The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3, JulySeptember 2012
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
ANDREW GAMBLE
Since the election of 2010 not just one, but
both of the Unions in which Britain is
involved have gone critical: the relation-
ship of Britain with the European Union
(EU) because of the crisis in the eurozone,
and the relationship of Britain with Scot-
land with the announcement of a denite
date for a referendum on Scottish inde-
pendence. The union with Europe has
lasted just short of forty years, the union
with Scotland more than 300. Would the
United Kingdom be better o out of the
EU, and would Scotland be better o out
of the British Union? There are loud
voices calling for both, and calling too
for these constitutional questions to be
settled by that most un-British device
the referendum.
On 24 October 2011 there was a vote in
the House of Commons on whether there
should be a referendum on Britains
membership of the EU following a peti-
tion presented by David Nuttall, one of
the new Conservative MPs, taking advan-
tage of the policy of the coalition govern-
ment to allow parliamentary time for
debates on petitions from the public sup-
ported by 100,000 signatures. These votes
are advisory only; they cannot commit
the government to legislation. Neverthe-
less, the government took this vote su-
ciently seriously to impose a three-line
whip on its MPs, and David Cameron
and William Hague changed their travel
plans so that they could be present at the
debate in person. A great deal of pressure
was brought to bear on Conservative MPs
in order to minimise the vote in favour,
but to no avail: 81 Conservatives deed
the whip, and another 15 abstained. With
the Liberal Democrats and Labour, for the
most part, both voting against, the motion
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
468 Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-923X.2012.00000.
was easily defeated, but the rebels were
jubilant. This was the largest ever rebel-
lion by Conservative MPs on the issue of
Europe. It dwarfed the revolts of the
1990s when the party was torn apart by
the civil war over the Maastricht Treaty,
and it was a personal rebuke to the
leadership, so early in the Parliament.
None of this will have come as a
surprise to Philip Norton who in a series
of landmark studies in the 1970s demon-
strated the signicance of backbench dis-
sent in the House of Commons and
charted the way in which it had steadily
grown in all parties over successive par-
liaments. But it was certainly an unwel-
come surprise to David Cameron, who in
2006 shortly after he became leader had
urged his party to stop banging on about
Europe. For a time the Conservatives
had taken the hint, and Europe was
downplayed as a topic in the run-up to
the 2010 election, but it did not go away.
The problem is that there is a large elem-
ent of the Conservative party which can-
not imagine anything more important
than banging on about Europe. It is
what they came into politics to do. As
Andrew Rawnsley has suggested, asking
these Conservative MPs to stop banging
on about Europe is like asking a philate-
list to stop collecting stamps. It will not
happen. What must be particularly wor-
rying to the leadership is that the dissen-
ters are not simply the irreconcilables, the
battle-scarred veterans of the European
wars of the 1990s like Bill Cash and John
Redwood. The 81 rebels also include 49
MPs who were elected in 2010, and who
might have been expected to show rather
more loyalty to the leadership. It is a far
cry from those parliamentary sessions in
the 1950s which could sometimes pass
with hardly a dissenting vote against a
party whip.
On 9 December there was another sig-
nicant moment. In the early hours of the
morning after ve hours of negotiation at
the European summit about a new scal
compact to save the euro, David Cameron
sprang a surprise on his partners. He
announced that he would only agree to
such a scal compact becoming part of a
new European Treaty if Britain were
given a number of specic guarantees,
particularly concerning the City of Lon-
don, to be written into the Treaty. This
was the rst time that many of the Heads
of Government had seen these proposals,
and most reacted with irritation and
incredulity. Nicolas Sarkozy said they
were unacceptable, and it became clear
that Angela Merkel and the other Heads
of Government agreed with him. David
Cameron was isolated, but refused to
withdraw his demands. The meeting
broke up without agreement.
At the press conferences a few hours
later both sides put their own spin on
what had happened. David Cameron
declared that he had wielded the veto in
order to protect Britains vital interests.
