Yes, Peter, Cameron's performance was a mighty breath of fresh air.
It's encouraging to see a British PM stand up and clearly tell those who are trying to re-organize the EU under their own control where to a) get off and b) make it clear to them that Britan will not stand for a pencil constitution which gets changed every time the smelly stuff hit's the fan.
What you describe as the "party" had system of course. Germany knew darn well what they were doing when they allowed this to happen, so that they could then storm in and basically take over the place with regulations which basically gives them the power to do what two world wars failed to provide, control over Europe.
It's funny, many years ago a history teacher of mine told us in class that the EU would prevail exactly until that time when one of the big 3 (UK,FR,GER) would find out that they were NOT running the show single handed? Well, the UK has found out and Cameron pulled the CAPS so to speak
Will this lead to the UK being expelled or voluntarily leave the EU? It might well. IF it does, it will mean that others will follow and possibly the whole utopia will finally crash and fall apart. If it does, I reckon there might be a real chance for some less "head in the clouds" people to pick up the pieces and make a new effort to create something the original EEC was designed to be, an Economical Free Trade zone rather than the US of Europe. Free and independent nations doing mutual trade but remaining to be sovereign countries.
What Merkel and Sarkozy have now imposed on the Union as of yesterday is not that, but the almost final step into turning the EU into something which did exist not too long ago a bit further East. It is as anti democratic as it will ever get and it is de facto giving Germany and to a lesser extent France the complete authority to push the remainder of the members around at will. Not my vision of a prosperous Europe.