Brexit and British Politics

Geoffrey Evans, Anand Menon

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781509523894
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique européenne

Brexit has changed everything - from our government, to our economy and principal trading relationship, to the organization of our state. This watershed moment, which surprised most observers and mobilized previously apathetic sections of the electorate, is already transforming British politics in profound and lasting ways. In this incisive book, leading analysts of UK and EU politics Geoffrey Evans and Anand Menon step back from the immediacy and hyperbole of the Referendum to explain what happened on 23 June 2016, and why. Brexit, they argue, was the product of both long-term dissatisfaction with the EU and a gradual breakdown in the relationship between parties and voters that spawned detachment, disinterest and disenchantment. Exploring its subsequent impact on the June 2017 General Election, they reveal the extent to which Brexit has shattered the contemporary equilibrium of British politics. These reverberations will continue to be felt for a very long time and could pose a real danger to the health of British democracy if the government fails to deliver on the promises linked to Brexit.

1
The Best of Enemies

British relations with the various manifestations of European integration have never been comfortable. ‘With Europe, but not of it’, as Churchill put it, is probably the most upbeat assessment that could be made. Of all the member states, Britain has consistently been the least ‘European’ in its outlook, at the levels of both politics and public opinion.

The steady drumbeat of British euroscepticism, audible well before the United Kingdom joined the European Community, strengthened noticeably and possibly decisively after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. This brought about a sea change in the nature of European integration, introducing the basis for the single currency as well as cooperation in areas such as defence policy and migration. Even prior to that, payments to the EU budget and the loss of sovereignty that EU membership implied had been longstanding bugbears, crucially joined, later in the day, by immigration. These discontents were given voice by a small but growing band of eurosceptics – both inside and outside parliament – whose rising influence was to prove decisive when it came to calling the 2016 Referendum.

This chapter pinpoints the factors that shaped British relations with the EU and explains how these ultimately led to a situation in which the UK voted to leave the Union. In tracing the history of relations between Britain and the EU, it shows how the themes that became so prominent in the Referendum campaign had in fact haunted the relationship for decades.

From then till (almost) now

The uncomfortable relationship between Britain and the institutions created by its European neighbours predated formal membership. When the governments of France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands formed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Britain remained aloof. In 1957, the same six states established the European Economic Community (the EEC). Again, Britain was invited to participate. Again, it declined. By the early 1960s, economic growth in the six had begun to outstrip that of the UK. However, even once this led to London changing its mind, the experience was hardly salutory. Successive applications for membership from both Conservative and Labour governments were vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle.

Nor did membership after 1973 lay British reservations to rest. Far from it. Whilst Labour had backed accession in 1967, by the time Britain joined six years later, it was politically expedient for the party to criticize the terms of entry. The 1974 Labour manifesto promised a fundamental renegotiation of the Treaty of Accession, which the newly elected Wilson government duly undertook. The ensuing talks achieved little of substance, but the resultant 1975 referendum produced an overwhelming vote in favour of continued membership.

Even then, Britain remained wary of the club it had so recently joined. Immediately prior to the start of the 1977 British presidency of the EC, James Callaghan wrote to the General Secretary of the Labour Party emphasizing his concerns over the dangers of supranationalism and Britain’s excessive budget contribution. Two years later, Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street and immediately demanded that Britain’s budgetary settlement be re-examined. In 1984, following years of belligerent rhetoric (‘I want my money back’) and bad-tempered bargaining, she secured a rebate on Britain’s contributions to the Community budget. In 1988, the tone of her speech – at that altar of pro-European thought, the College of Europe in Bruges – caused consternation as she underlined her preference for cooperation among sovereign states, rather than control by supranational institutions.

That speech heralded the emergence of bitter divisions over Europe that have haunted the Conservative Party ever since. Labour, remember, had split into two parties in the 1980s partly because of disagreement over the EC, as key figures broke ranks to form the rival Social Democratic Party. Now, it was the turn of its opponents. Six Conservative Cabinet ministers resigned over Europe under Margaret Thatcher.

Mrs Thatcher’s ultimate demise (itself prompted by struggles within her party over the EC) failed to resolve an issue that was coming to dominate British politics. The UK now found itself almost alone among the member states in opposing further economic and political integration, and its recalcitrance greatly hampered the drafting of the Maastricht Treaty. The 1992 General Election reduced the Conservative majority in parliament from around 100 to just 21. Consequently, the government’s policies towards the EU became the object of a ceaseless guerrilla war fought by Conservative eurosceptics enraged by the Treaty and energized by its (initial) rejection by a Danish referendum.

Maastricht represented a watershed moment. John Major, in fact, played a blinder at the summit. He secured amendments to, and opt-outs from, those things to which he objected – notably the Social Chapter, and Economic and Monetary Union, respectively. Nevertheless, the Treaty marked a shift in British relations with the EU.

To understand this, we need to step back a few years. In 1987, the EC member states had signed the Single European Act (SEA). This revision of the EC treaties led to the creation of the single market. And the UK had been one of the main driving forces behind this, as the Thatcher government was desperate to open up trade between the member states.

However, once the SEA was in place, the UK became, to all intents and purposes, a satisfied member state. As far as London was concerned, the single market was the final step in European integration. But this was not a belief shared by its European partners. The kind of talk the latter engaged in – of political or monetary union and other highly federalist sounding schemes – provoked nothing but incomprehension, mingled with concern, on the English side of the Channel. Hence the defensive and frequently belligerent reactions to each successive attempt to amend the EU treaties.

This reaction first became apparent during the negotiations over the Maastricht Treaty which was signed in 1992 – a year that also saw the entry into parliament of a new generation of Conservative politicians with a profound ideological hostility to European integration. Among them were some who were to play key roles in the 2016 Referendum (notably Iain Duncan Smith and Bernard Jenkin). Meanwhile, the Maastricht Treaty itself, with its plans for monetary union and common policies on migration and immigration, laid the groundwork for the key themes in the 2016 Referendum.

Compounding the impact of Maastricht, only a few months after the Treaty’s signing, on what came to be known as Black Wednesday (16 September), Britain crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Despite spending billions of currency reserves and raising interest rates to a spine-tingling 15 per cent in an attempt to prop up sterling, the government proved unable to keep the pound above the lower limit set for it within the ERM.

The implications were far-reaching. For one thing, the humiliation dealt a fatal blow to the reputation of the Conservatives for sound economic management. Of more interest to us, it also impacted on attitudes to the EU, denting the notion that membership was good for the British economy. And this notion was to take another hit some twenty years later, as the Eurozone crisis ravaged the continental economy.

Finally, the Maastricht debates prompted the creation of a number of extra-parliamentary movements established specifically to call into question continued British membership of the EU. In 1991, a new party, the Anti-Federalist League, was created. This was followed in 1994 by the emergence of the Referendum Party, whose sole ambition was to press for a vote on EU membership. Having changed its name to the UK Independence Party, the former outlived the latter to become the one political party committed to ending membership. These extra-parliamentary forces created a ‘pressure cooker’ effect that played its part in radicalizing anti-EU sentiment within parliament.¹

Following the Maastricht drama, Britain continued to act as a thorn in the side of its European partners. In 1994, Major vetoed the nomination of Jean-Luc Dehaene to succeed Jacques Delors as Commission President – only to see the job go to the equally federalist-leaning Jacques Santer. In retaliation to the EU’s failure to lift a ban on the export of British beef following the BSE (or ‘mad cow’) scandal, he launched a policy of non-cooperation. Ministers and officials continued to attend EU meetings, but constantly raised the issue of beef exports while blocking anything requiring unanimous agreement – even if these had been British initiatives in the first place.

Following Major’s defeat in 1997, his successor, Tony Blair, enjoyed a large parliamentary majority, and was far less hostile towards the EU than some of his Conservative predecessors. Policy under New Labour reflected this, though Chancellor Gordon Brown held his ground when Blair pushed to join the Euro. Despite the occasionally caustic tone with which British political leaders were wont to lecture their continental colleagues, and the bitterness that surrounded the Iraq War of 2003, relations with EU partners were not marked by the illtempered contestation of the Thatcher years.

That being said, the UK still proved a reluctant participant in negotiations over an EU constitution. When it came to signing the Lisbon Treaty that finally emerged in 2009, Brown, harried by domestic opponents of the Treaty, announced he was ‘too busy’ to attend, and a second ceremony had to be specially arranged for him.

There was no little irony in the fact that it was the Conservative leader who had warned his party about the danger of ‘banging on about Europe’ who was to call the Referendum that made Europe a national obsession. David Cameron did so for a variety of reasons, largely connected with the poisonous split over the issue within his own party. Yet, to give him his due, he was forced to confront the issue at a perhaps uniquely difficult moment.

For one thing, the crisis in the Eurozone rumbled on throughout his tenure. The economic collapse of parts...