There is no doubt that the Lisbon Treaty was intended to mark a critical milestone in the evolution of the European Union as a fully fledged pan-European layer of government. Previous treaties have incrementally developed the state-like institutions of the EU – the Commission, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice – and vested them step by step with ever more powers.

The Lisbon Treaty rejected by the Irish would have added a full-time President and an expanded role for the EU's "Foreign Minister", as well as further extending the scope of EU legislation and the European Court while reducing the scope for member states to exercise a national veto. With its claim of direct democratic legitimacy for the EU – through European citizens represented in the European Parliament – it would have marked the transition of Europe to a self-standing "state" in all but name, rather than just a mechanism for cooperation between its member states.

Since treaties have to be ratified by all EU members, the Irish referendum should mean that this treaty is now dead. However, the signs are that Europe's political elite, as before, will seek to ignore popular discontent and press on regardless. The EU had already begun to implement some of the provisions of the new treaty – for example the development of a European diplomatic service – by stretching the elastic of the existing treaty provisions. The betting is that the EU leaders will continue this process of creeping integration – perhaps temporarily excluding Ireland – while planning to smuggle through the most important additional measures as part of low key treaty amendments required to admit Croatia to membership in 2010.

The opportunity this creates in Britain for continuing controversy over Europe will be a huge disappointment to the Labour Government, who only a few days earlier had fought off last-ditch attempts in the House of Lords to hold them to their referendum pledge. Equally, it creates a tremendous opportunity for the Conservative Party – for if a Conservative government is returned in 2010, it will be able to take a fresh look at what relationship Britain wants with Europe without having to unpick this further treaty commitment.

It is an opportunity they should seize with both hands. For while the rolling project of ever closer European integration may have attractions for some, our polling shows an increasing majority of the British population feel it has already gone too far.

They are right. Despite the undoubted benefits the EU has brought in drawing the emerging Eastern European states into the democratic world, the EU's centralised and bureaucratic approach to imposing harmonised laws and regulations over Europe's nation states is now outdated and damaging. Britain's future prosperity depends on our success in winning our share of world trade in increasingly global markets – and particularly in the fast-growing markets of India, China and the Far East.

Europe as a regional economic block is no longer the most important area for future growth, and the costs and regulations it imposes in its outdated attempt to protect a high cost social market are increasingly hampering rather than assisting our global competitiveness.

Equally, in international affairs our interests on issues ranging from trade to foreign policy are often much more closely aligned to a global network of like-minded states than they are to the old fashioned concept of a European power block.

So the question becomes what alternative arrangement with Europe would better serve our needs in the 21st century? Most people do not want to turn our backs on the European Union, but would prefer a much looser relationship that preserves the benefits of free trade and cooperation on common issues – such as security and the environment – while opting out of the process of political and economic integration to which our neighbours seem committed. The truth is we do not need all the apparatus of EU legislation and bureaucracy to establish and maintain sensible intergovernmental agreements in areas where they are needed.

Of course some will claim that "Europe would never agree to this". The truth is that, if the UK is clear about what it wants, there is no reason why this cannot be negotiated. The rest of Europe has more at stake in terms of trade with Britain than we do in reverse, and it is in everyone's interests to preserve amicable working relationships on the critical issues where we have common interests.

So the task for a future Conservative government will be to flesh out what its objectives are for Britain's new relationship with Europe, and to set about negotiating those with vigour and determination. To maintain the trust of the people – and strengthen its negotiating mandate in Brussels – it should commit to putting the results of those negotiations to a new referendum that will at last give the people a chance to have their say.

So that's the real legacy from Ireland – that we too now have the opportunity to open up this long overdue debate on our future relationship with Europe.


Lord Norman Blackwell is chairman of Global Vision, a non-partisan campaign group on the future of the European Union. From 1995 to 1997 he was head of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit.