Only a fortnight ago, Labour had an 11-point lead in the polls. David Cameron was the least popular party leader. Lord Tebbit even said he was out of touch with the voters. Gordon Brown was assiduously feeding election fever. Sir Menzies Campbell had just threatened to "rattle the cage" of British politics and it was only a question of time before England surrendered the Rugby Union World Cup.

Now, the Tories have their highest poll since 1992 – 43 per cent – and a seven point lead over Labour. In Cameron's immortal words, Brown has become the only Prime Minister in history to funk an election because he thought he could win it. And Campbell has just been forced out of the cage-rattling business by his colleagues.

The Prime Minister's boring, ponderous ways at the despatch box dismay his loyalists, and the Blairites are chuntering on about his lack of leadership and vision. He is so politically impoverished that he has comprehensively swiped Tory tax policies which had proved an instant hit with the voters. Tebbit must be of humble and contrite heart.

And England's rugby players have revived memories of Agincourt. Cry God for England, Harry and St George – as we shall at Saturday night's final.

Against this volatile background, you may think I am off my rocker in choosing, of my own free will, to forecast what will happen at this week's European summit to set the new EU treaty in concrete.

I refer, of course, to the new bit of Brussels handiwork that Margot Wallstrom, the Commissioner responsible for its promotion, says is "unintelligible, unreadable and full of legalese" but which everybody, apart from our Government, swears is the rejected Constitution under the cosmetic. No wonder that bon viveur, Kenneth Clarke, never bothered to read Euro-stuff.

But I digress. What will happen in Lisbon this week? Let me first rehearse the possibilities. One is that our partners will come over all bolshie about Brown's opt outs – or red lines in Labour-speak – drastically cut them back and give him an excuse to return home, oozing piety, to give us a referendum after all.

"Behold, I am a man of my word", the son of the manse would say. "I told you that if I could not be satisfied that Britain's essential interests were properly protected, we would have a plebiscite. And so we will."

It would be the most comprehensive of his U-turns, notwithstanding his manifesto commitment to hold a referendum. But, if he were also to announce the question to be put to the nation and the date of the poll, he might reasonably expect another Brown bounce in Britain's fickle state. Yet even if he U-turned, our Prime Minister is a Micawber. He would wait ostensibly for better voting weather in the spring, but in reality for something to turn up to increase his chances of securing approval of the treaty. He may have kept us out of the single currency but he is never going to tell the EU where to put its pacts.

Another scenario, since the tumult and the shouting usually take place before any summit, is that everybody pronounces themselves more or less happy with the staff work, goes off to an interminable, sumptuous dinner and Brown returns home saying, in effect: "No sweat. Nobody challenged our red lines. Britain's interests are secure. Parliament – the proper place for these matters – will be given the chance to approve the treaty."

This suffers from one serious defect: credibility. It would convince the sceptics that nobody was in the least concerned about Britain's red lines because from time immemorial – ie since we joined the Common Market in 1973 – nothing, and certainly not opt-outs, has been allowed to get in the way of the great European super-state building project.

I, therefore, expect to see another version of the European put-up job. Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Baroso, the Commission president, will turn up tomorrow breathing European fervour over the tiresome Brown. The other 26 member-states will gnash their teeth over Britain's special treatment. Brown will be presented as having heroically fought the good fight to preserve his red lines uncrossed.

Undertakings will be given and just as freely broken before the ink is dry on the treaty.

There will be no referendum unless Parliament cuts up rough. UK RIP.