WorldView: What is it with the British and the European Union? Why is the UK the least enthusiastic of all member-states, asks Dennis Kennedy?
Why did the European Commission's representative in London, Jim Dougal, resign this summer, complaining that selling the idea of Europe to the British was an impossible task? What chance is there that the referendum on the EU constitution will be passed, never mind one on the single currency? Is Europe a lost cause?
Not necessarily so. Fewer people in the UK than in any other member-state may think being in the EU is a good thing. But there is no thumping Eurosceptic majority; the latest Eurobarometer lists 29 per cent as saying membership is a good thing, 29 per cent a bad thing, and another 29 per cent neither good nor bad.
Asked whether they supported the draft EU constitution, 42 per cent said Yes, and only 24 per cent said No, which may surprise Eurosceptics looking forward to an easy victory. A referendum on the euro might be something else - 61 per cent were against it and only 26 per cent for.
When I came to Belfast in 1985 to represent the European Commission, almost 40 per cent of UK citizens thought membership of the EC was "a good thing" and 30 per cent a bad. When I left six years later in 1991, a healthy 58 per cent were for being in the EU, and only about 15 per cent against.
That was not my doing - it was Mrs Thatcher's. Her government's massive information campaign backing the Commission's plan to complete the internal market by 1992 made European integration big news and good news.
Mrs Thatcher herself, however, was marching off in the opposite direction, increasingly hostile to European integration. Her Bruges speech called for a Europe based on "active co-operation among independent sovereign states" and was a far cry from the reality of the 1992 programme.
So what happened in 1991? What has made the British obsessed with their own sovereignty, and decidedly unenthusiastic about anything European?
In 1989 the Commission produced its timetable for Economic and Monetary Union. Mrs Thatcher was faced with the determination of most of the EU to proceed from the single market to its logical next step, EMU and a single currency.
A single market could be presented as sensible and greatly to the benefit of the United Kingdom. EMU, with the pound probably disappearing, could only be the most transparent loss of national sovereignty. By 1990 Mrs Thatcher's antipathy to EMU had reached what one commentator has called a demented fervour.
This was too much even for an increasingly Eurosceptic Tory party, and she was dumped, to be replaced by John Major. Major was left to negotiate Maastricht, and to cope with growing Euroscepticism in both party and cabinet.
Very little went right for Major. The Danes voted against Maastricht in their 1992 referendum, boosting British Euroscepticism. The collapse of the Soviet empire brought new impetus to the drive for political union - something the British had never favoured. Then the Exchange Rate Mechanism went disastrously wrong; the pound, which had entered in 1990, bolted from the mechanism in the chaos of September 1992.
Thereafter defence of the pound was a useful nationalistic rallying cry. Immigration became an issue, with public opinion alarmed by fears of immigrants flooding in from the EU. The media became more outrageously Eurosceptic. UK governments, long defenders of the sovereignty of parliament, rushed to sideline parliament by resorting to the populist device of the referendum. Debate about Europe dropped to the most basic and confrontational level.
Is Euroscepticism then primarily a manifestation of the dumbing down of the media, of the debasement of political debate and of the headlong descent of much of the UK into a yob culture? Or are there factors relating to Europe that have been mishandled, and might still be rectified?
Jim Dougal listed three things that made it impossible to sell Europe to the British: hostile media, a government reluctant to argue the European case, and an ineffective European Commission.
The Euroscepticism of the media is formidable. In turn this has made politicians timid on Europe. John Major was too fearful to confront the Eurosceptics, Tony Blair has done nothing to stem the flow of scepticism.
In this environment, Euro-myths have flourished. The British have convinced themselves that when they joined the EEC in 1973 they were joining a free-trade community and not much else. Since then, it is implied, devious Europeans have added economic and monetary union, a single currency and political union, none of which was part of the bargain.
Far from it. The EEC, with UK participation, agreed on Economic and Monetary Union in 1972, with a target date of 1980. A single currency was already being discussed.
The European Commission has been a prime focus for British Euroscepticism. It is based in Brussels, is composed largely of foreigners, costs a lot of money and is unelected. It is an ideal soft target. In fact the Commission is no more French or German than it is British. It is not a prototype European government, and it is less powerful than the Council of Ministers. It does some things well and some badly.
Some of its imperfections stem from member-state governments. They nominate unsuitable people to serve on the Commission, they interfere with its staffing. They contribute to the misperception that the Commission is the EU, when in fact member-state governments themselves, via the Council of Ministers, are as much part of an EU institution as any commissioner.
The Commission does not help by maintaining "representations" in EU capitals, as if it were some external entity needing an embassy. Last month's announcement that it would spend more on its offices in member-states is depressing. The net result may be a larger and softer target for Euroscepticism.
Perhaps Peter Mandelson should start by persuading the Commission to close all its national offices, including that in London. He could replace it with a smaller personal office, spending almost as much time in London as in Brussels.
Such a display of economy and common sense might persuade even the British to look afresh at their European-ness. He could then help Mr Blair mount a campaign with a fair chance of putting the Eurosceptics to flight and reminding the British public that membership of an ever closer union is both what they signed up to, and vital to the UK's best interests.
• Dennis Kennedy is a writer on European affairs