Nicolas Sarkozy accused him of under-
mining the eorts to save the eurozone
and making proposals that would
threaten the single market by seeking to
exempt the United Kingdom nancial
sector from its rules. The Conservative
papers and many of Camerons MPs
were jubilant. The tabloids were lled
with Churchillian rhetoric, and the drum-
beat of 1940: Very Well, Alone. Cameron
received enormous praise for showing
the bulldog spirit, at long last drawing a
line in the sand, and telling the Euro-
peans, this far and no further. The MPs
and commentators who had been so cri-
tical of him when he imposed a three-line
whip in October 2011 to defeat the pro-
posal for a referendum now cheered him
as a true patriot. The public approved as
well. There was a big jump in Camerons
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
personal standing and the Conservative
party briey moved into a lead over the
opposition.
Under a headline British Bulldog right
to bite the Euro-bullies and with a pic-
ture depicting Cameron as a bulldog with
a Union Jack wrapped around his neck,
Sarkozy as a diminutive poodle and Mer-
kel as a dachshund, Trevor Kavanagh
wrote in The Sun:
Euro-bullies France and Germany think they
have cast Britain into the outer darkness,
alone and adrift in dangerous waters. In fact,
they have done us a huge favour. This great
trading nation is now free to paddle its own
canoe while the EU Titanic steams on to
inevitable doom. This is Black Wednesday
all over againthe fateful day in 1992 when
they booted us out of preparations for the
European single currency. . . . There is no
way back. The die is now cast for an IN/OUT
referendum. The PM has time on his side.
Polls are certain to show massive support.
Europe now looms as the decisive issue at
the next election. . . . The danger for Brussels is
that we thrive while Europe sinks into per-
manent recession and others peel o and join
us . . . (domineering) Mrs Merkel wants all EU
statesincluding Franceto hand Berlin con-
trol of their economies. With some German-
style discipline she believes Portugal, Ireland,
Greece and Spain could be saved from the
abyss. But after this weeks meltdown, the
whole world knows those PIGS wont y.
A few newspapersthe Guardian, the
Financial Times, the Independentcarried
articles criticising Camerons negotiating
style, suggesting that he had miscalcu-
lated and ended up with a result he had
not planned and which was not sustain-
able because it isolated and marginalised
Britain within the EU. Nick Clegg, after
apparently agreeing the negotiating tac-
tics Cameron would deploy and initially
seeming relaxed about the result, rapidly
changed tack once members of his party
began ringing him to register their dis-
may. However, in the weeks before
Christmas 2011 Cameron emerged as
the clear victor, having taken on the
precious mantle of Churchill and
469
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3
Thatcher. Some of his strongest critics in
the party, including Simon Heer, went
out of their way to congratulate him,
welcoming the veto as a dening moment
in the relationship of Britain to the EU.
Nothing would ever be the same again
they suggested. The way was now set for
the government to demand the repatria-
tion of major powers from the EU which
the Conservatives had included in their
manifesto, and if the EU refused to con-
cede them, to call an IN/OUT referen-
dum.
The January summit of the EU Council
brought much less favourable coverage
for David Cameron in the blogs and
commentaries of the eurosceptics. In-
stead, he was accused of selling out, of
betrayal, of equivocation, of backsliding,
of reverting to business as usual. The
clear lines in the sand established in
December were looking rather smudged.
Back then Cameron had promised that if
the seventeen members of the eurozone
wished to go ahead with a new treaty, it
would have to be a treaty outside the
European Union, and therefore the signa-
tories to it would not be able to use EU
institutionsparticularly the European
Commission and the European Court
to implement and enforce its provisions.
When he had been party leader, William
Hague had called for Britain to be in
Europe but not run by Europe. Many
applauded the sentiment, but no-one
was quite sure what it meant. It lacked
the clarity of IN or OUT. It seemed to
imply that Britain could be both IN and
OUT. Many came to suspect that phrases
like these were devices which allowed
European integration to proceed steadily
while giving reassurance that it was not.
At the January summit it emerged that
Britain would not after all block the use
by the eurozone countries of the Euro-
pean institutions in enforcing their scal
compact. Eurosceptics complained that if
this so it was hard to see what David
Cameron had vetoed. There would be
a new European treaty which all 27
470 Andrew Gamble
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3 # The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
Member States, with the exception of
Britain and the Czech Republic, would
eventually signa deeper integrated bloc
at the heart of Europe which would meet
without Britain.
