Has Prime Minister Blair run out of choices?

The British media could not resist the pun. "Blair does an EU-turn" screamed the headlines.

But what is Blair doing?

For months he insisted that a referendum was out of the question. It is not, we were told, democratic or part of the British political tradition (except when it appeared to be convenient to the New Labour project).

The main problem with a referendum is that, faced with one, relatively simple question, the people may not vote as expected and, recently, refer...