ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on S. Usherwood and N. Startin’s understanding of Euroscepticism as an ‘embedded and persistent’ phenomenon at both the national and European levels. The nationalist logic of the Eurosceptic discourse is evident also in the way in which the European Union (EU) is represented in these discourses. Within the Eurosceptic discourse, certain commentators account for the existence of the EU as a forum for an inter-state between member-states. From this perspective, EU politics is a zero-sum game played by competing member-states with clear winners and losers from each new regulation or treaty revision. The effect of the Franco-German alliance is to position the United Kingdom (UK) on the margins of the EU in which power is wielded by an alliance of France and Germany. The significant benefits which the UK receives from EU membership and the special treatment that it has been afforded by its European partners over the past four decades are ignored.
