The time has come for Britain to declare that enough is enough on Europe and tear up the Lisbon treaty, according to former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby.
The Tory grandee, who was chancellor from 1983 to 1989, writes in The Times that the "eurozone meltdown" is continuing to inflict substantial economic damage, not merely on its member countries but also on the wider world.
The decision to embark on European Monetary Union was among the most irresponsible political initiatives of the post-war world, he adds.
"The time has clearly come to say enough is enough. The present mess is bad enough. We cannot afford to allow any continuation of the circumstances that led to the grotesque irresponsibility that produced it," he writes.
The notion that "more Europe" must always be promoted has to be explicitly abandoned, he says.
"This requires not merely a declaration to that effect, but its embodiment in a full-blown constitution that sets out the entrenched and unalterable competences and responsibilities of the member states of the Union - the very reverse of what is contained in the anti-constitutional Lisbon treaty.
"The present British government, as it surveys the wreckage of the eurozone, has a golden opportunity to promote this."
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