Tory peer Lord Tebbit has mounted a scathing attack on Britain today warning the new Tory leader that a European elite will seek to undermine him.

Writing in The Spectator, the former Tory chairman warns Iain Duncan Smith that he must fight hard against a "rich, powerful and greedy" European establishment in a bid to stop Britain becoming a third world country.

In a ferocious open letter he says: "Already parts of the once-proud NHS have descended to Third World status, with the filthy wards and trolley queues of sick and dying patients.

"Illiteracy is growing and, despite the trumpeted increase in examination passes, everyone knows that many youngsters leave school barely numerate and profoundly ignorant of the history, culture and geography of their own country, let alone the wider world, with the cultural horizons of a football yob, but already parents of another generation born into a world of deprivation."

He tells Duncan Smith that he must act to stop a "welfare-dependent" Britain being engulfed by "a growing sub-cultural cesspit of violence".

Lord Tebbit calls on the new Tory leader, who has come under fire for the appointment of right-wingers in his shadow cabinet, to stand firm against the forces of Europe.

"The European establishment and the Foreign Office will try to undermine you as they did Margaret Thatcher and William Hague. I hardly need say, neither over nor under-estimate them. They are rich, powerful and greedy for power, but the people of Britain can be more powerful by far if you lead them with courage and truth. Good luck. You can do it," he said.