Mr Hague led the successful campaign to keep the pound and flagged up the flaws of the eurocrats' greatest dream - the EU constitution.
Now David Cameron has underlined his determination to ensure that Britain is never run by Europe. In a speech in Brussels, he urged its leaders to forget about grandiose plans for a United States of Europe and to focus on a "3G Europe", with globalization, global poverty and global warming topping the agenda.
He also announced the creation of a commission to explore ways of clawing power back from Brussels in areas such as employment legislation.
Mr Cameron is right - Europe is too inward looking, too obsessed with building a bureaucratic paradise at home while the rest of the world, led by China and India, build the kind of dynamic, free-trading economy that will create the jobs and wealth of the future.
There is no reason why Europe should be a one-way street - always taking more powers to the centre and always blocking the transfer of existing powers to nation states and local communities.
Some people believe that we would be better off out of Europe. But that is a counsel of despair. We must not give up on Europe. We must work for its reform.
