Miliband's constitutional muddle

Glutton for punishment that I am, I watched all of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee's cross-examination of David Miliband on Tuesday (you can share my pain by going to the committee's website). Most of the press coverage has focused on the angry exchanges between the Foreign Secretary and the MPs, and particularly his justified fury at the invocation by the chairman, Michael Connarty, of the Munich agreement and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. This was a deplorable allusion, and Mr Miliband had a duty as well as a right to express the strongest possible objections.

That aside, the hearings were also a fascinating - if often impenetrable - exploration of the legal ramifications of the EU Reform Treaty which Gordon Brown and his fellow heads of government will try to sign off in Lisbon. Not since Bill Clinton said that it all depends what you mean by 'is' has so much been said about a single word: in this case, 'shall', when applied to the supposedly new rights (or duties?) of national parliaments to get involved in the governance of the EU.

The session also revealed in eye-watering detail how much doubt still clings to the Government's famous 'red lines'. We know that Britain has a special right, shared with Ireland, to opt in to justice and home affairs policies. But how much do we know about the new threat of unspecified 'financial consequences' if we are judged to have caused difficulties in the passage of such proposals?

And what of the Charter of Fundamental Rights? If, as Mr Miliband says, it creates nothing and merely reasserts rights that exist in the system already, why is it needed at all, and why did the Government initially struggle to stay out of it altogether? The Foreign Office lawyers who accompanied their boss at least admitted that the full impact of the Charter will not be known until the courts get to work on it.

Not for the faint-hearted. If you want a quicker guide to just how much is at stake at Lisbon, consult Open Europe's very handy pre-summit briefing here.