In 1991, 57% of Britons said membership of the EU was a good thing. By 2010 it was only 28%. According to the former Europe Minister Denis Macshane MP it is the same story among opinion-shapers: "the isolationists...have conquered the field [and the] pro-Europeans have shrunk away."
This is no cause for celebration. Rather it should be cause for bitter regret for pro-Europeans. But also for some brutal honesty about where the European project has gone wrong. An unreflective lashing out at 'English Europhobia' does not even begin to address the real problems.
In the project for European integration, leaders wilfully allowed their publics to get left behind. Whilst all politics remains local, economics continues to become ever more global. Now in addition to the economic crisis, we have an even more fundamental problem, which is an undermining of public trust that democratically elected leaders will reflect the will of the people.
The utopian visions of some of Europe's most articulate cheerleaders show how expectations for Europe were set far too high. The late historian Tony Judt wrote of Europe as "a paragon of the international virtues...an exemplar for all to emulate."
New Labour's Mark Leonard invited us to imagine a "New European Century' of 'peace, prosperity and democracy." The writer Jeremy Rifkin went even further. Europe was "on the journey towards a third stage of human consciousness' no less, creating 'a new promised land, one dedicated to reaffirming the life instinct and the Earth's indivisibility."
But the politicians imbued with such visions, and pursuing greater integration, failed to make the case to the general public. In the words of Perry Anderson, "the ensuing debacle came as a brief thunderclap to the Western elites' when it turned out that 'the light of the world ... cannot even count on the consent of its populations at home." The voters of France and Holland (not, note, 'Europhobic' Britain) decisively rejected the grandiose 500-page European Constitution even though it was supported by every mainstream continental political party.
Next, the European political class, rather than accept that a premature federalism was straining the relationship between the project and the people, decided to place the project beyond the will of the people. And as Anderson sardonically noted, it was not the first time.
Virtually every time - there have not been many - that voters have been allowed to express an opinion about the direction the Union was taking, they have rejected it. The Norwegians refused the EC tout court; the Danes declined Maastricht; the Irish, the Treaty of Nice; the Swedes, the euro. Each time, the political class promptly sent them back to the polls to correct their mistake, or waited for the occasion to reverse the verdict. The operative maxim of the EU has become Brecht's dictum: in case of setback, the government should dissolve the people and elect a new one.
This shielding of the European project from the European peoples - stealth integration, so to speak - has reached new and deeply worrying heights with the replacement of elected national politicians by EU appointed technocrats; Mr. Monti at the head of Italy and Mr. Papandremos in Greece.
We are in treacherous waters now. Democratic politicians cannot govern without the will of the people, and for the European project to become associated in the popular mind with arrogant elites acting on their own whims is a disaster. For make no mistake, that association is now firmly entrenched in the UK and it cannot be blamed solely on the hostile UK press. The drive by European elites towards an ever closer union has created a chasm between policy makers and the public which is critically undermining trust not only in Europe, but in democracy itself.
Declining faith in elected leaders is not only a trend in Europe. It is a global phenomenon, and a deeply disturbing one, as evidenced by declining voter turnouts and falling levels of trust in politicians. This threat could indeed prove more fundamental to our values and way of life then the economic crisis we are facing. If elected leaders and institutions lose the trust of the public, they will not have the authority to make the difficult decisions necessary to get out of the economic mire.
The situation has not been helped by the petty and politically driven tone of public debate. We must improve the quality of the conversation in the public square about Europe, and bring an end to the parliamentary knockabouts dominated by the unhelpful caricatures of the 'Little England' and the 'European Superstate'.
The European Union matters deeply but the people of Europe do not want federalism. Not yet, anyway. The beginning of political wisdom is to respect that, back off, listen to the people, and build the Europe they do want, from the bottom up. What is at stake is much more than the European project; it is the credibility and principle of democracy itself.