BRITAIN: "The question will be on the treaty. But the implications go far wider. It is time to resolve once and for all whether this country, Britain, wants to be at the centre and heart of European decision-making or not; time to decide whether our destiny lies as a leading partner and ally of Europe or on its margins. Let the Eurosceptics whose true agenda we will expose, make their case Let the issue be put. Let the battle be joined."
With those words Tony Blair yesterday fired the first shots in what promises to be a protracted Westminster battle over the proposed new constitution for the enlarged European Union. And a dispassionate verdict in this morning's British press would surely cede first blood to the prime minister.
Certainly, if he felt any embarrassment at announcing that there would be a British referendum after all (and without actually uttering the dreaded 'R' word during his formal statement to MPs) Mr Blair made a decent fist of concealing it. Nor, at least among the obviously well-organised and voluble loyalists on the Labour backbenches, was there any hint of nervousness about this most spectacular U-turn of the Blair years.
On the contrary, they cheered the battling premier as he finally discovered he was possessed of a reverse gear and roared off in the opposite direction. The former Europe Minister, now Commons leader, Peter Hain once famously described the new constitution as a "tidying-up" exercise when advising those demanding a referendum to pack their placards and go home.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw once patiently explained there was no need for a referendum because the constitution would not alter the fundamental relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU. And in somewhat more truculent form the prime minister's spokesman had demanded "what part of 'No' do you not understand?' when seeking to persuade sceptical journalists that the referendum demanded by the Tories and the Eurosceptic press was not going to happen.
Yesterday it fell to Mr Blair to suggest it now will - not because the proposed treaty really has huge constitutional significance - but rather because the Tories would change Britain's fundamental relationship with Europe should the electorate ever prove foolish enough to elect Michael Howard and give him the opportunity to make good his promise to re-negotiate the whole thing.
Indeed listening to Mr Blair it was almost possible to imagine this had all been an elaborate New Labour plot, his opposition to a referendum a hoax maintained only until Mr Howard had turned up the volume sufficiently before shooting his fox by granting him the public vote he had called for.
Utterly shameless, of course. Politically very effective, too. And yet, not quite the whole story. Ironically it fell to the pro-European Tory MP Ian Taylor to provide the missing bit of the script. "The prime minister has done a handstand so the Sun can shine out of part of his anatomy," he complained. Got it in one.