If Britain’s Conservative Party has an EU policy, it seems to be to tilt at windmills. If the Tories win power and find the Lisbon treaty is not already in force, they intend to scupper the supposedly integrationist treaty by calling a referendum in the UK and campaigning against it.

Under David Cameron’s otherwise centrist leadership, the party is also withdrawing its MEPs from the European People’s Party, with its Christian Democrat tinge and federalist instincts. These policies are nevertheless trying to slay a fabled giant that, as much as it ever existed, has long disappeared: unadulterated European federalism.