The Euro-sceptics will bide their time before devouring another Tory leader? Great!

DavidDP

And of course, if the succeed in destroying Cameron, the result will be a more pro-European Labour government.

ndm

Perhaps there should be a supplementary question on whether or not all maps should have most of the World coloured pink.

ndm

Andrew Sullivan had some interesting thoughts brought on by the Fort Hood shooting. While focussed on America they could with little effort be edited to refer to the Eurosceptic, Islamophobic British right:

What troubles me about the right at the moment is that they are becoming a pure protest movement. They know what they are against, and they keep describing one issue after another as a Manichean contest - freedom or slavery, good or evil, Muslim or American, libruls and "real Americans" - in ways that do nothing practically to move the country forward. It is pure rhetoric, talk-radio politics, and dangerously contemptuous of its social consequences. When they offer us plans to balance the budget, plans to insure the uninsured, strategies to defeat Islamism, we should listen with all ears. Until then ... it's painfully immature.

DavidDP

As a point, Euroscepticism and Islamophobia are not connected. I am the former, I am not the latter.

ndm

Euroscepticism and Islamophobia are not connected

Sadly, they often appear to be. They both represent fear of something foreign.

DavidDP

I think if you misrepresent Euroscepticism that way, you'll never be able to adequately argue against it.

Vern

By that feeble reasoning ndm you may as well also argue that 'Islamophobia' and a distaste for Sushi are connected.

Sigh.

Fergus Pickering

What's wrong with fearing things that are foreign? Sounds very logical to me. You like what you know. You fear what you don't know. Then, when you get to know it, you may like it. Or, as with Sushi and Islam in my case, you may not.

egh

Vern, quite; thank you. I fail to see why we're imagined to be in abject fear and terror of everything we dislike - even if the dictionary definitions are interchangeable.

daniel maris

If Islamophobia is supposed to mean "an irrational fear of Islam" then it is not the sort of word that should be used in debate. Islamic groups have been responsible for something like 14000 terror attacks worldwide since 9-11 with hundreds of thousands, certainly, maybe more than a million, maimed or killed.

To be fearful of a movement that can give rise to such violence is hardly irrational. If Buddhists had wreaked such havoc over the last decade it would be perfectly reasonable to be "Buddhaphobic" and to inquire into the religious underpinnings of such actions. However, last time I looked, Buddhists hadn't been on a global terror rampage.

Are a rational critique of Islam and a rational critique of the EU connected? Yes, of course they. The common theme is the threat to a meaningful democracy and free speech.

Amadeus Plonquer

Why does this writer insist on a phraseological style that suggests the eurosceptics are a small minority? Poll after poll published in and refered to by this very same magazine clearly demonstrate that 61% of the British people believe the EU to be a waste of time and money. Yet here 61% is somehow just an annoying minority.

Sorry. We're not buying it. Either stop spinning for whoever's paying you and start reporting for we who are reading you or you won't have any readers left.

Do you take us for fools? That is what is known as a rhetorical question.

Peter From Maidstone

It need hardly be a rhetorical question since Spectator staff writers have ben quite happy to openly describe the readership as idiots.

Mr Thompson

The last thing we want are political candidates promising to do something at some time in the future to prevent further erosion of power. That's a sick joke. There's almost nothing left to erode!

I bet UKIP will be the next lot to "do a Cameron" on us. Our written constitution is already robust enough to prevent EU membership. We just need to assert it. Political parties don't want to hear about this. Hence all the misinformation about the constitution. How many times have you heard that it's unwritten? Well is written and the important bits cannot be altered by parliament, ever! Check it out.

The parties have ALL got a pro-EU agenda, although their grassroots supporters may not be privy to it.

Check out the British Constitution Group for a different approach.

Perry De Havilland

The solution is really simple: the Tory Leader take a euro-hostile position and sticks to it, and the issue of euro-sceptics trying to destroy leaders who expect their support without giving them what they want goes away.

For a Euro-toady to expect support and loyalty from people who hate the EU is irrational. Which bit of that is so hard to grasp? Personally I will just support UKIP for as long as the Tory party is run by the Quisling Right.

Laban Tall

I can see what Alex is against - mostly the unreconstructed types who clog up the Speccie comments boxes with their whinges about immigration and the Tory back benches with their whinges about Lisbon.

I'm hoping one of these days to find out what he's in favour of.