An open letter in the Guardian from “30 top intellectuals” hyperventilating over the growing anti-EU sentiment in Europe draws pointed critique from Theodore Dalrymple.

The letter began with a ringing suggestio falsi: “The idea of Europe is in peril.” What the authors meant was that the idea of the European Union is in danger. They implied, in effect, that Europe and the European Union were synonyms, which is clearly false. If a country ceases to be a member of the European Union, or has never been a part of it, it does not cease to be European, neither geographically nor culturally.

Dalrymple ends his Law & Liberty article with the following shot across the bow:

However, having read the open letter in the Guardian, with all its resort to suppressio veri and suggestio falsi, my main thought was that if these were top intellectuals, what must the rest be like?