What dismayed the eurosceptics even
more was that the government appeared
to have no desire to press its advantage
and demand that the EU concede a signi-
cant repatriation of powers. If the
December summit was a historic turning
point, then it needed to be followed
through to put pressure on the EU to
give Britain what it wanted. Failing that,
Britain should hold a full IN/OUT refer-
endum. Yet nothing seemed further from
the governments mind. As an excuse, it
could point to the existence of the coali-
tion. The Liberal Democrats remained the
most pro-EU party in Britain, and would
not support moves to weaken Britains
ties with the EU, still less sever them
altogether. It was clear, too, that the Con-
servative leadership, although overwhel-
mingly eurosceptic, was not willing to
force the pace in disengaging Britain
from the EU. These were eurosceptics
who did not want any further integration,
and favoured some repatriation of
powers, but securing that was not a prior-
ity for them, and despite everything they
still wanted Britain to stay in the EU.
Their overriding reason was that the
single market remained a vital British
interest.
Over the course of the eurozone crisis
British policy has become highly con-
fused, but then it has always been highly
confused. Britain has never made up its
mind about Europe, and what its object-
ives should be. Does it want to be further
in, or further out, or out altogether? The
single market was originally fought for
by Margaret Thatcher. She even accepted,
and indeed pressed for, the principle of
qualied majority voting to ensure that
its provisions were enforced, and that
individual countries could not veto pro-
gress. An eective single market required
a strong European Commission and a
strong Court of Justice to enforce com-
mon standards and rules, otherwise na-
tional interests would tend to prevail. But
when Thatcher changed tack and began
to emphasise national sovereignty and
the need to resist the encroachment of
the Commission and the Court as instru-
ments of European federalism, she
appeared to undermine the rationale of
her support for the single market to the
dismay of some of her colleagues.
The same dilemmas can be seen at
work in the debates over the future of
the eurozone. George Osborne and David
Cameron have become strong advocates
of the eurozone proceeding to full scal
union as quickly as possible, making the
European Central Bank (ECB) a true len-
der of last resort for the eurozone, agree-
ing rm scal rules for all eurozone
countries and ways of enforcing them.
They have taken this position not because
they wish Britain to be part of the euro-
zone, but because they fear that if the
eurozone disintegrates there will be cata-
strophic consequences for British banks
and the British economy. In the worst
case scenario, the world could be tipped
into a full-blown depression. In these
circumstances it has apparently suddenly
become a vital British interest for the
eurozone to survive, and to do so by
embracing scal union. Such a solution
is anathema to radical eurosceptics who
do not want to prop the euro up, but to
dance on its grave. The breakup of the
eurozone might be the prelude to the end
of the EU itself and the recovery of na-
tional sovereignty across Europe. For
eurosceptics, nothing should be done to
hinder this outcome; the United Kingdom
should be actively promoting it, and
advising its European partners that they
should plan for an orderly winding up of
the euro.
This is not, however, the path which
Osborne and Cameron are pursuing.
They declare that a scal union in the
eurozone is in Britains interest, and that
the eurozone members should conclude it
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
as quickly as possible. But Britain objects
to this scal union becoming part of the
European Treaties, because that might
create a union within the Union, and
one from which Britain would be
excluded. This inner union might act in
ways detrimental to British interests. So
to avoid that Britain wants to shape the
rules of this inner union, but without
joining it. That earned the rebuke from
Sarkozy Enough is Enough. Was it ac-
ceptable that Britain could refuse to be a
member of a club yet still insist on shap-
ing the rules of the club?
In the 1980s many Conservatives on the
Thatcherite wing of the party had
accepted that the logic of the single mar-
ket required progress on economic and
monetary union to make it fully eective.
This was a step too far for Thatcher
herself (NO, NO, NO, she declared;
which led Georey Howe to conclude
that she had broken his cricket bat). But
despite her increasing denunciations of
the encroachments of the EU, Thatcher
had to concede British membership of the
Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990. The
ERM fell apart in 1992, which greatly
weakened the case made by those across
all three main parties who wanted Britain
to join the rst wave of the single cur-
rency in 1999. For a time after the launch
of the single currency it appeared that the
drive to further integration was weaken-
ing, and that the Union would become
increasingly dierentiated and diverse.
But the eurozone crisis has brought inte-
gration back to centre stage in the shape
of the proposals needed to rescue the
eurozone from collapse.
