In one of his most celebrated remarks, Jean Monnet told a sceptical Sir Stafford Cripps in 1950: "You are realists and will adjust to the facts when you see we have succeeded". Quoting that remark yesterday, the British prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, said it was time for his country to adjust to its European destiny, whose success is all the more necessary for Britain in an unstable world.
Mr Blair's speech is one of the most positive ever made by a British prime minister on Europe and the culmination of a series. Its sharp, historical self-criticism of Britain's missed opportunities since the 1950s is all the more significant for being made in Birmingham and not in Warsaw, Berlin or Chicago. Similar speeches laid Mr Blair open to the criticism that they were made for foreign consumption, not for British voters still afflicted by a delusionary Euroscepticism he has been reluctant to confront.
Mr Blair took on these critics directly yesterday: "So we said it wouldn't happen. Then we said it wouldn't work. Then we said we didn't need it. But it did happen. And Britain was left behind". Across a range of central national interests, he argued, from the economy to the environment to defence, Britain is and must continue to be a fully participating member of the European Union. He cited the December 1999 St Malo defence agreement with France as an example of how to initiate and shape a developing policy in Britain's interest - unlike the missed opportunity of the Common Agricultural Policy.
This was a refreshingly candid speech, repeating again and again the theme that no country, in today's world, can protect its interests by going alone. Mr Blair put the question of whether the UK will join the euro squarely and properly in this political context - rather than in the predominantly economic sphere favoured by the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown.
All eyes will now be on the two most powerful men in the British government to see if they will bring the euro issue to a referendum in this parliamentary term. Ireland will watch this drama in full recognition of its importance for the future of this island and its relations with Britain.