ABSTRACT
Britain’s relationship with the European Union (EU) has long been the focus of conflict, as advocates of further economic and political integration clash with those who are sceptical about the rationality of the process and who prefer a looser, national-orientated approach. The issue of ‘Europe’ has generated passions in Britain’s political system, resulted in disagreements and even threatened splits within unusual political parties and interest-representation organisations. The tensions caused within the Conservative Party – caused by conflicting attitudes towards European integration, in particular whether Britain should join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) – have been well documented. These led to the dramatic deposing of Margaret Thatcher by her own MPs after a decade as Prime Minister, and subsequently the events of the 1992 currency crisis fatally undermined the administration of John Major. Furthermore, policy towards European integration continues to be a significant barrier to the realisation of the ambitions of various prominent Conservative MPs to lead their party, whilst the remarkable success of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2004 European Elections has been interpreted as a direct challenge to the Conservative strategy of combining a eurosceptical stance with determination to retain EU membership. Thus, with the Blair-Brown leadership of the Labour Party committed to playing a role ‘at the heart of Europe’, and indeed advocating membership of the single European currency subject only to five ‘tests’ of Britain’s compatibility with the eurozone economy, observers might be forgiven for concluding that euroscepticism in Britain is restricted to the political right.
