ABSTRACT
The deep ambivalence of British attitudes to Europe has been painfully obvious in recent years. Mr Major as Prime Minister has said that he desires Britain to be at the heart of the European Union (EU), and yet in the 1991 negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty he fought for, and obtained, a series of opt-out arrangements which clearly indicate a less enthusiastic view of the Community than is held by other member states. This lack of enthusiasm was reinforced first by the September 1992 débâcle over the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) when the pound sterling ignominiously quit the ERM and devalued, and then by the incomprehensible manoeuvring on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty which took an inordinate amount of Parliamentary time and energy in late 1992 and 1993. Then again, having pressed for the enlargement of the EU, Britain was not willing to accept the logic of changing the voting rules and tried vainly to insist on maintaining the blocking minority of votes at twenty-three, risking jeopardy to the admission of Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden, only to be forced into a humiliating climb-down in March 1994. Thus could it be said of Mr Major that: ‘We still don’t know where his heart really lies’ (Economist, 26 March 1994:37). Indeed, it seems quite clear that the European question will continue to trouble the Conservative Party in particular, and the British body politic more generally, for the foreseeable future.
