French and Dutch voters rejected this leap from a treaty organisation to a unitary state when given a chance in 2005. The revamped version was slipped through by parliaments – except in Ireland, where voters said No, until coerced by events into acquiescence. In Britain, Labour did this knowing with absolute certainty that citizens would have voted No. You can conjure a Burkean argument to justify the denial of a referendum, but that is to traduce Burke.