Confronting Europe: UK Political Parties and the EU 2000–2005

Introduction

At the very time of one of its most high-profile and potentially damaging crises, ‘Europe’ has seemingly returned to its traditional relatively low salience as an issue in the UK, with the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe apparently vanquished for the foreseeable future, and Blair sounding tough on the European Union (EU) from a traditional British sceptical perspective. Public opinion appears disinterested, and the major political parties are breathing a sigh of relief that they are not repeatedly forced to confront EU issues in the media. The 2005 election campaign saw the EU reduced to a largely non-issue with neither Labour, Conservatives nor Liberal Democrats offering anything new, or for that matter substantial, in their manifestos.

The almost deafening political silence on the European issue in the 2005 general election was underwritten by a silent pact between all the major parties, so electorally damaging (or at least unrewarding) has this issue become in UK politics. Labour's preceding masterstroke was to place these most fragile policy eggs in a twin referendum basket, safely locked away into an indeterminable future (Baker and Sherrington 2005). Yet, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats played their part in the collective amnesia. Conservative strategists did not want voters to be reminded of its internal divisions over the EU—where exactly was Kenneth Clarke during the election? While Liberal Democrats eyeing Conservative marginals were well aware that their party's EU views were far too Euro-positive to emphasise, the UK's burgeoning multi-party politics meant the salami slicing of rhetoric. As one commentator observed,

This article seeks to go beyond the traditional approach when analysing domestic party politics and the problematic of EU membership. The established method of typologising UK party behaviour has been to view it as a matter of adversarial politics, or pro-and anti-European political positioning (George 1998 and 2000; Young 2000; Pilkington 2001). While this has been a useful means to frame analyses of the competing domestic discourses on EU membership, it can obscure the subtle nuances within party positions. However, the most recent period in EU history warrants a further reconsideration of how to examine UK domestic politics on ‘Europe’. It is no longer appropriate to speak of how the main three political parties confront EU issues, or perhaps cope with managing EU matters within domestic governance. The changing domestic, EU-level and international contexts have allowed all three parties to shift or even hide any discussion of EU issues within alternative and historically different discourses. This means that it is no longer so relevant to talk of the main three UK political parties in such hard terms as Europhile or Euro-sceptic, or in terms of hard and soft Euro-scepticism, although it is still possible to characterise individual party members in such a way (Taggart and Szczerbiak 2004). Instead, a more appropriate means of analysing the behaviour of the main UK political parties towards the EU is in terms of their political economy and their take on internationalism. It is evident that the use of political economy and the theme of globalisation, as well as the broader concept of internationalisation, are deployed by all three main political parties to cope with questions of EU membership in general and policy specifics. This enables them to enter into a discourse on EU politics without alienating Euro-sceptic elements within their own party, and to keep the British electorate on side. An example that suggests this strategy has paid off is that mention of the euro within the UK media and political speeches is at its lowest level for four years. ¹ There are a variety of competing political economies and takes on the international order underlying these positions. There are multilayered attitudes evident in the wide spread of views on the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, the euro currency and enlargement in all three parties. Nevertheless, operationalising different mechanisms has enabled these parties to deal with EU issues, but in a more indirect and potentially less electorally risky manner.

The focus of this article is on the period 2000–2005 as this time span covers the EU's attempt at dealing with structural reform (from the Nice Treaty through to the Draft Constitutional Treaty via the European Convention) and includes the effect of the Iraq crisis on the EU issue, EP and UK elections and the UK presidency. This period contains a variety of key events to enable a rigorous comparative analysis of how UK political parties confront Europe, and thus go beyond the accepted academic approach and discourse. We chose the start point of 2000 because it includes the ‘Lisbon process’, which was greatly influenced by the Blair camp. The end point coincides with Britain holding the presidency of the EU, always a useful case study when analysing UK domestic politics and the EU. ² This article offers an overarching analysis of the ways in which each of the main three political parties has dealt with the UK-EU issue. First, it examines the particular approach of each of the main three parties within this time period, and then offers some critical perspectives on the comparative mechanisms and contexts that have enabled this quasi-confrontation with Europe.

