ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on British policy and attitudes towards European integration since the end of the Second World War. It ranges across a wide variety of historical, strategic, political, economic and other forces that have shaped policy and attitudes. The chapter also considers some of the immediate, intermediate and distant causes that account for Britain’s behaviour as an EUmember state. The focus is on identifying major changes as well as elements of continuity in the form of recurring issues, tensions and conflicts. The coverage does not pretend to be comprehensive in scope or explanation. Rather it highlights and reviews some of the key features covered in this book. It also attempts to distil from a welter of evidence a number of the main problems, trends, assumptions, circumstances and factors that accompany and influence policy and attitudes. The chapter is divided into two sections, one of which deals with the
external or international environment, while the other concentrates on internal or domestic conditions. The external environment in this case primarily involves global, European and transatlantic developments that have affected British perceptions of and responses to the EC/EU. Internal conditions include the role of economic, commercial and financial factors, the influence of party and electoral politics, and the impact of divisions over national sovereignty, independence and identity. Neither the internal nor the external context, however, can be examined in isolation from each other and in any case are not easily disentangled. Policy and attitudes have reflected the interplay between internal and external pressures. This process has in turn given rise to a combustible compound of conflicting perspectives, principles and interests concerning the motives and objectives of British policymakers, the value of European integration, and the identity and long-term goals of the EC/EU. The precise meaning of continuity and change depends on timescale and
context. A particular event or episode, for example, may contain trace elements of both continuity and change, while a difference of timescale may affect the degree of continuity and change. For example, the incoming Blair Labour government of 1997 intimated change when it launched what it projected as a new phase of constructive engagement with the EU. It thereby
distinguished itself from the rhetoric of previous Labour governments and also of the immediately preceding Conservative government by the end of its period of office. It soon became apparent, however, that the Blair government reflected a high degree of continuity with its predecessor in its defence of British interests within the EU on such matters as membership of the euro zone and national control of borders and immigration policy.1
