ABSTRACT
This article examines the nature and style of the European election manifestos of Britain’s three major parties between 1979 and 1994. More specifically, content analysis is applied to the text of these twelve manifestos, in order to examine to what extent more rigorous techniques support the accounts of political commentators on trends in party positions and ideologies towards Europe since the first direct elections to the European Parliament in 1979. In analysing the text of Britain’s Euro election manifestos the article devotes particular attention to the thematic composition of each manifesto as well as to the balance between European and domestic oriented policy statements. The article is particularly concerned with the changing nature of the parties’ European election manifestos since 1979 as well as with the growing convergence of European and domestic policy spheres as expressed within them.
