BRITAIN: Conservative suspicions were freshly aroused yesterday as British prime minister Tony Blair suggested there might still be life in the European constitution following a "serious debate" about Europe's economic and social model.
At the same time, foreign secretary Jack Straw repeated his view that elements of the proposed constitution could be salvaged and introduced without a referendum in the UK.
In an apparent olive branch to France and Germany, Mr Blair insisted the British government was not pronouncing the constitution "dead" as a result of the French and Dutch No votes. And Mr Straw said it was "conceivable" that Britain's referendum - which he postponed on Monday - could be resurrected if circumstances changed.
In an interview in the Financial Times given before his departure for Washington, Mr Blair said: "A Europe at 25 can't work as the Europe at 15, and when you enlarge to 27, and then 28, you know we will need that set of rules, and it is not for Britain to turn round and say the constitution is dead, and that is why we are not saying that today."
However Mr Blair also rejected what he termed "the second extreme" - the suggestion that EU leaders should "plough on regardless as though the votes [in France and the Netherlands] hadn't happened."
He suggested it had been necessary to suspend further parliamentary debate about the constitution because of the uncertainty over its future. However, he maintained: "I'm not saying I've suddenly woken up and decided the constitution is the wrong thing for Europe to do. It's a perfectly sensible way forward. And at some point Europe is going to have to adopt rules. You can't have a six-month rotating presidency. It's impossible to do that."
However, Mr Blair said beginning the debate and establishing some consensus about Europe's economic future was essential to winning back public trust. He said in his view, the European public was not dismissing the importance of integration.
"But they are simply saying: 'We've got immediate problems on jobs, on the impact of globalisation, on security, on immigration, on organised crime - and what do you, the political leadership of Europe, say about those issues to us?'" Mr Blair said Europe's elite must provide the answers: "I think in order to make progress we have to answer those in a clear way. And in particular we have got to show how you can have a new European social model for today's world."
And he professed himself confident that if Europe conducted the necessary debate, "you will find that people will then give us permission to take Europe forward in what is a necessary set of new rules".
Maintaining his markedly conciliatory tone, Mr Blair also rejected a Eurosceptic position and sought to dispel the notion that he is determined to sell the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" free-market model as the only way forward. "Britain could adopt a Eurosceptic position and say we should get rid of this social dimension to Europe," he said. "But I do not believe Europe should relinquish a social model. We should have a strong social model - but one for today's world."
Mr Straw told the BBC's Today programme that existing proposals to give national parliaments greater say over decisions of the European Commission, and to change the structure of voting in the European Council to reflect the balance of population in the enlarged EU, could go ahead without a referendum.
However, Conservative foreign affairs spokesman Liam Fox said "any transfer of power" from Britain to Brussels must be subject to a vote by the people.