Britain does not want the eurozone to
integrate without having a say, but it is not
prepared to participate in the eurozone.
To its partners it seems to want power
without responsibility. They have become
increasingly exasperated. Count Lambs-
dor of the Free Democratic Party in
Germany enquired politely whether Brit-
ain after all might not be happier to leave
the EU and negotiate an associate status
471
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3
like Norway. Other popular models are
Switzerland and Hong Kong; less atter-
ing models are Iceland and Bahrain.
The majority of Britains political lea-
ders, however, believe that Britain should
remain a full member of the EU. That is a
position apparently still shared by the
British electorate. In a YouGov poll con-
ducted in February 2012 for YouGov@-
Cambridge there was a substantial
majority of voters who thought the EU
was, on balance, a bad thing for Britain,
but a clear majority still favoured Britain
staying in the EU. Support for the EU is
strongest in London and Scotland; majo-
rities there think the EU is a good thing
for Britain, outweighed by majorities
thinking the opposite everywhere else.
The British electorate is clearly euroscep-
tic, but it is not the radical euroscepticism
which seeks complete withdrawal. Yet at
the same time it does not seek real
engagement either.
The politicians reect this ambivalence.
In most members of the EU there is
bipartisan consensus between the leading
parties about their countrys membership
of the Union. In Britain, the leading par-
ties have often been divided, but not
consistently. The Conservatives in the
1960s under Macmillan and Heath were
the pro-European party, initiating the
rst application and eventually securing
Britains membership. The Labour party
was predominantly opposed, starting
with Hugh Gaitskells emotional outburst
that joining the European Community
would mean the end of Britain as an
independent European state, the end of
a thousand years of history. Gaitskells
faction in the party was strongly pro-
European, but the majority of the party
members and trade unionists were dee-
ply sceptical, and although the party
leadership converted to a pro-European
position, the party was never convinced.
A majority of Labour MPs voted against
entry in 1971 and voted no in the 1975
Referendum. After the partys defeat in
the 1979 election and the defection of
472 Andrew Gamble
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3 # The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
much of the pro-European wing in the
party to form the Social Democratics, the
party adopted a manifesto in 1983 calling
for British withdrawal.
Since that time, however, the parties
have reversed position with the Conser-
vatives growing ever more eurosceptic,
while majority opinion in Labour has
come to adopt the pro-European line of
social democratic parties elsewhere in
Europe. Even then, divisions have per-
sisted, particularly over whether Britain
should join the euro. Tony Blair urged it
strongly because he wanted to end once
and for all Britains half-hearted commit-
ment to the EU, but he was blocked by
Gordon Brown at the Treasury, and he
delayed. After 2003 and Iraq, he no longer
had the strength to push the policy
through against Browns opposition.
Britain has always been reluctant,
semi-detached, the awkward partner
when it comes to things European. It
used to be argued that Britain always
adopted the latest measure of integration,
but several years after everyone else. This
pattern no longer seems to hold. It is hard
at the moment to see Britain ever signing
up to the Schengen Agreement on open
borders or joining the euro. Forty years of
membership have not made Britain
noticeably more European. If anything,
euroscepticism has increased. Britain has
become more reluctant, not less. The high
water mark of Britains engagement with
the European project may paradoxically
come to be seen as the Thatcher years.
Constructing the single market, shadow-
ing the deutschmark, joining the ERM
all took place under the Iron Lady. There
has been nothing to compare with them
since.
The roots of Britains ambivalence
about Europe go deep. Keynes wrote in
1919: England still stands outside Eur-
ope. Europes voiceless tremors do not
reach her. Europe is apart and England is
not of her esh and body. But Europe is
solid with itself. Churchill told de Gaulle
(rather disobligingly) before the Nor-
mandy landings: Each time we must
choose between Europe and the open
sea we shall always choose the open sea.
