Nicholas Watt is the Guardian's European editor
EU justice commisioner Frano Frattini
Gerard Cerles/AFP/Getty ImagesHardline Eurosceptics, who spot a conspiracy around every dreary corridor in Brussels, have been made to look ridiculous today.
A plan by the European commission to strip EU member states of their veto over justice and home affairs - which had the sceptics fulminating - crashed and burned today when it was debated by national ministers at a meeting in Finland.
Anybody with an ounce of understanding of how the EU does it business knew that the proposal, which was the brainchild of the European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, would not fly in the current climate.
A whole range of countries were opposed for many different reasons, guaranteeing that the hapless Mr Barroso had set himself up for another fall.
Germany led the opposition because it regarded the idea as a dangerous attempt to "cherry pick" the EU constitution, which is lying in a coma after it was rejected last year by voters in France and the Netherlands. (The constitution proposed a similar idea, though a version of the veto would be maintained in a different form through an "emergency hand brake".)
Britain was divided. The Foreign Office thought Britain should accept the idea to move justice and home affairs from the EU's "inter-governmental pillar", where matters are decided solely by member states, to the "community pillar", where all the main institutions have a say. Such a move would end the national veto because matters are decided by qualified majority voting in the "community pillar" rather than by unanimity.
John Reid, the mildly Eurosceptic home secretary, was opposed. As Guardian Unlimited disclosed on Wednesday, Mr Reid appealed over the head of the Foreign Office to Downing Street, which backed him.
Britain decided to play a careful game in which ministers kept their powder dry to allow other countries to take the heat. This prompted Geoff Hoon, the Europe minister, to issue an equivocal statement earlier this week saying that Britain was studying the proposal carefully.
Eurosceptics went into paroxysms of excitement. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, fired off a letter to Mr Reid on Tuesday in which he declared: "To surrender the veto would directly contradict the pledge given by the former foreign secretary that 'there is no plan, proposal or intention to slip elements of the constitution through the back door'."
Simon Heffer, the Daily Telegraph columnist, spluttered in his column on Wednesday that Britain would never be the same again. Under the headline "Britons could all too soon become slaves of Europe," he wrote:
"The potential for damage to our freedoms if this happens is awesome: the end of habeas corpus, a threat to trial by jury and the capability of the EU to interfere in hitherto sovereign matters such as sentencing policy are but three of the consequences should our veto go."
Heffer, whose political hero is Enoch "Rivers of Blood" Powell, admitted that no decision would be taken today because Britain was only sending the junior home office minister, Joan Ryan. But he added: "The Finnish presidency of the EU wants to have the veto removed and by the end of its presidency in December."
A clear position did emerge today. Well over half of the EU's 25 members voiced opposition and only five supported the proposal. This means the matter will pass to the Germans - who are opposed - when they take over the EU's rotating presidency in January.
Heffer's column was a classic example of Eurosceptic conspiracy theory. The idea that Finland can impose its will on big countries like Britain and Germany is even more funny than the hapless Finnish presidency.
He painted the classic Eurosceptic picture: that Britain is dictated to by unaccountable EU institutions, like the commission, or world superpowers like the mighty Finnish presidency.
While Brussels has accrued significant powers over the last 50 years, is dangerously unaccountable and does come up with some bone-headed ideas, the real power still lies with the nation states. If they don't like a new proposal - as the voters of France and the Netherlands showed in last year's referendums on the EU constitution - they have a strong chance of blocking it.
The likes of Heffer never concede this political reality, a point illustrated in his column when he failed to mention that Britain would still keep a watered down veto even if the new proposal went through.
Under the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty, Britain has the right to "opt in" to all justice and home affairs legislation. Whatever happened that would stay, allowing Britain to steer clear of legislation it did not like.
