Reason, democracy and the dreaded F-word

At last, a proper book on Europe. For a decade or more just about everything published on the subject has been relentlessly partisan. The Europhobes, the Eurosceptics and the Eurocynics are far more numerous in the political-media village of London SW1 than those who agree with Lord Carrington that "Britain's destiny is Europe".

At last, a proper book on Europe. For a decade or more just about everything published on the subject has been relentlessly partisan. The Europhobes, the Eurosceptics and the Eurocynics are far more numerous in the political-media village of London SW1 than those who agree with Lord Carrington that "Britain's destiny is Europe".

The dominant antis and more timorous pros are perhaps too close to the European Union to see it as it really is. Just as it took a Frenchman, de Tocqueville, to write the best account of American democracy, and a Galician Pole, Lewis Namier, to describe English parliamentarianism, it is now the turn of an American - Larry Siedentop, a don at Keble College, Oxford - to produce the richest discussion of Europe for British readers in years.

The debate here has rarely lifted its head above vulgar economism (that it's good for business), or a vicarish tone that suggests it would be jolly good if we could be nice to one another. To assert 18th-century values of tolerant discourse, rational debate and constitutional examination is rare. Siedentop, in a closely argued but easy-to-read book, has done just that.

His main argument is not about Europe. He does not appear to have read texts in languages other than English and does not examine the importance of the EU to such countries as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Instead, he pleads with the British to look again at the need for a constitution to protect civil society from an almighty executive, from the kind of populist hate unleashed by the Winning-Souter referendum in Scotland, or from the corporate forces that seek to dominate human existence.

His deconstruction of Thatcherism as a neoliberal economic project without an accompanying democratic settlement is one of the most effective I have read. He admires the federalist discourse in the US and the way the constitutional approach forces Americans to keep discussing politics.

In America, that debate happens. Here, nada. A few weeks ago the Green politician Joschka Fischer made a big speech calling for a "parliamentary federation" in the EU. The concept of federalism in Germany means that Berlin cannot dictate to regional governments, while citizens and media are protected against a super-state. The EU president, Romano Prodi, recently had to meet all 16 Land prime ministers from Germany. They told him they would brook no interference from Brussels over control of regional banks, industry policy or TV stations. When Germans talk about federalism, they mean the very opposite of a single, all-powerful entity.

Alas, in English, the F-word is unmentionable. So while Le Monde and El Pais and Die Welt are earnestly debating Fischer's proposals - and for the most part politely trashing them - we have an angry editorial in the Daily Mail or The Sun. And, er, that's the UK contribution.

Siedentop's book is an invitation to a wider discussion. He offers ideas and arguments galore. Anti-federalists can relax. He doesn't think Europe is anywhere near becoming a federal state. In fact, all he proposes is a European senate of national parliamentarians, so that national parliaments can have some real oversight of European law-making. It is a good idea, but not original. Robin Cook suggested as much a couple of years back, and Tory MPs have been floating it for years. I first heard Fischer support the concept of a second European chamber in Bonn in 1998. The Conservative MP David Willetts gave it his backing.

Is one of the answers for Europe a bit more say for national parliaments and bit less bureaucratic secrecy? When an Oxford don, a Tory shadow cabinet member, a German Green and our Foreign Secretary can all agree on an idea, perhaps its time has come. But ideas need debate. The US had Madison, Hamilton and Jefferson deciding their terms. We have Conrad Black, Rupert Murdoch and their epigones deciding ours. Larry Siedentop has written an important book, but, so atrophied is political discussion in our country, I fear it is unlikely to become a bestseller.

The reviewer is Labour MP for Rotherham