria. Second, by diluting the guilder to 90 percent of its real value only to please Germany.We were robbed. And you simply don’t make new deals with people who’ve cheated you in the past without them having made amends or even having offered an apology. In other words, saying that this referendum isn’t about the euro is the same as a salesman telling you there’s nothing wrong with his camper vans, while you are still paying off the garage bills for the crappy car he sold you back in 1999.”

Zo is dat.