The UK Government and Labour Party

Under Blair's leadership of New Labour, ‘globalisation’ has been the key mantra on Europe, viewed as a potential threat to be faced and embraced. Internationalisation has allowed New Labour to pursue the ‘special relationship’ with the US, but combined with a ‘positive engagement’ with the EU (Baker and Sherrington 2004). This has been a carefully balanced strategy for the Blair government, both appealing to and alienating members of his parliamentary party and the electorate. Nevertheless, he has stood firm to this position throughout his time in office. A typical and recent example of his view was at a press conference on his meeting with the newly appointed President of the European Commission, where he stated:

In some respects, the euphoria at becoming the party of government in 1997 enabled the repackaging of New Labour to manage the European issue, and enabled Tony Blair to pursue his European agenda. He was very much welcomed back into Europe by his EU partners at the Amsterdam European Council in 1997, at which he reversed Margaret Thatcher's decision to opt out of the EU Social Charter. He began the process of enhancing dialogue, particularly with France, on the possibility of a more coherent foreign and defence policy for the EU, and also advocated what was to become the Lisbon Agenda. The policy agenda that emerged from the Lisbon summit in 2000 was aimed at building a prosperous and fair society linked to a ‘dynamic, knowledge-based’ economy, and very much reflected the economic strategic thinking of the Blair government. All of these policy positions were managed within the discourses of political economy and internationalism. Labour ministers were able to justify these specific EU policy positions within broader contexts, and thus sell the message that if the UK was strong in Europe, it was strong globally. The signing of the Nice Treaty, primarily concerned with the institutional ‘leftovers’ from the Amsterdam negotiations, could have been a particularly difficult government action to sell back home, yet again the Blair government, and the majority of the Labour Party, were able to convince their domestic audiences that the UK's bargaining position at Nice was indicative of the strength of the UK on the European stage.

However, the Iraq crisis caused severe problems for Blair as a key player in the EU from 2003 onwards, and a real threat to what had proved to be an effective method of managing the EU question at home. Not only did this result in a straining of relations between the UK government and its EU partners, most obviously France, but cracks began to emerge in what seemed like a watertight domestic policy management strategy of EU issues. Blair's attempt to appeal to internationalism, and position Britain as an honest broker and bridge between Europe and America, was severely tested. Both during and since the Iraq war, the UK was viewed by ‘Old Europe’ as more Atlanticist than European, intending to sell American macroeconomics and welfarism to Europe. Blair's willingness to develop and maintain alliances with conservatives like Berlusconi and Aznar who are similarly pro-American in their general thrust was also viewed with distrust by the UK's most powerful European partners. ³ At a domestic level, elements of the public and political establishment began to question the foundations of Blair's foreign policy.

The consequence of this, however, was that the British government was able to dampen down domestic concerns over the EU's Draft Constitution, and address the vexed question of membership of the euro currency. More by chance than by design, the UK government was able to manage the EU political agenda at home by appealing to this broader sense of internationalism. That by acting as a bridge between America and Europe the UK was stronger on the European stage than it would be by opting for one or other was the familiar refrain from Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. The EU's enlargement to 25 member states was also used to add weight to this argument, with the British government positing the view that widening would enhance the EU's and thus the UK's credibility on the world stage. In the Labour Manifesto of 2005, and in the government's White Paper on Prospects for the EU 2005 (issued February 2005), policy on Europe is framed within these broader themes of internationalism and globalisation. In a speech to the House of Commons, Jack Straw claimed that ‘our position as a leading power in Europe makes the UK stronger and more influential in the world—speaking as part of an organisation which accounts for a quarter of world wealth and trade, and more than half of all development aid’ (15 June 2005).

But, within the wider Labour Party there was/is a strong and organised camp who opposed the Constitution, and in some cases the whole European project as presently constituted, and made their views heard prior to Blair's decision to abandon the referendum on the Constitution. In terms of internal party management of the EU issue, it is interesting to observe that within the Labour Manifesto of 2005, the agenda for a future Labour government is a form of defensive engagement—to reform the EU and ‘make the EU work better for Britain’—so appealing to various ‘soft’ Euro-sceptic constituencies. ⁴

The failure of the EU's Draft Constitution, caused by the French and Dutch referendum votes, and the continuing problems of stagnation in the core EU economy, have enabled Blair to claw back some of the command of the EU agenda within his own party. The successive French and Dutch ‘no’ votes on the EU Constitution had let Blair out of one of his chief long-term policy prisons by cancelling the need for a referendum in the UK in 2006. Many had assumed (correctly) that he would lose this and would then be forced to resign as prime minister.

At the June 2005 EU summit in Brussels, Blair (in his unofficial launch of the UK presidency) openly confronted Jacques Chirac on the EU budget and Chirac's call to end the British rebate. Again, the confrontation allowed Blair to ‘speak for Britain’ and prefaced his unexpectedly successful speech to the European Parliament on 23 June, in which he issued a warning that member states faced failure on a grand scale, risking deep economic stagnation and a retreat into nationalism and xenophobia, if they refused to ‘modernise’ and listen to the demands of their peoples. He argued that the lessons of the referenda in France and the Netherlands were that European citizens harboured deep suspicions about proposed economic and social change and that Europe's political establishment was failing to address such fears and concerns. He also suggested that spending should be diverted from the EU's farm budget towards new industries and cutting-edge research and development. Otherwise, he argued, Europe would lose out to the United States, China and India in the developing knowledge-based economy, with tragic consequences. In terms of his own fortunes and opinion ratings as prime minister, Peter Riddell argues that the turning point for Blair as prime minister was not the terrorist attacks on London in July 2005, but the French and Dutch rejections of the Draft Constitutional Treaty for the EU (The Times, 14 July 2005). This enabled him to adopt the forthright strategy on EU budget reform at the Brussels European Council in June 2005, and thus launch the UK presidency of the EU on an optimistic note. However, the return to the global issue of terrorism in July did suit Blair, as he could once again manage the EU agenda within this broader internationalism.

The Conservatives

Since the 1997 general election, the Conservative Party has tried to reinvent itself as a credible party of government, and has failed. The European issue has certainly played its part in this debacle, and in generating the historical context for this while in government. Deep divisions within the Conservative Party have undermined the strategic choice of party leaders since Margaret Thatcher, thus presenting the electorate with a deeply divided party. For the Conservatives, where Europe is concerned, there are at least two voices on political economy and internationalism, often read as forms of trade liberalisation and pro-Americanism. Globalisation is deployed by the hard-line Tory Euro-sceptics as a promise to restore national sovereignty and by such quasi-hyperglobalist Tories to assert market primacy over ‘Brussels’ (Baker, Gamble and Seawright 2002). The Conservative Party also retains its traditional emphasis upon the ‘special relationship’ with the US as enabling the UK's own international credentials and priorities.

In terms of trying to establish a coherent European strategy, if not a policy, the Conservative Party remains schizophrenic. Under Michael Howard's leadership there was an attempt to redefine the Conservative Party's position on EU matters. He argued that Britain should remain a strong member of the EU, but tempered this by emphasising the need for a more flexible Europe (The Guardian, 12 February 2004). However, the emergence of UKIP and their relative success in the European Parliament elections of 2004 required the Conservative Party to revert to the more comfortable sceptical ground on Europe. As a committed Euro-sceptic, and a contender in the 2005 leadership election, David Davies is indicative of those elements within the right of the Conservative Party who have made modernising noises, but does not extend this to a need for the Conservatives to reoccupy the centre ground of British politics, including on the issue of Europe. By contrast, oldguard Euro-sceptics such as Bill Cash reject the Tory modernisers’ analysis, contrasting Conservative belief in limited government with the ‘massive regulation’ of the EU: ‘We had a positive message of commerce, enterprise and the global economy, which we could have put across against the low-growth, high unemployment of the EU and all this massive regulation’, he told the BBC. ⁵

One much-needed advantage that has opened up for the Conservatives after the Dutch and French rejection of the Draft EU Constitution is that with the future European agenda uncertain, and a British euro more or less a dead duck for the foreseeable future, the Conservatives can escape the need to promote exiting the EU and begin to build alliances with other European conservatives including the German CDU. After all, Michael Howard had announced in January 2004 that the Conservative party would remain a member of the European People's Party-European Democrats Group in the European Parliament. There was certainly some evidence of this in the early stages of the 2005 Conservative leadership contest. All the candidates managed either to avoid the European question or temper it within their broader economic visions. Even Ken Clarke distanced himself from his past pro-Europeanism by asserting that the euro currency had been a failure.

The Liberal Democrats

From their Liberal roots, the Liberal Democrats are naturally internationalist in the ‘old’ liberal sense, and this has been updated over recent years into concern to promote joint EU action over foreign affairs, globalisation and the environment. However, the Liberal Democrats have long had a problem with EU membership at the domestic level, appearing too slavishly pro-European even for their own electorate (Curtice and Clarke 1998). In addition a cynical line is that the EU has provided greater opportunities for political influence than has Westminster, and this has also drawn their support (as with the SNP). As a result, pro-European Liberal Democrats are often caricatured as instinctive adherents of the deeper long-term European cause of political integration, willing to ‘surrender’ Britain's sovereignty to achieve a fully federal Europe. Yet, the vast majority of their core and potential electorate remain confused and undecided on all the key EU issues.

