The problems of defining "a nation", of understanding the bases for national identity and patriotism, and of identifying the roots of nationalism, are not new. They give rise to some of the most vexed issues in both the theory of the state and actual political practice. But verbal exchanges can degenerate into something altogether more horrid, as demonstrated by the break-up of Yugoslavia, the current tensions in Ukraine and the 20th century's world wars. At any rate, the Gaullist concept of a Europe of sovereign nation states and the Monnet ideal of a United States of Europe must be distinguished. They cannot be reconciled, mixed up, spliced together or blurred. 

So what do Cameron and the Conservatives want? The Prime Minister seems to be unenthusiastic about, perhaps even antagonistic towards, the Monnet approach. But he might dispute that the purpose of "the European project" is to forge a United States of Europe. He must open his eyes and ears.

In November 2012 the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, told the European Parliament, "Of course the European Commission will one day become a government, the European Council a second chamber and the European Parliament will have more powers — but for now we have to focus on the euro and give people a little more time to come along." What role is left in Merkel's view for national parliaments or for nations like the UK in which "the Queen in Parliament" is meant to be the ultimate source of constitutional authority?

Last December, the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, cautioned that the European Court of Human Rights had indulged in too much "activism", which was creating "a very serious problem", and recalled that the Westminster Parliament must have "ultimate sovereignty". The next month Dean Spielmann, president of the ECHR, dismissed Lord Judge's observations and said that the UK had not had ultimate sovereignty, on the judicial front, since the European Communities Act was passed in 1972. The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg was higher than the UK's Supreme Court in Whitehall, and that was that. 

A few weeks later, Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European Commission, said that Cameron's bid to curb immigration from the EU was incompatible with EU membership. For good measure, she said that the majority of new laws now came from Brussels and Strasbourg, not Westminster. Further, to quote from her website, "Strengthening Europe and strengthening Europe's legitimacy can be best done by turning our Union into a United States of Europe. As in the US, we will need a two-chamber system for the United States of Europe. A durable political Union with a strong government (the Commission) and two Chambers: the European Parliament and a ‘Senate' of Member States. This European government must be accountable to the directly elected European Parliament."

Cameron said in the closing sections of his Bloomberg speech that, if re-elected, he would campaign "heart and soul" for the UK to stay in the EU. We must ask: in which of the two alternative versions of the EU does Cameron believe so deeply that he could campaign for it heart and soul? For the Gaullist conception? Or for the very different federalist understanding of Europe, the understanding shared by Monnet, Spaak, Hallstein, Reding and many others, in which the UK would be like a state in the American union? The danger would arise of a replication of the American situation, so that the UK could not leave the new nation, the United States of Europe. Whether the Queen was in Parliament or not would cease to matter.