Each time I must choose between you and
Roosevelt I shall always choose Roose-
velt. When he came to veto Britains
application to join the Economic Commu-
nity twenty years later, de Gaulle had not
forgotten this exchange. Yet this separ-
ation of Britain from Europe is relatively
recent. In Roman times or in the Middle
Ages the separation of England and the
other British nations from Europe would
have seemed absurd. Catholic Britain and
Roman Britain were integral parts of Eur-
opeeven after the Reformation bells
were rung throughout England in 1565
at the news that the Ottoman siege of
Christian Malta had been lifted. But it
was the Reformation which began the
process that increasingly set England
apart from the great Catholic monarchies
of Spain, France and Austria. It was
reinforced by the policy of overseas
expansion launched by Oliver Cromwell.
The open sea was eventually to dene
Britain as a global power rather than a
continental power, and it shaped the
national myth of British exceptionalism.
Yet for all its global reach and the
wealth it brought, Britain remained a
group of islands situated close to the
European mainland and could never iso-
late itself from matters European. The
aim of its diplomacy became to ensure
that there should always be a balance of
power in Europe, that no one country
should ever dominate the continent, and
to that end perdious Albion, this nation
of shopkeepers and later shoppers and
users of safety razors, was active in con-
structing alliances and using its cash to
pay its allies to ght its enemies, reser-
ving its energies for the more exciting
tasks of exploring and conquering the
rest of the world. Britain always needed
allies. Without the Prussians Wellington
could not have prevailed at Waterloo.
When the idea of European union was
rst mooted after 1945 British ministers
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
wished it well but made it clear that they
wanted no part of it. Ernest Bevin and
Anthony Eden were at one mind on
thisno matter that Churchill had once
proposed an immediate union between
France and Britain in the dark days of
1940 (a proposal rejected by the French).
In the 1950s the French briey revived the
proposal. This time it was rejected by the
British. The French turned elsewhere.
Anthony Eden refused to participate in
the negotiations which led to the Treaty
of Rome, signed in 1956. Like Churchill,
he felt that Britain had a separate and
distinct task. Churchill may have
included Europe as one of the three
circles which dened British power and
interest, but it was clear that for him as for
most Conservatives, the other two cir-
clesEmpire and Anglo-Americatook
priority. The imperial dream took a long
time to die in the Conservative party, and
when it did some Conservatives turned to
Europe as the new means to project Brit-
ish power and inuence, but others fol-
lowed Margaret Thatchers lead and
chose America. Visions of Europe existed,
but they were a minority pursuit.
It is often said that the British thought
they were joining a common market, and
were dismayed to nd it turning into a
federal union. But no serious British poli-
tician can have ever really been deceived.
There were political objectives from the
start in Britains application to join the
Common Market, and a clear realisation
that Britain was joining a political com-
munity, with all that that entailed. The
real problem has been that unlike the
political elites of most other Member
States, the British never overcame their
ambivalence about Europe. They wanted
to be part of it, but at the same time
detached. The political elite has never
committed whole heartedly to Europe,
and currently it is in headlong retreat.
The retreat began in the 1990s. The
Maastricht Treaty was the culmination
of the new impulse to integration which
took hold in the 1980s, particularly under
473
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3
the Delors Presidency. It committed the
Union to the introduction of a single
currency, and it renamed the enterprise
a Union, setting out the goal of ever closer
union, but the Treaty was not an unal-
loyed success for the federal cause since it
also saw the reassertion of the power of
the nation-states and the weakening of
the Commission. Britains contribution to
this was the securing of precious opt-outs
from some of the provisions of the
Treatynotably the commitment to join
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
and sign up to the social chapter. John
Majors negotiating triumphs were, how-
ever, disregarded by Conservative euro-
sceptics, who were overjoyed when
sterling crashed out of the Exchange
Rate Mechanism (ERM) in September
1992. The dent to the authority of the
government helped launch the bitter civil
war over the ratication of the Maastricht
Treaty, and later the leadership challenge
to John Major.
