It’s pretty hard writing an article about this doomed – for now – EU Constitution because it completely hasn’t grabbed the attention of the general public.

Even the thinking public, such as those of you reading this article or answering on-line polls of The Times, don’t seem particularly moved by this question.

Letter pages to a newspaper are quite an important barometer of what grabs the thinking public’s attention, and the big subjects lately have clearly been the anti abortion clause in the Constitution (our own Consti-tution, not the one Brussels sprouted!), the Commissioner for Children’s comments, animal cruelty (to animals and by animals) and all subjects related to taxes and our generally dirty environment and lawlessness.

These all grab the thinking public’s attention, whether you’re also a Xarabank loyalist or an avid newspaper reader or both.

The EU Constitution has almost been a non-issue here. And amazingly enough, both political parties agree with its ratification. It’s indeed a shame that they find it so easy to agree on areas where no votes can really be lost, or where the public has no real opinion. Because it is pretty obvious that we are all staggeringly uninformed or misinformed about the whole dreary subject.

It was also odd, but probably just a coincidence, that our deputy Prime Minister was trying to rally support for an anti abortion clause in our Consti-tution at a time when Europe-wise at least, attention was totally focussed on this dream of a European Constitution, which has now turned into a nightmare for its architects.

On the whole, though, the newly-acceded countries to the EU tend to favour it while the original members seem to be shunning it, or at least their voters are.

This is hardly surprising. Those of us who voted to become EU members in the last few years were already aware of this Constitution and sort of feel, as do our governments, that we were voting to take this on when we became members.

Those who have been members of the EU for ages, on the other hand, feel no such ambivalence and the “no” vote was very strong indeed in France and Holland.

Now it’s very easy to claim voters are just complaining about domestic problems but it runs much deeper than that. Those who have been EU members for longest are often the most disillusioned about the European dream, and seem to be wholeheartedly rejecting the idea of Europe becoming any sort of United States. People don’t want it and politicians should listen...

I think that, on the whole, the Brits were wise to shelve it but not attack it. First of all, it may come back in another form. This means it would be unwise to ratify it in its present form and then go back to the public with any changes, particularly if you have not had a referendum in the first place. Secondly, shelving it is the right response when the timing of something is not right and does not reflect the popular mood. It is true that governments don’t have to go back to the people incessantly with every item for a referendum, but ignoring the public’s mood is not advisable either.

Here, an on-line poll had over half against ratifying it. Of course the polls always represent the minority who think, read and answer these kinds of polls in the first place. But many people are just starting to wonder: “What exactly is in this thing for the normally docile Dutch and fiercely pro EU French to throw it out so forcefully?”

Until the public understands that, and still thinks it is in this country’s interest, we should shelve it. A referendum without us knowing the issues would be pointless. Remember we had years of campaigning and information to try and understand why we should become EU members in the first place.

We are as yet far away from being able to give an informed vote in this area. And I consider knee jerk voting or voting according to political allegiance to be unwise..

If government does feel it has the right and the mandate to ratify (and, amazingly, the opposition agrees), there is a duty to better inform the public on what they, through their parliamentary representatives, are actually ratifying

The vast majority don’t have a clue...