The UK’s relationship with Europe matters. It matters for the UK, it matters for the European Union (EU), and it matters for the fortunes of the UK’s political leaders. Indeed, two of the UK’s most famous Prime Ministers were hugely affected by challenges emanating from continental Europe; such challenges were the making of Churchill and the breaking of Thatcher . The relationship between the UK and the EU has the potential for dramatic change following David Cameron’s commitment to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership. This book studies the evolution of the British discourse on Europe since the 1970s. Analysing the British discourse on Europe, including the increasing prominence of immigration issues, will help us understand how the referendum commitment became possible and propose some implications for the referendum campaign itself. In theoretical terms, I hope to demonstrate that poststructuralist discourse analysis can provide interesting, accessible, and useful insights into questions of foreign policy and identity.
1.1 Context and Justification: Why Now?
Europe has always been of critical importance for the future of the UK, with a history of migration, invasion, and power-balancing, which has caused much strife for people and politicians alike. Throughout history, Europe has been the UK’s biggest trading partner and an occasional source of existential threat (be this threat Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany). European issues of one sort or another have, therefore, never been too far from the top of the British political agenda. The relationship issues have continued to trouble the political leaders of the UK even after the country joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. The UK has come to be regarded as an “awkward partner” in the project of European integration (Daddow 2006:311; George 1998) and the “home of the term Euroscepticism” (Spiering 2004:127). Nigel Farage and his populist United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP ) are employing the issue of Europe to mount, what has been termed by Professor John Curtice, “the most serious fourth party incursion” into English politics since the Second World War (quoted in Watt 2013).In an example of history rhyming, if not quite repeating, David Cameron echoed his Labour predecessor Harold Wilson by announcing, in January 2013, his intention to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership in 2017 following negotiation of “a new settlement with our European partners” (Cameron 2013). Obviously, a referendum could result in a vote in favour of leaving the EU—a “Brexit” —and thus to massive and fundamental change for both the UK and the EU itself. The struggle between those striving to escape the dark and cloying embrace of Brussels to the post-Brexit sunlit uplands and those concerned about the UK drifting off into a less than splendid mid-Atlantic isolation will only become more intense as the referendum approaches.
David Cameron’s premiership has already witnessed an increasingly frenetic debate on the UK’s membership of the EU. During the early period of his term of office, Eurosceptic Conservative Members of Parliament applied sustained pressure on the Prime Minister with the aim of securing a referendum on EU membership. These MPs had been disappointed and angered that the Prime Minister had decided against holding a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon . 1 They were also worried about UKIP’s strong performance in the opinion polls under the flamboyant Mr Farage. Nearly 100 of these Conservative MPs signed their names to a letter to the Prime Minister in summer 2012 that urged him to hold a referendum (see Montgomerie 2012). The pressure was kept up through the rest of the year, with the Prime Minister eventually making his referendum speech in January 2013. This speech made two important commitments. First, to renegotiate the relationship between the UK and the EU, and second, should the Conservatives win the next general election, to hold an in/out referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU (Cameron 2013). Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, these commitments incited, rather than appeased, his backbenchers, and UKIP continued to perform well in the polls. With regard to the former point, a ComRes poll at the end of May 2013 found that approximately 56 % of voters believed the Conservatives were at that point more divided than they were during the internecine struggles of the Maastricht debates in the early 1990s (reported in Mason 2013).
Regarding immigration , Carey and Geddes (2010:851) observe that there is a strong connection between immigration and European integration because the UK has been the destination for much intra-EU migration. An illustration of the current salience of the immigration issue in connection with the EU is a November 2015 YouGov poll, in which respondents were asked: “When renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU, in which if any of the following areas do you think David Cameron should seek to change our relationship with the EU?” The top issue for respondents was “Greater control of our borders and immigration from the EU,” with “Limits on welfare benefits EU migrants to Britain are eligible for” coming in second (YouGov 2015:5; see also YouGov 2014:7).
