Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom

Levels of support for the EU have historically been lower in the UK than most other member states. UK citizens are the least likely to feel a sense of European identity, and national sovereignty is also seen as more important to British people than that of people from other EU nations. Additionally, the United Kingdom was the least integrated EU member state with four 'opt-outs' – the most of any EU member state.

A referendum on the UK's membership of the European Community was held in 1975, with a majority voting in favour of continued membership of the EC (which later evolved into the European Union). A referendum on membership of the EU was held in 2016, with a majority of voters voting to leave the EU.

The decision of the electorate to vote in favour of Brexit marks the first time in history that a member state has decided to leave the European Union. The UK formally left the EU on 31 January 2020.

History

In the United States, an ideological divide between reverence for continental European refinery and classics and xenophobic sentiment has existed for centuries; however, Euroscepticism is different from the anti-Europeanism more prevalent in American culture. In the late 19th century, Britain's foreign policy stance of minimal involvement in European affairs was characterised as "splendid isolation".

The European Unity movement as a political project after 1945 was supported and inspired by British figures such as Winston Churchill who pledged in his 1946 Zurich speech for "a kind of United States of Europe" led by France and Germany but who did not see a need to involve Britain. The ambivalent position of Britain has been described as "wishing to seem to be a major part of Europe without wanting actually to take part". The othering of European unity as a Continental issue and somebody else's problem has been a recurrent theme. Pro-European British politicians and citizens have faced various defeats and humiliations with regard to Britain's steps in the direction of increased European integration. Even parties like the Liberal Democrats with a clearly pro-European platform, have members that share the British lack of enthusiasms "of all things European". After joining the EU, confrontational attitudes of British politicians, as in the UK rebate controversy, gained further popularity among the British public, and many Britons feel a much stronger affection for the Commonwealth of Nations than they ever have for the EU.

After 1945

Britain was urged to join and lead Western Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The American Committee for a United Europe and the European Conference on Federation led by Winston Churchill were among the early endeveaours for European unity with British participation. Churchill also participated in the Hague Congress of 1948, which discussed the future structure and role of a proposed Council of Europe. British governments and political mainstream players, while advocating stronger integration of the Continent, did not intend to take part themselves. Britain never had a strong pro-European movement like the one founded in post-war Germany. During the postwar years up to 1954, the UK was occupied with the decolonisation of its global empire. It was not among the six founding member states of the European Communities in the early-1950s (described as the "Inner Six"). The six member states signed the Treaty of Paris, creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), on 18 April 1951; but failed to create a European Defence Community.

Whilst after the war Churchill was an early supporter of pan-Europeanism and called for a "United States of Europe" and the creation of a "Council of Europe", he did not have Britain join the ECSC in 1951.

We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.

In the years before, only the British extreme right – in particular, fascist politician Oswald Mosley – were rather outspoken, based on the Union Movement and the Europe a Nation slogan, for a stronger integration of Britain with Europe. The British elites did not assume Britain should or could take part as a simple member in the European communities at that time. The reservation was based less on economic considerations, since European integration would have offset the decreasing importance of trade within the Commonwealth of Nations trade, but rather on political philosophy. In Britain, the concept of unlimited sovereignty, based on the British legal system and parliamentary tradition was, and is, held in high esteem and presents a serious impediment to attempts at integration into a Continental legal framework.

The Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell once declared that joining the European Economic Community (EEC) would mean "the end of a thousand years of history". Some Gaitskellites (including the later founders of the Social Democratic Party), were favourable to British involvement. Labour later moved from its opposition towards the European Community and began to support membership. Important groups of Conservatives also opposed joining the Common Market. One of the earliest groups formed against British involvement in Europe was the Conservative Party-based Anti-Common Market League, whose president Victor Montagu declared that opponents of the Common Market did not want to "subject [themselves] to a lot of frogs and huns". Conversely, much of the opposition to Britain's EU membership came from Labour politicians and trade unionists who feared bloc membership would impede socialist policies, although this was never the universal Labour Party opinion. In 2002, a minority of Labour MPs, and others such as Denis Healey, formed the Labour Against the Euro group in 2002, opposing British membership of the single currency. The Trades Union Congress remains strongly pro-EU.

Impact of the Suez Crisis 1956

Even before the events of the Suez Crisis in 1956, the United Kingdom had faced strains in its relationship with the U.S. After the Suez conflict it had finally to accept that it could no longer assume that it was the preferred partner of the United States and underwent a massive loss of trust in the special relationship with the U.S. Britain, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway then started to prepare for a trading union, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). British politicians, such as Labour's George Brown were in 1962 still of opinion, that Britain should not only be allowed to join, but be welcomed to lead the European Union, and met then with ridicule.

In the 1960s, the membership attempts of Conservative UK governments faced strong resistance from the Continent, especially from the French president, Charles de Gaulle. Instead of being offered a leadership role, Britain was put on a yearlong waiting list, a major political humiliation for pro-European Britons. De Gaulle's veto in 1963 was a devastating blow for Harold Macmillan, who, according to Hugo Young, was not the last Tory politician to end his or her career as a result of European affairs. The UK faced a major economic decline and a row of disturbing political scandals as well. The combination did not help much with Europe's image in the UK, and vice versa. With Georges Pompidou replacing de Gaulle, the veto was lifted and negotiations began in 1970 under the pro-European Conservative government of Edward Heath. The question of sovereignty had been discussed at the time in an official document (FCO 30/1048) that became open to the public many years later in January 2002, under the rules for availability after thirty years. It listed among "Areas of policy in which parliamentary freedom to legislate will be affected by entry into the European Communities": Customs duties, Agriculture, Free movement of labour, services and capital, Transport, and Social Security for migrant workers. The document concluded (paragraph 26) that it was advisable to put the considerations of influence and power before those of formal sovereignty. Among disagreements that Heath had to deal were those relating to the Common Agricultural Policy and the remaining relationship with the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1972 the accession treaties were signed with all but Norway.

Admission and 1975 EC membership referendum

Despite the decision to join the European Community, internal Labour divisions over EEC membership prompted the Labour Party to propose a referendum be held on the permanence of the UK in the Communities. Proposed in 1972 by Tony Benn, Labour's referendum proposal led the anti-EEC Conservative politician Enoch Powell to advocate a Labour vote (initially only inferred) in the February 1974 election, which was thought to have influenced the result, a return to government of the Labour Party. The eventual referendum in 1975 asked the voters:

Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?

British membership of the EEC was endorsed by 67% of those voting, with a turnout of 64.5% and was a major defeat for the anti-marketers at the time with only two of the 68 counting areas returning "No" majority votes.

From 1975 to 1997

The debate between Eurosceptics (known as anti-marketeers until the late 1980s) and EU supporters (known as pro-marketeers until the late 1980s) is ongoing within, rather than between, British political parties, whose membership is of varied standpoints. The two main political parties in Britain, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, each have within them a broad spectrum of views concerning the European Union.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Labour Party was the more Eurosceptic of the two parties, with more anti-European Communities MPs than the Conservatives. In 1975, Labour held a special conference on British membership and the party voted 2 to 1 for Britain to leave the European Communities, with more MPs supporting withdrawal than opposing it and only seven out of 46 affiliated trade unions supporting staying in the Common Market. The views of many leaders and activists within the party were reflected by Tony Benn, who claimed during the 1975 EEC referendum that unless Britain voted to leave, "half a million jobs lost in Britain and a huge increase in food prices (would be) a direct result of our entry into the Common Market". In 1979, the Labour manifesto declared that a Labour government would "oppose any move towards turning the Community into a federation" and, in 1983, it still favoured British withdrawal from the EEC.

Under the leadership of Neil Kinnock after 1983, the then opposition party dropped its former resistance to the European Communities and instead favoured greater British integration into European Economic and Monetary Union. Former British prime minister from 1979 to 1990, Margaret Thatcher gained much popularity with the UK rebate in 1984. Britain then managed to reduce its contributions to the Union to a certain extent, as it was then the EU's second poorest member and, without much agriculture, benefited little from farm subsidies.

A speech by Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission, at the TUC conference in 1988 helped to weaken the eurosceptic inclination in the Labour Party. In the speech, he argued for financial transfers to deindustrialising regions and for all workers to be covered by collective agreements. In response, the formerly eurosceptic union leader Ron Todd declared that "in the short term we have not a cat in hell’s chance in Westminster. The only card game in town at the moment is in a town called Brussels". As President of the Commission, Delors pushed for stronger pan-European regulations in areas including industrial relations, health and safety, the environment and consumer protection. In addition he played a key role in the incorporation of the Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers into the Treaty of Maastricht, enshrining a series of workers' rights into European law. In the context of Thatcher's Conservative premiership, when policies to reduce the power of the trade unions were pursued, Delors' advocacy of a "social Europe" became attractive to many. In 1989, the Labour Party officially dropped support for a withdrawal from the EEC: by 1998, only three per cent of the party's MPs supported leaving the EU.

The UK rebate was also held up by Thatcher's successors as prime minister. Thatcher had worked with Delors in building a single market and supported the Single European Act of 1986, but by 1988 believed that the single market would cause greater political integration which she opposed. That year she warned in the Bruges speech of "a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels". In late October 1990, just before her premiership ended, Thatcher reacted strongly against Delors' plans for a single currency in the House of Commons. Her stance contributed to her downfall a few weeks later, but Thatcher influenced others such as Daniel Hannan, whose Oxford Campaign for an Independent Britain (1990) may be the start of the Brexit campaign.

Role of the Post-Maastricht Blues

The overall acceptance of the European Union in all member states saw a strong increase of support till the 1990s and a major decline afterwards, support sinking to 1980s levels then. Due to the timely connection with the Maastricht Treaty 1992, it has been called the post-Maastricht-Blues. The European integration process faced a major defeat with the failed Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and eurosceptical opinions gained more impact overall. The role of public opinion had been lower before but gained importance with state referendums, as in the rejection of the constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

Since 1997

The financier Sir James Goldsmith formed the Referendum Party as a single-issue party to fight the 1997 General Election, calling for a referendum on aspects of the UK's relationship with the European Union. It planned to contest every constituency where there was no leading candidate in favour of such a referendum, and briefly held a seat in the House of Commons after George Gardiner, the Conservative MP for Reigate, changed parties in March 1997 following a battle against deselection by his local party. The party polled 800,000 votes and finished fourth, but did not win a seat in the House of Commons. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), advocating the UK's complete withdrawal from the European Union, had been founded in 1993 by Alan Sked, but initially had only very limited success. Due to a change in the election principle, the 1999 European Parliament election allowed for the first UKIP parliamentary representation. Over-interest in the issue may have been an important reason why the Conservative Party lost the General Election of 2001; they argued that the British electorate was more influenced by domestic issues than by European affairs.

After the electoral defeat of the UK Conservatives in 2001, the issue of Eurosceptism was important in the contest to elect a new party leader. The winner, Iain Duncan Smith, was seen as more Eurosceptic than his predecessor, William Hague. As opposition leader, Iain Duncan Smith attempted to disaffiliate the British Conservative Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the federalist European People's Party group. As MEPs must participate in a transnational alliance to retain parliamentary privileges, Duncan Smith sought the merger of Conservative MEPs into the Eurosceptic Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN) group. Conservative MEPs vetoed this move because of the presence within the UEN of representatives of neo-fascist parties who do not share similar domestic politics. In 2004, Duncan Smith's successor, Michael Howard, emphasised that Conservative MEPs would remain in the EPP Group so as to maintain influence in the European Parliament. Michael Howard's successor David Cameron pledged to remove Conservative MEPs from the EPP Group and this was implemented.

UKIP received 16% of the vote and gained 12 MEPs in the 2004 European Election. The party's results improved in the 2009 UK European Election, coming in second, above the incumbent Labour Party. In the 2014 UK European Parliament elections, UKIP support reached a new high water mark in England, coming first ahead of the Labour party, and gaining 26.6% of the vote, but on a very low unmotivated voter turnout of just 35.4 per cent.