The Dutch say Nee to the EU constitution, just as the French said Non. The Danes will probably say Nej. along with the Czechs and Poles. The British, given the chance, will do the same. 'No' is rapidly becoming the lingua franca of the European people. 'Yes' is what their leaders say. It is the language of the élite.

Much of Europe (but not Britain) shows a surprising deference to its political class. The top leaders and administrators are given much freer rein to get on with things, subject to occasional displays of popular frustration. The rulers are assumed to know how to run things, while ordinary people generally express low-level grumbles about their leaders' remoteness and get on with their own lives.

The EU constitution, indeed the EU project, is a product of that élite. Its members have more in common with their opposite numbers across Europe than they do with the ordinary people of their own country. They are cultured, with a taste for the arts and a familiarity with abstract ideas. They regard themselves as modern. They present European political union as the wave of the future, and people who oppose it are thought backward.

Their shared values include a scorn for nationalism, and especially for patriotism. In the modern world these are seen as anachronisms. Although they rarely express the thought publicly, many of them see religion in the same light. They laugh at Americans who still profess belief in such things, and think of them as outdated country bumpkins.

Yet even though it is unsophisticated and outdated, that old nationalism proves itself more powerful than the rational structures designed to replace it. People are moved and motivated more by that sense of who they are than by who their betters think they ought to be. The No votes are a warning shot over the bows of élitism. The European people want a structure which expresses their aspirations, rather than one which tells them what to do.