Main Conclusions from the UK Case

One of the most salient points to emerge from this analysis of EPM formation in the UK has been that high levels of Euroscepticsm in the party system did not decrease the presence or number of EPMs. The assumption that a party system with a withdrawalist party and a large and successful mainstream Eurosceptic party would attract all Eurosceptic support and activity has proven to be greatly mistaken. The reason for this appears to be the desire of party leaderships to avoid conflict on Europe with ordinary party members. Ordinary party members then went on to form EPMs to galvanise the large amount of Eurosceptic public opinion behind their anti-EU arguments and force the party leadership to take a more explicitly EU-critical position. This was most evident with the Conservatives and to a lesser extent with Labour. UKIP members also formed EPMs, as despite the party’s hard Eurosceptic policy stance, there was a belief that more direct action against UK participation in European integration was needed. Failure to advance the UKIP Eurosceptic policy at the national level was blamed on the party leadership becoming too ‘Europeanised’ through their participation in the European Parliament.

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Referendums became a key issue of EPM contestation beside that of EU policies and treaties despite their non-presence in the UK political system. Even though there was only one referendum on the EU in the UK, referendums were central to the UK-EU debate and the source of contestation from the late 1990s to 2010. Referendums acted as a factor of formation for EPMs, not so much for their presence but for the campaign to have them held or to prevent them from being held in the first place. Such a situation was present in the political system as well, where the Conservatives and Labour were in conflict over the holding of a referendum in 2006 on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, with the Conservatives in turn coming under criticism for not coming good on their promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty once they acceded to government in May 2010. Despite the presence of just one in 1975, referendums have been central to the EU debate in the UK and their importance to the formation of EPMs reflects this.

The public opinion data discussed on the UK and Europe has shown that the low salience of the EU amongst the UK public has led to a default position of opposition to membership that was present at the start of UK involvement in European integration.

Following on from the analysis of the party system it was shown that the EU was moved to the political sidelines as an issue in the UK as the two major parties came to a delicate consensus on EU policy. The negative public position towards European integration was exacerbated by the repeated failure of the two main political parties to follow through on promises to hold a referendum. Public support for EPM formation becomes apparent in such an environment. A high level of negative sentiment towards EU membership, added to the failure of the political system to deal with these attitudes, was a key driver of EPM formation in the UK. The EU was not a salient issue so there was little benefit in political parties focusing on it.

The UK case challenges this study’s propositions not only as regards the presence of Euroscepticism in the party system but also in relation to the media. The UK print media has been shown to have developed a strong editorial anti-EU bias in contrast to other long established member states. For EPM activists the presence of Eurosceptic arguments in the national media did not discouraged them from mobilising. On the contrary the perceived ‘soft Euroscepticism’ of the print media in criticising certain EU

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policies and not openly advocating withdrawal, meant that they were lumped in with such purported august pro-EU media outlets as the BBC by certain EPM activists. The desire to inform the public of their interpretation of the negative consequences of European integration outside of the mainstream media acted as a factor of formation for EPMs.

This unhappiness with UK media EU coverage was symptomatic of the depth of opposition to the EU held by certain EPMs, and how hard it was compared to that of the media and political parties. For the Business for Sterling EPM a Eurosceptic media was a positive boon to their activities, as it ensured that their articles and press releases received positive coverage and space in national media. Their level of resources strongly differentiated them from the findings from the other case studies, where EPMs were mobilised almost wholly regardless of the level of resources. The amount of resources available to them was considerable as they became the civil society proxy for the Conservative party, as rich financiers and retailers who stood to lose significantly from Euro membership resourced the EPM. Business for Sterling emerges in an original form as an elite-level social movement. A protest movement is typically a grass roots level campaign of ordinary individuals, Business for Sterling was not a think tank or a party faction but a protest movement that displayed all the characteristics of one, except for its small membership being made up of the wealthy and well connected.

George referred to the UK as a “Eurosceptic state” in all its facets, from the opinion of the public, to the policies of the political parties, the actions of the institutions of state to the pervasive anti-EU sentiment in UK history and culture. Academic analyses of the UK political system and Europe reinforced this perception, largely through the evidence of low support for membership from Eurobarometer data and electoral data showing strong support for parties with an anti-EU position. What this case study has shown is that while the UK indeed appeared to be an archetypal “Eurosceptic state”, incorporating a more nuanced view of UK public opinion and the party system shows that the wider historical perspective was of a state consistent in its uncertainty towards European integration. The UK public at only very specific times for fleeting moments were positively disposed towards the EU. Incapable of resolving popular negativity towards EU membership and the practical necessity of it for the state, the UK party system chose to avoid the EU issue. To describe the UK state as Eurosceptic would be to

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ascribe a concerted effort on behalf of the state to undermine the process of European integration. A more accurate description would be that while the major UK political parties came to an uneasy truce with European integration, many of its citizens did not, and they campaigned for their own vision of a Eurosceptic state through the myriad of EPMs they formed.

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