Have you ever watched an object gradually disintegrate in a glass jar of acid?

Many of us will have in our school’s chemistry lab. The power of the acid to dissolve the object — which might be a stone, a lump of metal or some other substance — is one of nature’s more entertaining party tricks.

Not so, though, when the object being eroded away is your own country.

The European Union is rolling out the immense, shadowy powers of the Lisbon Treaty (aka EU constitution) with unseemly haste. Officials can hardly believe their luck and are consolidating their diktat with streamlined ruthlessness.

It doesn’t help Britain’s cause that the Coalition Government is cooperating willingly in this process. The City of London, arguably the world’s biggest financial centre, has been handed over without so much as a squeak from George Osborne and the Cabinet.

It is beginning to emerge that many of our Armed Forces could be pledged to joint operations with France, even sharing the new aircraft carriers. And more legal powers over British citizens have been handed to countries with suspect judiciaries.

William Hague, far from being the Euro warrior of popular imagination, is mired in personal problems that get worse by the day. He has hardly raised his head above the battlements on European integration. His words before the election — “We will show we mean business” — were meaningless all along.

I have to say it: this is not what we expected from the new government. If the Conservatives cannot protect the nation’s integrity, and simply preside over its dissolution as a self-governing entity, it is not fit for office.

It’s no excuse that David Cameron has been away. As Prime Minister this is his responsibility. The deficit does have to be tackled, we know, but not at the expense of the United Kingdom’s political future.

The least he can do now is allow the EU referendum he promised before the election. His reputation probably depends on it.

It’s not the country that should be immersed in an acid bath, but our lickspittle political class.

John Evans