Tory peer quits over 'Europhobia'

Lord Skidelsky is a renowned biographer

Lord Skidelsky has quit the Conservative Party over its "Europhobia" and said it is hysterical, embittered and xenophobic.

The renowned biographer is the first high-profile departure since the election of Eurosceptic Iain Duncan Smith as leader.

Lord Skidelsky, a supporter of pro-European rival Kenneth Clarke, said many in the party had 1940s views on tax harmonisation and the European rapid reaction force.

With Europhobia has surfaced a streak of xenophobia

Lord Skidelsky

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, the academic said: "The party I joined was Eurosceptic. It has become Europhobic.

"Opposition to joining the euro has hardened from doubt into dogma.

"And with Europhobia has surfaced a streak of xenophobia."

He dismissed Mr Duncan Smith's idea of sending shadow ministers around Europe to see how they managed health and education as a "gimmick" as it would be realised more funding was needed.

Electoral defeats

And the peer, a former Labour Party and prominent SDP member, said that Kenneth Clarke had been the last chance to return the party to "sensible ground".

"With unerring accuracy, a party embittered, but not chastened, by two electoral defeats chose someone as much like itself as possible - a mistake the Conservatives never used to make in the past."

The peer, a professor of political economy at Warwick University, has written an acclaimed biography of economist John Maynard Keynes.

He was ennobled by John Major in 1992 and sacked from his post as Treasury spokesman in 1999 over his stance on the bombing of Kosovo.