If the electorate feels disconnected with the decision-making process in Brussels it is largely because their political leaders use it for the

If the electorate feels disconnected with the decision-making process in Brussels, it is largely because their political leaders use it for the very worst kind of introverted deal-making.The new constitution does not address these concerns Far from it. Its central concern is making the enlarged community more workable by increasing the amount of majority voting, decreasing the number of commissioners for each country, and raising the status of the Council of Ministers. From the wreckage of the first rejected candidatures will come an acceptable late entrant, perhaps Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, or even Mr Ahern himself.The trouble is that this kind of messy horse-trading and backroom dealing is the very thing that most puts off the already disenchanted European voters. Even over the question of the appointment of the president, there is a strong hint of pre-arranged posturing between London and Dublin. Mr Blair’s friend Bertie Ahern has leant over backwards to accommodate London’s position on the key points.

The draft agreement published by the convenor of the summit, the Irish Republic, has conceded most of the British positions over its “red line” issues of tax and law. So, too, does Tony Blair’s sudden decision to commit himself to a referendum on the constitution now being discussed at the summit in Brussels. This has forced Britain, isolated by its strong pro-American stance over the war, to re-emphasise its divisions by appearing as bellicose, and as nationalistic, as possible over the negotiations on the constitution.We have little about which to be bellicose. The reason? He had been too vocal a critic of the invasion of Iraq and organised a rival European defence summit.
The shadow of Iraq still hangs over Europe, and, in particular, Britain’s relations with France and Germany.

Even before the leaders had gathered, Britain threw a spanner in the works by declaring outright opposition to the candidate of France and Germany, the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt. Any hopes that the leaders of the European Union in Brussels would respond to the disillusionment of their voters by presenting a fresh and united front for change were shattered by the unseemly row over who should be the next president of the Commission. While expert medical testimony will always play a role in such cases, it must never again be so uncritically accepted.. Investigations are already under way into the cases in which mothers have been imprisoned, on the basis of expert evidence, and the majority of verdicts that have been re-examined so far have been shown to be sound.Nevertheless, public confidence can only be fully restored by a thorough investigation into how the criminal justice system operates in this intensely emotive area. This is in sharp contrast to civil cases, in which the opinion of any sort of expert is often treated with a greater degree of scepticism.Of course, it is in no one’s interests that we create a system whereby the burden of proof becomes so heavy that no parents are jailed for abuse to their children, or where it becomes almost impossible to remove children from families for their own safety.Abuse does occur and Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, in which mothers supposedly harm their own children to get attention for themselves, has not been totally discredited as a theory.