Euroscepticism in Britain: Cause or Symptom of the European Crisis?

Abstract

Euroscepticism used to be a largely British¹ phenomenon, at least in terms of mainstream political parties and political and opinion-forming elites. Indeed, the word was coined in the 1980s to describe Margaret Thatcher’s policies and attitude towards the EC at a time when she was reasserting British sovereignty against Brussels’ plans for political and monetary union (Leconte 2010: 3). It was later applied to the anti-European wing of the Conservative Party when it battled against the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992–1993 (Baker et al. 1993a, 1993b, 1994, Alexandre-Collier 2002, Forster 2002). At that time, Britain was considered as the ‘awkward’ or ‘reluctant’ partner, exceptional in the EC for the ambivalence of its political class and general public towards a project it had joined belatedly (George 1998, Young 1998, Gowland and Turner 2000). Party divisions and a general reluctance towards integration imposed constraints on policy-making, made brutally clear under John Major and more subtly under Tony Blair, who in spite of his own preference refrained from organising a referendum on adopting the European single currency when faced with strong media and political opposition.