Labour has led practically every opinion poll, usually by a good margin. Here is a government riding high on the strongest economy in living memory with low interest rates, low inflation, high employment, public services improving and led by a man 63% declare the most competent leader, according to last week's BBC poll. The psephological rulebook will have to be re-written, for none of what happened in the polls last week obeys those runes. 'Worst Results Ever' is something Labour's class of '97 have never heard. Ministers went into damage limitation overdrive yesterday, but can Labour take the strain of this unaccustomed defeat? Or maybe the wretched thing will not be ever agreed. Others secretly pray some other country will wreck it in their referendum. Whistling in the dark, some claimed winning would be easier now as the people would come to their senses once confronted with a stark in-or-out choice. Last night Labour ministers were playing the same dangerous anti-Brussels game, boasting that this result strengthens Blair's arm to be tougher in the final constitutional negotiations next week. The Britain in Europe campaign which Mr Blair launched has been non-existent, to the fury of europhile Tories who sacrificed much within their own party to join it. That is as much the prime minister's fault as his chancellor's, indulging in the Murdoch-pleasing politics of 'red lines' and 'fighting Brussels'. It will take a near miracle to win a constitutional referendum now.

Plans for that monument lie in ruins: under his watch the country has turned against Europe more fiercely than under either Margaret Thatcher or John Major: a threatening milestone on the road to isolation.

No, it does not presage his imminent downfall nor the loss of the next general election for Labour, but it signals his his toric failure to earn the epitaph he intended as the man who led Britain into the heart of Europe. A new wave of Euroscepticism emerged in Scandinavia and elsewhere but this was Britain's most virulent anti-European result.ДЇor Tony Blair personally that is a disaster. It should come as no surprise as these elections came as Europe suffers the least inspiring leadership for many years. Labour took the same punishment meted out right across Europe to ruling parties: a pain-free howl of protest at power everywhere. The Conservatives suffered last night at the hands of an upstart party that dares say out loud what most Tories think but dare not speak. Together, the anti-European parties polled alarmingly well.ДЇorget the polite term Eurosceptic, these are all now Euroexits out loud or sotto voce, however hard Michael Howard tries to resist his wilder tendency and hold to his promise of a fictional renegotiation that is not on offer. In the European elections the vote to leave the heart of Europe was higher than ever before, even if Ukip didn't get all it boasted it would.Д¬hoosing either the fast exit with Ukip or the slow road out with the Conservatives, the sentiment is much the same: recent polls show two-thirds of Conservative voters want out too. Put out more St George's flags! England may have lost the football last night, but for Little Englanders it was a night to celebrate.Д«y fast track or by slow 'Britain Out''did well.

Eu4 flags are wrong