Brussels, 12/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - If Tony Blair quits his post in May 2007 (as he has hinted), “then it will be his successor who represents Britain at the crucial EU summit next June on the future of the constitutional treaty, which, one way or the other, will determine the pattern of EU politics for the next few years”, MEP Richard Corbett warns in his Blog. Tony Blair, the British Labour member recalls, “grasped that the issue (of the Constitution) is not dead and buried, as British commentators are all too quick to proclaim, and that, even if the text of the treaty does eventually die a death, then (1) it is important that Britain is not blamed for killing it off (when there are others who are all too keen to blame the Brits), and (2) the issues the treaty was intended to solve have not conveniently gone away, but remain on the table”. If the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, takes over from Blair, Richard Corbett said, “then he will have to get to grips very quickly with issues that he has sometimes shown a disdain for”. He continued saying: “He will have to overcome suspicions from our European partners that he is a closet Eurosceptic, who rarely attends the Ecofin council meetings and, when he does, has a reputation of lecturing other finance ministers on how much better the British economy is doing under his stewardship (which particularly irks those who are doing better or as well, including the Finns, the Irish and the Dutch whom Britain considers to be natural allies in EU discussions)”. In fact, the MEP went on: “Many see him, rightly or wrongly, as the man who thwarted Blair on bringing Britain into the euro”.