Two hundred kilometres to the south in Brussels, the humiliated courtiers of the European Union sat gloomy in their gilded salons, wondering how to hold off the upstart mob. Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, presiding over the EU’s Council of Ministers, tearfully suggested that Europe’s voters be asked to vote again “until they get it right”. Lord Kerr, Britain’s envoy at this court, described the referendums as a “macabre ritual”. Jose Manuel Barroso, commission president, warned of a “risk of contagion” spreading across Europe. Only in Brussels is the word democracy synonymous with disease.

On the radio I listened to Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock, Chris Patten and Jack Straw splutter that a period of “sober reflection” was in order, as if a brief visit to the confessional would purge Holy Mother Church of the sin of pride: surely this Martin Luther moment must pass. But by the weekend, anti-constitution sentiment was wildfire. Those silent referendums, the opinion polls, were taking up the cry from Warsaw to Lisbon. Even pro-European Luxembourg doubled its “no” vote in a month. It is hard to overstate the trauma of this past week.

What does it mean? In France the vote was being interpreted in as many ways as there are French philosophers. The best answer was the simplest, that of a veteran of the Foreign Legion, a farmer in the Lot, on whose views on Europe I can always rely to produce unprintable expletives. He loathes Paris, Brussels and Muslim immigrants in that order. He is the personification of “non”. But France’s defection has always been on the cards.

I remember a French embassy official during Britain’s last referendum on the EU in 1975 (when only the Shetlands voted no). He warned me that “France will be European as long as Europe is French”. When that ceased to apply, “France will dispense with Europe. It will destroy it”. Last week he was proved right. France embodies the nation as saboteur.

The Netherlands result seemed to require a different reading. At an informal seminar in a Concertgebouw cafe on Thursday, I heard a group of Dutch writers gasp at what their countrymen had done. A loyal European state that once viewed the EU as a bulwark of prosperity and security in a hostile world had voted a massive “nee”.

This outcome once seemed inconceivable. Every political party, every newspaper, every trade union, the entire Dutch establishment, had campaigned for yes. Over Amsterdam’s central square, the Dam, towers a royal palace filled with the emblems of world trade. Yet Holland had gone for what was in truth a chauvinist rebellion. Nor were there any fancy excuses. The pundits agreed that the people were voting not just against an unpopular prime minister but against the euro, immigration, the loss of the Dutch veto and Europe in general. This was new.

The Dutch government had tried to scare them into a yes. It used television footage of Auschwitz and Srebrenica to imply that a no vote meant war. It said that electricity would fail and lights would go out. The economics minister, Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, took leave of his democratic senses and declared the referendum stupid because the Dutch people “are being allowed to vote on an issue they know nothing about”. The prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, pleaded with the electorate not to “humiliate me when I go to Brussels”, an invitation no red-blooded democrat could refuse.

Three years ago the Dutch gave their leaders a warning by flirting with the gay anti-establishment politician Pim Fortuyn, since dead. Now they let rip. As the columnist Leon de Winter remarked: “The Dutch people looked at what was on offer and immediately smelt a rat.” The referendum was “Pim Fortuyn part two”.

Though the French and Dutch votes have been given wildly differing analyses they have much in common. Both display the new politics of Europe. This no longer trusts those in power to protect the public’s demand for commercial, social and ethnic sovereignty. It is the politics of protectionism in every sense of the word. The Dutch may be less chauvinist than the French, and less committed to a “social” Europe, but they too see the EU as no longer a defence but a threat.

British Eurosceptics may welcome the no vote for their own reasons, but they should not be fooled. With the kitchen of global competition hotting up, the no vote is mostly a vote to leave it for the comfort of protectionism.

The Dutch may profess themselves liberal in outlook, but each day the motorways from the north bring swarms of economic migrants from Poland and beyond, ready to work for low wages. Ninety per cent of the rented housing in Amsterdam is now subject to some form of covert anti-immigrant control. Predictions suggest that Amsterdam and Rotterdam will have majority immigrant populations by 2010. The government is already expelling “illegals” by the thousand.

Tell the Dutch that their social policy within a decade may depend on the votes of 70m Turkish Muslims and they will blow a raspberry. Even Maastricht, the city that “beats at the heart of Europe”, voted no last week. An informal poll of 24,000 Dutch high school pupils registered 70% in the no camp.