Our Eurosceptic Turn

This graph from the British Election Study at Essex University shows a sharp increase in hostility to the UK’s membership of the EU in late 2010, which has been sustained since. That was when the crisis of the euro really started to come through in the British media (although the Greek crisis began to get serious in the days just before our general election in May 2010, because it was used as the excuse for Nick Clegg and Vince Cable to switch sides on deficit reduction policy).

Whether this means that people would actually vote to leave the EU in a referendum, however, is a different question. As everyone knows, public opinion started the referendum campaign in 1975 opposed to the UK’s membership of the EEC by a margin of two to one.

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• Kugelschreiber

  SKARAMOUCHE,

  I’m sure that most the people in the countries you listed would be happy to go on trading with one other, but WITHOUT giving up their sovereignty, their jobs and their homes to the EU

  There is no reason why trading should not continue

• Kugelschreiber

  Watching Panorama yesterday, about the corporate tax dodgers, it said that our govt had tried to implement measures to TAX companies who opened subsidiaries abroad.  But the European Court forbade us to do this.

  Thus, we continue to lose billions of £’s in tax from these corporations.

• Skaramouche

  The usual sophistry. Go and play in the traffic with your bold assertions.

• Roland_Tommasi

  I think you’re confused – if this country wanted to crack down on tax dodges it could.

  It has nothing to do with the EU – whoever told you that was mistaken.

  I believe the issue was with European subsiduaries and not international ones.

• Roland_Tommasi

  The EU took our jobs?

  Well there’s me thinking it was just another crisis of capitalism.

  Funny, there was one about 70 years ago of a similar magnitude and the EU hadn’t even been invented then!

  Really – you should have studied history more at school rather than dossing at the back assuming your privilege meant you wouldn’t have to try hard.

• Roland_Tommasi

  It’s 50% of OUR world – or are you going to trade with ‘men from mars’?

  Are euroskeptics so dim they think the Europeans will be happy to engage in free trade without ANY commitment from the UK towards Europe?

  We need them far more than they need us.

  Tying ourselves to the worlds declining superpower (US) is a very foolish thing to do.

• http://twitter.com/mec6c mec6c

  Yet for all their alleged “wonderfulness” the Americans have the most dysfunctional, fractured, dischordant society on earth and owe more than any other country in history. Functioning democracy indeed! The most important thing in the US is money, not the constitution. Let’s not lose sight of that. The ultra wealthy in the US are above the law of the land and in many instances dictate the laws of the land, a position they maintain by occasionally sacrificing one of their cadre who has been silly enough to leave a trail that leads to him or her… If their “founding fathers” could see what they’ve done with their project, I wonder how pleased (or not) they would be?

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Josh-Walcott/717189536 Josh Walcott

  ….Instead of rebutting with ”
  The usual sophistry. Go and play in the traffic with your bold assertions.” 

  It’ll be better if you could use some solid facts to back up your euro sceptic mindlessness.

  the spike in diss-approval to the eu is linked to British politicians blaming the eu for all its own ills. What worries me more is that euro phoebes offer no alternative vision for Britain, its fair enough to be isolationist but at-least develop an alternative vision of where we should go.

• Skaramouche

  Whos post were you reading? I’m very definately PRO- EU and believe we should be in the Euro – although I respect peoples wish to keep the pound even if it just a means for banks to tax us all.