Jack Straw: A European superstate is not on the agenda

On foreign and security issues, we have resolutely opposed any move to 'communitise' them

Proposals from the European Convention represent "a greater proposed constitutional shift than any in recent centuries, even going back as far as 1688. In 1649, there was regicide; now, it would be suicide".

Such a barking idea would be scarcely worth a mention, except that this is the obsessive fantasy haunting the leadership of the Tory party. For these words come from Bill Cash, the shadow Attorney General and the man chosen by Iain Duncan Smith to wind up a Commons debate last week, in preference to the party's official Europe spokesman.

Many will recall Bill Cash. He was the MP who, 10 years ago, spent months together with Iain Duncan Smith trying to wreck the Maastricht Treaty and John Major's government. They failed on the first, but were instrumental in the latter. But two cheers for Bill and IDS. They, at least, are clear; they are not interested in the why or what of the European Convention, only the pretext it offers to promote their strategy of pulling Britain out of Europe. After all, it was Iain Duncan Smith who in 1996 said: "The public is ready to go for Britain repatriating its powers from the European Union, which could eventually mean pulling out."

The hyperbole of the Conservative case exposes its weakness. For the truth about the convention's work is rather more prosaic. It does make some important proposals for the reform of the internal working and external representation of the European Union. The treaty will not, however, involve any fundamental change in the relationship between the union and its sovereign member states.

The rationale for change is very simple. Europe's institutions were designed more than 40 years ago when there were just six members. With the historic expansion of the EU next year to include former Soviet bloc countries such as Poland and Hungary, there will be more than four times that number. Without change, power within the union will inevitably move away from member states. Therefore, to maintain the balance of power between the existing EU institutions, we are keen to boost the role of the European Council ­ the body that represents member states ­ with a full-time chairman or president to replace the existing system, where the presidency changes every six months.

Other aspects of the draft treaty strengthen and consolidate the role of the nation state, too. For the first time, there is an explicit statement that the union acts only with the powers conferred by member states, and there is a role for national parliaments in enforcing the principle of subsidiarity.

The draft treaty also includes a proposal to subject EU decisions on asylum to qualified majority voting (QMV). This has, inevitably, resulted in cries from the Tories that we are surrendering our sovereignty. But, quite apart from the fact that it was Margaret Thatcher who agreed to the biggest increase in QMV, in the 1986 Single European Act, it is palpably in our national interest to ensure an effective, cross-European policy on tackling what is demonstrably a major cross-European issue.

In any event, the convention itself has decided nothing. The convention proposes, but it's for member states to make the final decisions, by unanimity. This reform process is a game of two halves, and, with the presentation of the draft treaty at the European Council in Greece this Thursday, we are at the end of the first half. I am pleased with what has been achieved so far.

Over the next few months, there will be extensive scrutiny of the convention's proposals in Parliament and outside, and further discussion and negotiation between national governments. Britain does not, for example, support extending QMV to tax, and we have been seeking safeguards to ensure that incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights does not extend existing EU powers. On foreign and security issues, it is in Britain's interests to arrive at a common policy with other EU member states when possible. But we have resolutely opposed any proposal to "communitise" these issues and will continue to argue that key decisions be taken only with the agreement of all EU states.

For some, any change of this sort represents a further step towards a federal superstate. But, in truth, the treaty should settle the balance between the nations and the union where it should be, with the nations as the anchor of the union. In doing so, it will help to provide for a stronger and more effective Europe, a Europe that can command the respect that its economic strength deserves.

As Gordon Brown so powerfully spelt out in his statement last week on the European Single Currency, ours is a patriotic case for Europe. The British people are therefore presented with a clear choice between a party batting for Britain in the European Union to boost British jobs and British influence, and a party that is ready to walk away from a Europe that will make decisions that affect us all but over which we would have no influence.

Those familiar with the regicide of 1649, about which Bill Cash so worries, know that Cromwell's experiment failed for the most part because of zealotry. It is a lesson that the Conservative Party has forgotten.

The writer is the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary