THE European Union has been branded an economic "corpse" as more pressure from Conservative backbenchers was piled on David Cameron to hold an in-out referendum on Britain's membership.
The Tory euroscepticism came during a Commons debate when an attempt to pass legislation that would enable the UK to leave the EU failed because it ran out of time.
Conservative backbencher Douglas Carswell said a recent poll found a majority of voters wanted Britain to quit the EU with 51% in favour of leaving and only 34% wanting to stay in.
"This is the highest level of discontent for a generation," declared the MP for Clacton in Essex.
Even members of the Cabinet had started to come round to the view that "Britain may indeed be better off out," argued Mr Carswell.
He told MPs Britain had joined the Common Market believing it would be good for the economy, but the growth of countries such as China and Brazil, coupled with the eurozone crisis, meant "far from joining a rising economic powerhouse, we have shackled ourselves to a corpse".
Mr Carswell insisted withdrawal from the EU could no longer be dismissed as unthinkable. "It's no longer a marginal view confined to mavericks; it is a legitimate point starting to go mainstream."
Fellow Tory Edward Leigh insisted there was a "democratic deficit" as there had been no public vote on membership of the European club since 1975.
Another Conservative, Philip Hollobone, warned of a fresh wave of immigration caused by the eurozone crisis, which could mean "hundreds of thousands more European Union citizens heading our way".
David Lidington, the Europe Minister, said the UK's membership of the EU was based on a "pragmatic" view of what was in the national interest.
He pointed out successive Tory leaders had concluded that "despite the acknowledged flaws and drawbacks of the European Union", membership was "in the national advantage of the British people in terms of what it gives us through trade, through market access, through attracting foreign direct investment and from increased diplomatic leverage over foreign and security policies".
The Prime Minister has ruled out an in-out referendum on the UK's membership of the EU.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article