ABSTRACT
Labour's modernising agenda appeared to represent a genuine shift away from a British tradition of majoritarian rule and towards multi-level governance. Labour in power has clearly been more pro-European than its recent Conservative predecessors. Euroscepticism has not become the fundamental ideological issue that it did in the post-Thatcher Conservative party allowing Labour governments to pursue a more pragmatic and less politicised European policy agenda. Labour in power has attempted to give Britain a leadership role in Europe and construct a new Anglo-European hegemony based on the special relationship with the US and the construction of new alliances on the continent. A major concern regarding further integration into Europe is that the flexible and globalised British economy would be propelled into a European regulatory regime. The reluctance of Labour to legitimise its European strategy leads to a questioning of the extent it is genuinely committed to pluralist institutional arrangements.
