Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The debate around euroscepticism has been a major political issue in the United Kingdom since the inception of the European Union (then the European Economic Community or EEC), and has not reduced significantly following UK membership of the Union.
Contents |
[edit] Eurosceptic views in the UK today
Eurosceptics regard the EU as lacking in democratic process, overburdened with bureaucracy, and threatening to national sovereignty. Some of the UK's mainstream magazines and newspapers, notably a tabloid press dominated by interests sceptical of the European Union (The Daily Mail, The Sun, Daily Express, News of the World), carry what some see as overtly partisan coverage of EU laws and policy. Some commentators argue that this coverage contributes greatly to eurosceptic views; others contend that it simply reflect the views of the readership.
British eurosceptics are often against political and bureaucratic centralisation while remaining in favour of other pan-European measures such as a free trade area.
Some British eurosceptics, including MPs, maintain the superiority of British institutions, traditions and methods with respect to those of neighbouring countries, and argue that harmonisation would be culturally insensitive. For instance, with respect to European judicial integration, they claim (controversially) that the civil law systems found on the Continent do not provide comparable presumption of innocence and other protections.
Eurosceptics argue that as one of the largest economies in the world[1] and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the United Kingdom has very substantial influence. They also observe that there is no simple correlation between the size of a political entity and its success, pointing out that there are several democratic and prosperous small countries, and several unstable, undemocratic or impoverished large ones.
They see the European Union as anachronistic for its attempts to politically and economically unite a whole continent, arguing that the penchant for centralised blocs is increasingly outdated in a world where globalisation and localism are the main competing economic philosophies. Additionally, they claim that most Britons have few cultural or social links with Europe,[citation needed] and feel closer to the spirit of the Anglosphere. In recent years a number of organisations have emerged in the UK and even the Commonwealth of Nations which promote the UK's leaving of the EU, eiher returning to the European free trade area or leaving the EU all together. Many of these organisations also promote closer links with Britain's former colonies and in the United States. One such organisation has been established in Canada (Federal Commonwealth Society)
Recent UK polls show that the majority of the British electorate:
- is opposed to UK membership in the euro;
- does not feel well informed about the proposed new European constitution (recent polls have suggested a roughly even split on whether to accept or reject it [1]);
- but does not want to leave the EU altogether.
[edit] History of British euroscepticism
Although the British government was, in principle, favourable to the creation of the EEC, it did not become a founding member, as it initially believed that it would be better off trading with other Commonwealth countries in the English-speaking sphere of influence. The United Kingdom, therefore, entered the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a trade agreement which was less integrationist than the community.
However, after some years, trade with EEC countries ended up accounting for more of Britain's trade than with the EFTA. Britain therefore reconsidered its policy, moving closer to the EEC and opening accession negotiations in 1961.
French president Charles de Gaulle strongly resisted, arguing that the UK was closer to US policies than European ones, and would thus try to "sabotage" the community. Such a fear was understandable, given the past declarations of prominent British politicians: for instance, Winston Churchill had declared to de Gaulle in 1944 that if he ever had to choose between the open sea and the continent, he would always choose the ocean; and if he had to choose between America and Europe, he would always choose the first. Consequently, France vetoed the UK's membership bid (as well as the Danish and Irish bids, which were due to the two countries' heavy reliance on British trade) in 1963.
The Labour Party, then in opposition, spoke against the EEC. Party leader Hugh Gaitskell once regarded the EEC as "the end of a thousand years of history". A second attempt was made in 1967, but it was again rejected by a French veto.
When de Gaulle stepped down from power, UK membership prospects improved. Labour changed its traditionally hostile policy against the EEC and became more favourable. After the party came to power, Britain applied to join for a third time in 1969. Finally, Britain joined the community in 1973.
Despite the decision to join the EEC, scepticism about membership prompted the Labour government to hold a referendum in 1975 on the permanence in the community. The question on the paper was:
"Parliament has decided to consult the electorate on the question whether the UK should remain in the European Economic Community: Do you want the UK to remain in the EEC?"
British membership of the EEC was endorsed by 67.2% of those voting, with a turnout of 64.5%.
Some advocates of EEC membership had argued that the EEC would be "no more than a trade agreement", though the White Paper put before Parliament at the time also spoke of "political union" and "shared sovereignty". It is therefore controversial whether the extent of political union in today's EU was mandated by the 1975 referendum.
As decades passed and European integration deepened, with successive treaties signed by governments, some Britons have felt betrayed by the government, and eurosceptic attitudes have become more intense.
[edit] Eurosceptics in UK political parties
The debate between Eurosceptics and pro-Europeans is ongoing in British political parties whose membership is of varied standpoints. The two main political parties in Britain, the governing Labour Party and the opposition Conservative Party, both have within them a broad spectrum of views concerning the European Union. However, the majority of Conservatives are typically eurosceptic whilst most Labour Party members are usually centrist on the issue.
In the Conservative Party, debate over Europe has been ongoing since the 1970s, sometimes to the detriment of other issues. A particular tipping point for British Conservatism came in the period 1987-1988 when leading Conservatives—including the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—realised that the European question was no longer (if it had ever been) just about an extension of the free market[citation needed]. Thatcher's Bruges speech in September 1988 and the subsequent formation of the Bruges Group galvanised this emerging opinion.
In the 1970s and the early 1980s the Labour Party was the more Eurosceptic of the two parties, having more anti-EEC MPs than the Conservatives. In 1975 Labour held a special conference on British membership and the party voted 2-to-1 for Britain to leave the EEC.[2] In 1979 the Labour manifesto declared that a Labour government would "oppose any move towards turning the Community into a federation" and in 1983 they favoured British withdrawal from the EEC. Under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, the Labour Party dropped their opposition to the EEC and instead favoured greater British integration into European Economic and Monetary Union.
Currently, euroscepticism is a significant current of opinion within the Conservative Party, to an extent perceived to be greater than in any comparably important political party in any other EU member state (but this is to be expected in a country where a large proportion of the population is eurosceptic). Pro-European elements on the left of the Conservative Party also suffered disproportionately more when marginal constituencies were lost in the 1997 General Elections.[citation needed]
However, many commentators believe over-interest in the issue to be an important reason why the Conservative Party lost the General Election of 2001. They argue that the British electorate was more influenced by domestic issues than by European affairs. This is said to be illustrated by the poor performance of the breakaway Pro-Euro Conservative Party in the 1999 European elections, although there is little track record of success generally for breakaway parties in the United Kingdom.
After the electoral defeat of the UK Conservatives in 2001, the issue of eurosceptism was important in the contest to elect a new party leader. The winner, Iain Duncan Smith, was seen as more eurosceptic than his predecessor and concern was expressed that his victory could result in an inflammation of the issue within the party.
As opposition leader, Iain Duncan Smith attempted to disaffiliate the British Conservative Members of the European Parliament from the federalist European People's Party Group. As MEPs must maintain a pan-European alliance to retain parliamentary privileges, Duncan Smith sought the merger of Conservative MEPs into the eurosceptic Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN) group. Conservative MEPs vetoed this move because of the presence within the UEN of representatives of neo-fascist parties who do not share similar domestic politics. In 2004, Duncan Smith's successor, Michael Howard, emphasised that Conservative MEPs would remain in the EPP Group so as to maintain influence in the European Parliament. However Michael Howard's successor, David Cameron, has pledged to remove Conservative MEPs from the EPP Group as soon as possible.
The governing Labour Party is also split into eurosceptic and pro-European factions. Historically, the party tended towards euroscepticism, but today under Prime Minister Tony Blair its policies are generally pro-European. However, a significant minority of Labour MPs have formed the Labour Against the Euro group, opposing British membership of the single currency. The group has support from minority parts of the Trade Union movement, while the majority of trade unions remain staunchly pro-EU.
The UK's third-largest parliamentary party, the Liberal Democrats, is strongly pro-EU, but is also open about the EU's flaws, and advocates institutional reform and a greater role for national parliaments in scrutinising EU legislation.
The United Kingdom Independence Party, which advocates the UK's complete withdrawal from the European Union, received 16% of the vote and gained 12 MEPs in the 2004 European Election. The party was subsequently weakened by a leadership struggle and the defection of prominent member Robert Kilroy-Silk. In the following General Election of 2005 neither UKIP nor Kilroy-Silk's new Veritas party succeeded in gaining a substantial percentage of the vote, or any seats in parliament.
The Scottish National Party has tended to be Europhile since the 1980s, however, for some the example of Norway has encouraged a Eurosceptic Scottish independence movement. This has found some separate expression in the Free Scotland Party, founded by a formerly prominent member of the SNP, Brian Nugent. As the SNP's heartlands tend to be in fishing and farming areas of Scotland, they have been seen as a real threat to the Europhile SNP. However, this has not yet emerged. Polls show a significant amount of Euroscepticism in Scotland, but neither UKIP nor the Conservatives are very powerful there.
[edit] Eurosceptic British press
In the UK, many newspapers, notably the Daily Mail and the Rupert Murdoch newspapers (The Sun, the News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times), are eurosceptic along with the broadsheet Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and have published many stories highly critical of the European Union and its policies. The accuracy or otherwise of these stories is hotly disputed, and in some cases the actions of international bodies with no connection to the EU have been attributed to it. Examples include headlines such as "Ludicrous EU officials ready to ban yogurt", The Daily Telegraph, 10 November 2003, where there were simply proposals on standard labelling and these proposals were initiated by the UK government, and reports in several UK papers in March 2000 that the EU planned to 'reduce' UK condoms to European sizes, when it was in fact the European Standardisation Committee (CEN) which proposed labelling changes, an organisation with no connection to the EU. In response, the European Commission has created a website dedicated to explaining its point of view. [3]
Pro-Europeans allege that some coverage of the European Union by UK tabloids is xenophobic, particularly through what they sometimes regard as conscious attempts to influence British politics by denigrating foreign countries (Such as Daily Express's article about renaming Waterloo Station in London, as it could offend the French [4]). Many eurosceptics reject this allegation as a slur. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister recently said to Jose Manuell Barroso "See what I have to put up with?" regarding the British Press' unfavourable cover of the EU Budget 2007-2013.
The daily newspaper of the hard-left, The Morning Star (connected to the Communist Party of Britain) takes an internationalist, Marxist eurosceptic position. Under the Editorship of Mark Seddon, Tribune, the journal of the Labour Movement, tended to give space to eurosceptic contributors, including controversially, Marc Glendening of the Democracy Movement. This position was defended by other centre-left eurosceptics who also spoke on platforms with the Democracy Movement once the Democracy Movement had successfully given direct assurances that it was not xenophobic, racist or sympathetic to extreme nationalists.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The United Kingdom has the fourth-largest economy in the world, is the second-largest economy in the European Union, and is a major international trading power. [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3846.htm Background Note: United Kingdom], US State Department
