Europhiles have warned us for years of the dangers of Britain leaving the EU. But all the while a different spectre has crept up on their other flank: which is that even if the UK votes to stay in the EU in 2017, we might be one of the only countries left. It’s a radical thought, but if they’d like to consider it, the Europhiles should look at what is happening across the continent.

Pro-EU countries are proving harder and harder to find. The eastern European countries may still be financial net receivers, but they are now having to weigh up their honey pot against the demands that come with it. A project which was meant to bring free movement of labour for themselves is now forcing them to take in thousands of migrants they do not want from across Africa and the Middle East. Anti-EU feeling is growing everywhere, and even the Polish government’s erstwhile plan to ‘progress’ into the eurozone now looks like it will be opposed by the majority of Poles. The ‘irreversible’ turns out to be eminently reversible.

In western Europe, the Euroscepticism that used to be portrayed as a mere embarrassing blight among Tory backbenchers is now breaking out everywhere.

Read the article “Is the European Union About to Disintegrate?” on new.spectator.co.uk.