Eurosceptic parties are thriving, but Brexit serves as a warning | Letters

Hostility toward the EU across the continent is nothing new, but since June 2016 parties have mostly dropped demands to leave the bloc, writes Denis MacShane, while Joe Shackles says that such hostility is rooted in opposition to the economic status quo rather than anti-immigrant sentiment

Europe has always had major political parties hostile to European integration since the first steps to supra-national cooperation and partnership were taken in 1950 (Eurosceptic parties thrive across EU, but public in no mood to quit the bloc, 3 March).

Labour opposed European partnership with vivid language from leaders like Hugh Gaitskell and Jim Callaghan, who used Ukip-type jargon. The Labour leadership since 2015 has not exactly been Europhile. The German Social Democrats in the 1950s denounced the European Economic Community as "Catholic, conservative and capitalist". The French and other communist parties, which had much bigger voting shares than far-right parties today, regularly denounced Brussels. In 1978, Jacques Chirac said "voting by majority means France is paralysed" and "a federal Europe cannot fail to be dominated by the Americans". The Guardian comment pages propagated Lexit - left support for EU withdrawal - in 2015. Poland's PiS party has nothing positive to say about Europe except when it comes to EU agricultural and regional subsidies, when suddenly its Euroscepticism dissolves into embrace of Brussels handouts.

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