SPEAKING of delusion, I was amazed and not a little amused to read the reactions to the Dutch "nee" to the European Constitution.

Mike Foster talked of thousands of job opportunities - and still kept a straight face. Mary Dhonau seemed to struggle with the issue, while a couple of quaint vintage Europhiles dug up that old no-more-wars-in-Europe corpse. Bless.

However, the jobs comment deserves closer investigation.

Europe is rapidly becoming an enormous anthill of competing labour. Once Turkey becomes an EU member - which is what Tony Blair wants - there will be a pool of workers stretching from Istanbul to Islington.

The lowest bidders will be top of the pile and this just what global capitalism requires. Undercutting and cheap labour benefit no one but the big corporations.

At the moment, national identity is the preoccupation of member states. But at some stage, other factors will come into play.

These will include taking the EU to task over the obscene trade barriers it has erected to keep out the Third World - and then, hopefully, even the ecologically destructive consequences of the Common Agricultural Policy will come under scrutiny.

And for me, it can't be soon enough.