BRITAIN: Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw has fuelled speculation that the British referendum on the new European Constitution will take place in March 2006.
As a matter of practicality, Mr Straw said a referendum next year would be "almost impossible" because Britain assumes both the EU presidency and the leadership of the G8.
And Downing Street insisted Mr Straw had done nothing more than set out "the realities of the timing", and that no definite decision had been reached "not least because Parliament decides."
But by seeming to confirm "early 2006" as the Blair government's target date Mr Straw provoked immediate warnings that the Constitution is therefore likely to feature heavily in the general election expected next summer.
The Vote No campaign director Mr Neill O'Brien said: "By effectively naming the date for the referendum, Jack Straw has fired the starting gun on the constitution debate. The government might not want to talk about the constitution ahead of the election, but our campaign is stepping up now."
That campaign saw the launch of a new cinema advert to coincide with yesterday's signing ceremony in Rome, which Conservative shadow foreign secretary Mr Michael Ancram declared was "the opposite of democracy in action."
Confirming the Conservative Party's determined opposition to the constitution, Mr Ancram said: "The pomp and ceremony of signing a treaty which the British people have indicated in opinion poll after opinion poll they don't want shows, in my view, a contempt for the people."
And UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Mr Roger Knapman claimed the implementation of the treaty was being "jammed down the throats of national governments even before the ink had dried in the Commission's rush toward a federal state." Mr Knapman - whom UKIP MEP Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk wants to replace as leader - went on: "The euro-apologists have long claimed that the constitution gives national governments a greater say. The truth is that it is being implemented before it has undergone any parliamentary scrutiny anywhere in the EU. The idea that the Commission should wait at least until one country has given its electorate an opportunity to say No is clearly alien."
Liberal Democrat spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell welcomed the signing, saying: "This document is a sensible rationalisation of the existing EU treaties and takes account of the enlargement of the Union to 25 members.
"It is in the interests of the people of the UK, and we have nothing to fear from it. No one should be deceived by Tory party scare-mongering."
CONSTITUTION: the provisions
The constitution, agreed by EU leaders in June, is designed to make the enlarged 14-member bloc run smoothly. Its main provisions are: