It should come as no surprise that with the difficulties that European Union is experiencing in solving the debt crisis and preventing its spread, euroskepticism is becoming increasingly mainstream. Formerly its main reservoirs were the nationalist right and the state interventionist left who could not make common cause.
According to a survey published in the Sunday edition of the German tabloid Bild, 40 percent would consider voting for a Eurosceptic party while 50% of those surveyed claimed that the position deserved representation in national German politics.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's beleaguered coalition party, the Free Democratic Party, has lately attempted to take advantage of such sentiments although the shift apparently came too late to salvage the party's chances in the Berlin elections.
If this is the situation in a core European country such as Germany, it is hardly surprising that traditionally Eurosceptic Britain would provide even more hospitable terrain.
Mark Pritchard, secretary of an important committee of Conservative Party MPs, prodded his party's leader Prime Minister David Cameron to stage a referendum on pulling Britain out of the EU. He further warned the Prime Minister not to expect support for British participation in a bailout, saying: "Conservative MPs will not continue to write blank cheques for workers in Lisbon while people in London and Leicester are joining the dole queue."
Mr. Pritchard showed no restraint in anti-EU rhetoric "In less than four decades, and without a single shot being fired, Britain has become enslaved to Europe - servitude that intrudes and impinges on millions of British lives every day."
Last week 120 Conservative Members of Parliament met to demand a rewriting of the country's relationship with the European Union emphasizing that the relationship was with a trading bloc rather than with a political union.
The Conservative base has always had it in for David Cameron, who originally had pledged to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty if the Conservatives came to power.
The pledge of a referendum was originally made by Tony Blair and the Labour Party prior to the 2005 elections. Knowing full well that the treaty would be rejected in a referendum, Labour reneged, claiming that the treaty was merely a "tidying up exercise" and did not break sufficient new ground to justify referendum.
The Conservative Members of Parliament may be knocking on an open door. Foreign Minister William Hague has recently advocated reworking the country's relationship with Brussels. The Conservative ministers, however, would like to barter British acquiescence to greater political union on the continent in return for loosening Britain's ties with the European Union. This would have the advantage of securing the same results by agreement rather than by unilateral action.