After the 2005 election Kennedy appointed several pro-market MPs as key spokes-people in his post-election reshuffle. David Laws became shadow work and pensions secretary while Chris Huhne became shadow chief secretary to the Treasury with Nick Clegg becoming shadow minister for foreign affairs. Each contributed to the so-called Orange Book in 2004, which emphasised voluntarism and the benefits of market forces in public services and adopting a more robustly critical stance over the EU. While not in the shadow cabinet, their influence will undoubtedly play a major role in a post-election policy review, trumpeted as re-examining every aspect of the Liberal Democrats’ programme, and Clegg's position will become central to the European policy of the party. His views were made clear in 2004:

He lists a number of areas in which the Liberal Democrats have dissented from the direction taken by Europe, most notably over ‘key tenets of the Common Agricultural Policy’ and ‘excessively paternalistic EU regulation in areas such as social and public health policy’. He also considers that ‘the greatest failing in this system is not the degree of unaccountable technocratic EU power, but the concentration of unaccountable power amongst national bureaucracies and Ministers in the Council of Ministers’. ⁷ In the wake of his election as an MP, Clegg was more robust in his sentiments:

Built into this model is a belief that the long-term interest of the Liberal Democrats is to operate as a party of the European liberal left, offering Blairite economic efficiency mixed with social justice, along with a form of ethical politics in environmental and international affairs.

Competing Visions—Converging Strategies?

Partly by design, partly as a consequence of external contexts, all three main UK political parties have been able to cope with ‘Europe’ since 2000. On first entering government, New Labour sought to demonstrate ‘leadership’ and ‘positive engagement’ with the EU, yet Blair's dual emphasis on the importance of the Anglo-American relationship brought the UK into serious conflict with its EU partners. The notion of ‘leadership’ has again come to the fore with the UK presidency of the EU and G8, with Blair using this position to defend British interests on the EU budget and thus play to the domestic audience. The Liberal Democrats, traditionally pro-EU, find themselves in a state of limbo after the French and Dutch ‘no’ votes, and the cancelled UK referendum. They have relied upon a coherent and stable EU policy for years, yet are now struggling to find a new policy identity. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been forced to unite around compromise policies on the EU to try and occupy the domestic ‘centre ground’ and yet remain a hard-edged anti-European force.

At the domestic level the ‘British agenda’ for a ‘Europe of states’ has been consistently promoted by all three parties over the period in question. This has run along a familiar attitudinal spectrum with the Liberal Democrats generally the weakest defenders of this position and the Conservative leadership sometimes sailing close to advocating such a radical disengagement from political union that withdrawal appears the underlying principle, or at the very least promoting a state of permanent opt-out semi-detachment. Meanwhile, Labour's post-1989 Europhile conversion has always been tempered by the prioritising of a domestic agenda and a marketised form of political economy. The irony is that none of these agendas has, until recently, driven the European project.

In addition, recent changes in the structure of the EU—a common currency and banking system, new powers for the EP and the widening to 25 member states, but also a consolidation of executive and blocking powers for the bigger member states, has left all the main European political parties playing catch-up with changes in the structure and functions of the EU and facing a worrying and growing confusion of their domestic electorates over what ‘Europe’ really means for them. Indeed, the post-Constitutional stalling of the European project looks like having some interesting effects on UK domestic discourse. The Conservatives look likely to be less divided and preoccupied over Europe than for a long while past, especially if there is no referendum over either of the two outstanding issues of the constitution and euro. However, they will continue to oppose the deepening of political union, favour a more market-led model of European political economy and seek the repatriation of some legislative powers to Westminster. The Liberal Democrats look set for a more robust approach to democratisation and decentralisation of the EU and to shed some of their image as the slavish camp followers of the pan-European Federal Express. New Labour appears to be moving towards a populist and ideologically-inspired direct confrontation with the more interventionist, social model and dirigiste architects of the ‘old’ EU, promoting its deregulated and marketised post-white heat of technology solutions. The crucial factor here is that this is a political economy, rather than a politically driven project for Blair, and therefore there is no reverse gear in these policies—Britain must stay in and fight its corner.