eurealist.co.uk

Today in the Telegraph the ex minister for the EU and leading Europhile, Denis MacShane, who last year gained the name MacShame, after he famously portrayed opposition to the EU as xenophobia, is now backtracking as he attacks Marc Glendening for saying the same. This is a welcome move even if he is only doing it to try to define the debate within his own acceptable limits.

Of course he is still writing twaddle when he writes “Whether the obsessive unending hostility to Europe that runs through much of contemporary politics is healthy is another question.” But that is only to be expected from this ex minister for EU hogwash.

Euro-sceptism healthy

Sir - Marc Glendening writes that I believe those opposed to the EU are racists and xenophobes. That is not the case.

I do intensely dislike some of the xenophobic language used against some EU partners just as I dislike the crude anti-Americanism we can read in some British and many continental papers. And I remain concerned at the horrid campaign launched by anti-EU Conservatives last year to try to stop Poles and other new EU citizens from coming to work in Britain. Some of the tabloid coverage predicting “mobs” of Roma and other people from eastern Europe arriving in Britain was close to racist.

But let me assure Mr Glendening that rational Euro-scepticism is the duty of any citizen as I hope we should all be sceptical about all forms of governance - local, national and international.

Whether the obsessive unending hostility to Europe that runs through much of contemporary politics is healthy is another question.

Denis MacShane MP (Lab), London SW1