Greece put its faith in democracy but Europe has vetoed the result | Paul Mason

The EU has humiliated Syriza and ignored its referendum: now the only power the country has left is to implement what the lenders want

The only thing certain about the aftermath of Sunday's Euro summit is the disgrace of the political leaderships. The EU's main powers tried to ritually humiliate the Greek government, but ruthlessness of intent was matched by incompetence when it came to execution. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schiuble, threw on to the table a suggestion for Greece to leave the single currency for five years. Senior MPs from his coalition partner, the socialist SPD, screamed from the sidelines that they had not agreed to this - yet enough of Germany's partners did agree to get the proposal into the final ultimatum.

The Greeks were negotiating under threat of their banking system being allowed to collapse, a threat made by the very regulator supposed to maintain financial stability.

Little did leftwing Greece understand how scant was the power its ministers actually wielded from their offices