It is therefore timely to study the European discourse in the UK. Whilst, historically, European issues are rarely on top of the list of voters’ concerns, related issues like immigration and the economy are. Also, the issue of Europe is associated with a highly contested discourse, where the success or failure of politicians’ arguments has potentially major implications, both for the future of the UK’s relationship with the EU and for the prospects of the politicians themselves. With the referendum approaching, there is certainly significant scope to analyse how key actors seek to make arguments and shape narratives to influence British policy towards the EU.
1.2 Aims/Objectives
This book aims to analyse the drawing of social boundaries in the British discourse about Europe. In particular, I intend to analyse how the discourse has evolved since the UK joined the EEC in 1973, including emphasising the role of immigration within the discourse on Europe. On the basis of the discourse analysis, I aim to draw out some implications for how the relationship between the UK and the EU might evolve in the future. The key questions this book seeks to explore are as follows:
How have the patterns in the British discourse on Europe evolved in terms of changes and continuities across the 1975 referendum debates, the Maastricht debates of the 1990s, and proto-referendum debates of the 2013?What are the implications and effects of these changes and continuities, and in particular the increasing importance of immigration in the discourse, likely to be for the forthcoming referendum debate?
1.3 Book Outline
This study proceeds in a well-recognised form and therefore begins in earnest with a chapter setting out the foundational detail of theory and methodology. The chapter outlines the ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin my discourse-analytical approach. I discuss a number of key concepts here, including the interaction of truth, knowledge, authority, and power, with reference to Bartelson (Bartelson 1995) and Foucault (1980). Neumann’s work on self and other (Neumann 1999) is also of major importance here. In terms of the method for the study, the book draws upon Lene Hansen’s highly useful guide in the first half of Security as practice: discourse analysis and the Bosnian war (Hansen 2006). The sources for analysis are drawn from political speeches, campaign literature, and newspaper editorials. A number of analytical tools are presented, including linking and differentiation , and intertextuality . The chapter concludes with some brief reflections on limitations and author bias.
The book focuses on three particular peaks in the discourse: the 1975 referendum campaign, the Treaty of Maastricht ratification debates of 1992–1993, and the proto-referendum debates of 2013. This episodic approach is useful in delivering a manageable amount of source material. Why are these three periods relevant? Taking each in turn, the previous referendum campaign is clearly of interest given the prospect of another campaign in 2017. The campaign’s oppositional nature presents a good opportunity to analyse different constructions of identity. The second peak of the Maastricht debates has become notorious in British politics for the frenetic nature of its discourse and the related destruction of the authority of Prime Minister John Major . It demonstrates that the discourse on Europe had had major implications for the fortunes of Prime Ministers and political parties in the UK. The third peak, the proto-referendum debates of 2013, keeps us updated and allows us to finish our “history of the present in terms of the past” (Bartelson 1995:7–8). This peak is also notable in that the Prime Minister found his range of options narrowed to the point of being forced into a referendum commitment he initially wanted to avoid (see Cameron 2012).
The three discursive peaks each receive a chapter of analysis, meaning one chapter each on 1975, 1992–1993, and 2013. These chapters begin with an overview of the sources used, how the chapter relates to the book’s research questions, and a summary of the representations uncovered in the discourse. A brief bit of historical/political context is then provided before the detail of each major and minor representation is set out. The final chapter concludes the study by drawing out the key continuities and key changes across the 40-year period under analysis. I also use this conclusion to assess the likely effects and implications of these continuities and changes for the referendum campaign.
Note
1.
David Cameron’s fairly reasonable justification against a referendum was that the Lisbon Treaty had already been ratified before he came to power.
References
Bartelson, J. (1995). A genealogy of sovereignty. Cambridge studies in international relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. x, 317 p. pp.
Cameron, D. (2012, June 30). David Cameron: We need to be clear about the best way of getting what is best for Britain. The Daily Telegraph.
Cameron, D. (2013). David Cameron’s speech on the EU: Full text. The New Statesman. Retrieved January 10, 2013, from http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/david-camerons-speech-eu-full-text
Carey, S., & Geddes, A. (2010). Less is more: Immigration and European integra...