What a glorious time for anti-EUers everywhere. The technocrats in Brussels are busy licking their wounds after Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty. How pleasing it is that–in a world apparently dominated by spin and bureaucracy–the public can still tell the political class to stuff it. The European Union is in crisis, we are told. The treaty in ruins. Hurrah.

Hang on. Amid the joy, the anti-corporatist right should remember that the EU doesn’t take no for an answer. When Holland and France rejected the treaty in 2005, EU officials essentially ignored the vote, and set about changing the wording of the document to make it more palatable to the public. Now that the Irish have refused that revised document, they already face, according to the Daily Telegraph, the possibility of another referendum next year. (Irish voters, remember, rejected the Nice Treaty in 2001, only to accept a different version a year later.)

Moreover, for all the talk about the EU being a disaster, the Euro continues to outperform the Dollar and the Pound. Of course, this could change, and fast. But what if this trend continues? How long will it be possible to use the rhetoric of sovereignty and independence against the economic strength of the union? Perhaps the “democracy strikes back” triumphalism is premature.