I hope Eurosceptics are watching Kiev with embarrassment.

There’s a brilliantly ironic piece in today’s Mail by columnist Dominic Lawson, who has decided that this could be the moment when ‘the tide of history turned against the EU’.

By ‘this’ he means a fringe meeting of Eurosceptics he attended in Sicily last week. But nevermind that. As Lawson puts it:

“It is indeed a long shot and there is nothing more powerful in politics than the status quo; but I left the San Domenico Palace with a sense that it might once again have been the place where history is made,” Lawson writes.



What’s brilliant about the piece is that it should come out on a day when history is actually being made, but perhaps not quite in the way Lawson hoped. For in writing about the ‘tide of history turning against the EU’, he has clearly missed what’s happening in Ukraine, where up to 350,000 people are today protesting in favour of formulating closer ties with the European Union. That’s right: there is a massive pro-EU demonstration of almost half a million people taking place right now. The tide of history indeed. The protesters are marching through Kiev in protest at President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an EU trade deal after coming under pressure from Russian. In response, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets and chants of ‘revolution’ have rung out across a sea of Ukrainian and EU flags. And yet at the Daily Mail’s offices on Kensington High Street it appears to be business as usual:

Meanwhile in Ukraine…

I hope Eurosceptics are watching Kiev with embarrassment.

As you’re here, we have something to ask you. What we do here to deliver real news is more important than ever. But there’s a problem: we need readers like you to chip in to help us survive. We deliver progressive, independent media, that challenges the right’s hateful rhetoric. Together we can find the stories that get lost.

We’re not bankrolled by billionaire donors, but rely on readers chipping in whatever they can afford to protect our independence. What we do isn’t free, and we run on a shoestring. Can you help by chipping in as little as £1 a week to help us survive? Whatever you can donate, we’re so grateful - and we will ensure your money goes as far as possible to deliver hard-hitting news.