The Risk of Brexit: The Politics of a Referendum, Second Edition - Softcover

Liddle, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783487194 ISBN 13: 9781783487196

Verlag: Ri1, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

This is a critical time for the relationship between Britain and Europe, as politicians debate the crisis facing the European Union and Britain's role within it. This second edition consists largely of new material that charts how recent political developments have changed the debate surrounding Britain's membership of the EU. Following the 2015 general election and with the promise of an imminent referendum on Brexit, the book now considers:
-How has the renegotiation agenda shifted?
-How are EU partners responding to threats of departure from Britain?
-What was the impact of the 2015 general election?
-What are the politics of a referendum on membership in 2017?
- How can a pro-European case be made?

By seeking answers to these questions, Roger Liddle assesses the impact of a series of miscalculated gambles by David Cameron and his forebears that leaves Britain teetering on the edge of an exit from the European Union.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Roger Liddle is a Labour member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom and Chair of Policy Network.

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The Risk of Brexit

The Politics of a Referendum

By Roger Liddle

Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2016 Policy Network
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78348-719-6

Contents

About the Author, 
Preface, 
HOW WE GOT HERE, 
1 The Remorseless Logic of Conservative Division on Europe, 
2 The Shifting Renegotiation Agenda, 
GEARING UP FOR THE RENEGOTIATION, 
3 The Impact of the 2015 General Election on the European Question, 
4 Will Britain's EU Partners Deliver What Cameron Needs?, 
5 What Does Cameron Actually Want?, 
THE RENEGOTIATION AGENDA, 
6 No Longer Part of 'Ever-closer' Union?, 
7 Fair Treatment Between the 'Euro-ins' and 'Euro-outs', 
8 A New Deal on Migration, 
9 A More Competitive EU, 
PROSPECTS FOR THE REFERENDUM AND THEREAFTER, 
10 The Conservative Politics of the Referendum, 
11 Corbyn and Europe, 
12 Can Cameron Win a Vote to Remain?, 
13 Will the Referendum Resolve Britain's Europe Dilemma?, 

CHAPTER 1

THE REMORSELESS LOGIC OF CONSERVATIVE DIVISION ON EUROPE

The promise of an in-out referendum on Britain's EU membership was something that David Cameron never wanted to make. When he ran for the Conservative leadership in 2005 a central part of his analysis of why the Conservatives had lost three successive general elections was their perceived obsession with Europe. In his first speech as leader to a Conservative conference in October 2006, he could not have been more emphatic:

Instead of talking about the things most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most. While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life – we were banging on about Europe.

Since going into opposition in 1997, the Conservatives had struck highly Eurosceptic positions, opposing the ratification of every single one of the four European treaties that the Labour government signed and making the commitment that under the Conservatives, Britain would "never" join the euro. Cameron's objection was not apparently to the substance of these positions, but to the priority the Conservatives had given them in their campaigning and public image. On the issue of substance, no one quite knew where he stood. No one imagined he was a pro-European enthusiast. As a young man, he had joined Conservative central office in the late 1980s at a point when Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech had set a new, more sceptical tone. He then worked as a special adviser for Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, both leading Eurosceptics. Yet for all that, it is difficult to believe that someone of his naturally conservative disposition, rooted in his comfortable stockbroker background in the Berkshire countryside, would see his place in history as leading Britain out of the European Union.

The Conservatives still stood on the ground defined by both parts of the slogan that William Hague had coined in 1999, "in Europe, not run by Europe". No one disputed that there existed within their ranks what was often dismissed as a strong anti-European 'fringe'. However, the 'fringe' now penetrated to the 'core' with the cabinet itself containing a significant number of hardcore sceptics. At the height of the euro crisis in 2011–12, James Forsyth, the respected Spectator columnist, estimated that nine Conservative cabinet members were perfectly relaxed about the possibility of UK withdrawal.

Cameron himself presented an ambiguous stance. On becoming prime minister in 2010, Cameron refused to go back on the pledge he had made in his 2005 leadership campaign to withdraw Conservative MEPs from the European People's party (EPP) group in the European parliament. Instead they formed the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping (ECR) of anti-integrationist MEPs, along with the Polish Law and Justice party and others from mainly small eastern European parties, among whose number were members with an unsavoury antisemitic and homophobic past. Cameron had made his pledge on the EPP under duress in the early stages of the Conservative leadership election. He did it in order to win over a crucial handful of Eurosceptic MPs who had been supporters of Liam Fox (who was to become Cameron's short-lived first defence secretary). Yet it was telling that Cameron proved unwilling to reverse this commitment, despite being fully aware of the very real loss of credibility and influence in Europe that the decision would cause. By it, not only did Cameron preclude his party from major roles in the European parliament, he equally excluded himself from the influential, regular leaders' meetings that always precede European councils.

His decision greatly upset the German Christian Democrats, including Angela Merkel personally, who set great store by the development of pan-European political links between 'respectable' centre-right parties with a pro-EU, pro-social market orientation. In response Cameron launched a charm offensive with the German chancellor, which convinced her that he genuinely wanted to keep Britain in the EU. This relationship is fundamental to any prospect of Cameron's successful renegotiation, but Cameron has only gradually come to realise that Germany alone cannot deliver for Britain and that German chancellors have other pressing priorities besides keeping Britain in the EU.

Cameron's decision to press ahead with Conservative withdrawal from the EPP was symptomatic of what became his general approach on Europe. It was that of the tactical Eurosceptic appeaser. Despite his evident admiration for Blair, he did not follow Blair's example over clause IV, in deliberately engineering a battle against the hardline Eurosceptics within his party to rid it of one of the most damaging shibboleths that since the 1990s had weakened both its public credibility and its capacity to govern.

Rather, time and again the prime minister has retreated in the face of Eurosceptic pressure. With his activists Cameron chose to avoid a direct challenge to their prejudices and assumptions: on Europe there was nothing to compare, for instance, with his firm stand on gay marriage. In 2010, Cameron must always have been aware of the risk he was running inside the Conservative party on the European question: that at some point, an EU development of some kind would cause Europe to come back as an issue to haunt the Conservatives. But his short-termist mindset led him to take the risk of assuming nothing dramatic was in prospect that would threaten the weak consensus in support of British membership that had been established in the UK after Blair's failure to take Britain into the euro. He reckoned without the impact on his party of the eurocrisis.

Cameron first entered office in 2010 with little political capital in the bank. For all his strength of personality, his natural presence and command, and Gordon Brown's weakness as his opponent in the 2010 election, the Conservatives failed to win an overall majority. His leadership failed the ultimate test of politics. In 2010, the Conservative share of the vote on 36 per cent was some six to eight per cent lower than the 42–44 per cent share the Conservatives consistently won from 1979, when Margaret Thatcher last ejected Labour from office, to 1992, when the Conservatives had last won a general election under John Major. In the aftermath of the inconclusive 2010 result, Cameron moved swiftly to enter into a five-year coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats – without the wider party consultation that his coalition...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Ri1
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1783487194
• ISBN 13: 9781783487196
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 150
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland