To be Eurosceptic used to mean believing all sorts of rubbish about no longer being allowed to say “two fat ladies” for 88 at the bingo and being forced to eat straight bananas. Being anti-Europe meant tutting over Euro-madness stories in the Daily Mail and railing against “human rights” in general or the metric system specifically. My grandad held out against decimalisation until his dying day. It was the beginning of the end, he reckoned.

For my generation, though, being pro-Europe was as easy as getting on a cheap flight, and as the flights got cheaper, many people felt a little bit more European, in a “Wow, isn’t Barcelona great” way. We consumed the culture without asking who produced the politics. Anyway, the mantra is still that being in Europe is good for business and business is always good. The left takes for granted this kind of pro-Europe attitude. So does Cameron, in assuming a referendum to stay in Europe will easily be won with cross-party support. It’s only mad Ukippers and odd Tories and swivel-eyed Little Englanders who bang on about Europe, who refuse this modern European identity. Oh, and Tony Benn and Bob Crow, when they were alive. But let’s forget that old left tradition, shall we?

Except I can’t, as this European identity is now deeply questionable. As I watch what is happening in Greece, I feel myself to be increasingly Eurosceptic and wondering too if Eurosceptism is not code for the anti-German sentiment that currently abounds. If the European project that once seemed so noble now comes down to the European Central Bank, which is not in any way independent but acts as a thuggish bailiff to further impoverish Greece, what actually is it? If Germans believe they should not have to pay for the mistakes of Greek governments, then they do not see the crisis of Greece for what it is: a crisis of all Europe. Bailouts have been funded for the financial sector since 2008. To simply blame Greece is unsustainable.

The contagion that the financiers fear has already happened, but not exactly in the way they say. When the workings of the eurozone are held up to the light, the gaping deficit is one of democracy. Unelected commissioners, unaccountable banks all laughably scrabbling on to the crowded moral high ground. All this depends on an agreed script: corrupt Greeks as shirkers, hard-working Germans as strivers. All of the deals have actually been about protecting German and French banks from debt write-offs. No wonder Hollande is now setting himself up as a broker seeking compromise. Every leader plays to their own public. Each member of that public will understand themselves to be more or less European. Many will already be suffering, not just in Greece but in its surrounding states, which are even poorer. Grexit, say some, will signal the end of the eurozone. No, it can be managed and contained, say others.

It can’t be. It signals a much bigger failure, which is why everyone, from the United States to Japan, is urging some kind of resolution. The “state” of Europe is imploding and it is because fiscal policy is not the same as political union. It is dividing between the north and the south, and the young and the old. The majority of those who voted “oxi” last week were young. Youth unemployment is high across Europe. We have a generation who have borne the brunt of austerity. In this country we have just seen a budget that was yet another attack on young people. This generation is not Eurosceptic exactly but it is asking for more direct democracy, because, to be frank, there could not be less of it. The bureaucracy of the EU does not speak to them or for them. Most people have no idea who their MEP is or what they do.

The left continues to function unthinkingly with a series of tick boxes. One must be pro-Europe and somehow anti-nationalist. But the world turns – and we turn with it. I supported independence for Scotland because I believe in democracy. I also think to cede all discussion of Englishness to the right has been a mistake. Once the notion of Britishness is interrogated, its centre cannot hold as it is just another vague umbrella for a nationalism that does not want to identify itself as such.

The same problems now arise about a European identity, which cannot be superimposed, from Brussels or Berlin. When we talk of debt sustainability we are also talking about the sustainability of an idea. Mini-breaks in Budapest, Spanish bar staff in every pub, hopping on the Eurostar in glorious St Pancras. The daft knowingness of the Eurovision. The ruin we renovated in France, where we know all the locals. That nightclub in Berlin. A common language based on cheese and civility and not mentioning the war. Or stopping the preconditions for any such war to happen again. Trade. Sure, I understand what Europe may mean, what it should mean.

But now? Europe is at war with itself – and the collateral damage is all too real in Greece and beyond. What does victory mean in the current scenario? How can the left support what is being done? The European “Union”. Not in my name.