Back in 2005, the French people voted by a substantial margin to reject the European Constitution, and days later the Dutch rejected it by an even larger margin. The document contained its own ratification criteria. It required all countries to ratify, yet two major EU founder-members rejected it.

If democracy means anything, the constitution is dead. The people have spoken. But the European élites were not going to give up so easily. They declared a pause for reflection, although (as Quentin Letts said in the FT) it has proved to be all pause and no reflection. And now, without a backward glance at the voters of France and Holland , President-in-Office Angela Merkel is determined to carry through the original document, with no more than cosmetic changes, and have it in place before the 2009 euro-elections.

We hear the EU described as "A union of values based on democracy and the rule of law". Yet Merkel demonstrates a contempt for democracy and for the will of the electorate which is simply breathtaking in its scale.

But of course the EU has form in this area. Twice before, in Denmark in 1992 and Ireland in 2001, it simply rejected the result of a referendum and required the people to vote again. This is "biased finality" in action: you can vote how you like, so long as you get the right answer. And if you get the wrong answer, you can just keep on voting until you do what we want.

Yet this latest abuse of process is on an unprecedented scale. Both Denmark and Ireland are relatively small countries who joined well after the Treaty of Rome. Holland and France are both founder-members, and France at least is one of the largest. If the verdicts of their electorates can be ignored, then clearly the EU's élites believe they can do no wrong. The divine right of Kings has become the divine right of Brussels .

But there is a development here that the EU ignores at its peril. The French vote has validated euroscepticism. In France , we see the establishment, the media, the politicians almost without exception backing the European project. Any individual Frenchman harbouring doubts about the EU must have must have felt isolated and marginalised -- why did he alone have these doubts when apparently no one else had?

But now these isolated sceptics have woken up to find that they are a majority. And there is no doubt that Germany and the UK , given the opportunity, would also vote NO. Indeed I have heard Spanish MEPs saying that if the Spanish referendum were to be repeated now, following the French and Dutch votes, then Spain would also vote NO.

The genie is out of the bottle, and cannot be put back. Now the Commission is complaining that the EU has become "a lightning rod" for general dissatisfaction. They are right. Some might feel that it well deserves the role.

Not all EU leaders share Merkel's view. Sarkozy wants a "Mini-Treaty". But we can be sure that such a treaty would contain all the elements that the British, at least, find most objectionable. Meantime the fragrant Ségolène Royale, and some of the countries that joined the Madrid meeting on the Constitution in January, are actually calling for "more Europe ", by which they seem to mean more socialism.

There is a game being played by politicians and commentators about what the voters "really meant" by voting NO. They were worried about globalisation. They feared Turkish immigration. They were venting their dissatisfaction with national leaders. No one seems to have considered the possibility that the voters had simply been offered more Europe , and said "No Thanks".

In the UK , a former Minister for Europe is now saying that we should have no more referenda because "voters never answer the question on the ballot paper". Contempt for democracy is not limited to Germany .

There are clear signs now of a real split in the European project. There are countries that want Constitution Plus, that want to move on to full political and economic union. There are others in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the UK who see the benefits of trade and cooperation, but are fretting under the weight of EU regulation and the threat of political centralisation.

The case for variable geometry has never been stronger. Let those who want to submerge their nations into a United States of Europe be free to do so. Let the rest negotiate terms which best suit themselves. Call it Associate Membership. For my country, I want to see a relationship based solely on free trade and voluntary intergovernmental cooperation.