The failure of the ERM and the steady if
unspectacular growth which Britain
experienced once it had left it reduced
the attractiveness or the necessity of the
single currency, and in the end British
stayed out. Eleven other states went
ahead in 1999 with six others joining
subsequently, and nine more pledged to
join eventually. Opinion against the euro
hardened in the Conservative party after
1997. This reected the trend in public
opinion. All this was before the nancial
crash in 2008 and the eurozone crisis
which began to take hold in 2010. This
crisis has become an existential crisis for
the EU itself, raising questions not only as
to whether the eurozone can survive, but
whether the EU can survive. The euro-
zone crisis is a crisis of the banks and of
debt, but it is also, and increasingly, a
crisis of growth and employment and of
democratic legitimacy. Britain is not a
member of the euro, and no longer even
an aspirant member of the euro. Only 1
per cent of the British public think it
would be a good idea to join the euro
474 Andrew Gamble
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3 # The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
right now. Remarkably 40 per cent, with
varying degrees of enthusiasm, concede
that it might be a good idea for Britain to
join at some stage in the future, but 51 per
cent are opposed in principle. Britain,
nonetheless, is deeply involved in the
eurozone crisis. It is providing funds
both directly to eurozone countries and
also through the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and it is doing so because if
the eurozone were to disintegrate the
consequences for British banks, British
jobs and British growth would be cata-
strophic. Britain needs the eurozone to
overcome its problems quite badly, even
though almost all British politicians and
commentators are convinced that the
eurozone is deeply awed and its col-
lapse was always likely.
The travails of the eurozone have vin-
dicated all those politicians who warned
of the folly of this grand project, against
the urging of a motley array of cosmo-
politansbusiness leaders, academics,
commentators and politicians. But
instead of calling for the immediate aban-
donment of the euro, these same euro-
sceptic politicians now demand that it be
saved, that Europe pull itself together
and sort out its problems. British policy
on Europe has become a muddle. Having
threatened to veto a new treaty to create a
scal compact the government also be-
lieves that the scal compact must be
adopted as a matter of urgency. No won-
der the eurosceptics are confused. Cheer-
ing the government one minute, they are
muttering about treason the next. One of
them described the guarantees the gov-
ernment thinks it has secured as being as
eective as a chocolate teapot.
Britain faces an acute dilemma over the
euro. To radical eurosceptics in the Better
O Out Campaign formed in 2006 the
issue could not be simpler. The crisis of
the eurozone and the desire of its mem-
bers to push for deeper integration
through scal coordination or even a
full scal union gives Britain the oppor-
tunity to detach itself by calling an IN/
OUT referendum. If David Cameron
were to do, this they suggest he would
have overwhelming support from his
party at all levels, and overwhelming
support from the public. He would win
a landslide at the next election, destroy-
ing both Labour and the Liberal Demo-
crats, and drawing United Kingdom
Independence party (UKIP) voters into
the Conservative fold.
It is a heady prospect, so why does
David Cameron not oblige? There is a
rule about referendums that govern-
ments generally only call them when
they know they can win. Cameron does
not call one because he would have to
campaign for the United Kingdom stay-
ing IN. He might not win, and he would
split his party irrevocably. This is exactly
what the eurosceptics suspect and why
he is not trusted by many in his party. He
speaks a good sceptic talk, even ad-
dressing meetings as We sceptics, but
his actions point in a dierent direction.
His problem is that although the Conser-
vatives appear united on Europe, in fact
the split is as large as ever, between those
eurosceptics who want OUT altogether
and those who want to stay IN, but with
no further integration.
There is a familiar pattern here. Europe
has always been a two-level game, and
British politicians have played it as gus-
tily as anyone else. They show one face to
their domestic parties and voters, and
another to the Council of Ministers and
the Commission. Politicians use national
symbols to dene themselves against
Europe, and when they oer reasons for
being members of the EU it is overwhel-
mingly pragmatic and instrumental. It is
rare for politicians to defend the concept
of Europe itself. But the more the positive
case for Europe is not made the louder
the clamour for Britain to exit. Europe has
become a scapegoat for innumerable ills
at home, including many things that are
nothing to do with the EU, such as the
European Court of Human Rights, and
even the Eurovision song contest. There is
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
considerable popular resentment against
all things European.
Reading the British tabloids and hear-
ing the speeches of British politicians and
the unwillingness to mount a robust
defence of the EU, the question arises as
to why does Britain not leave? Would it
not be better both for Britain and for the
EU if the relationship were severed? Yet
since 1983 no mainstream United King-
dom party has advocated withdrawal. A
variety of fringe parties, UKIP and the
Referendum party, have done so, but
although UKIP has done well in Euro-
pean Parliament elections, it has still to
capture a seat in the Westminster Parlia-
ment.
This could change. John Rentoul has
speculated as to when a front-line British
politician will break ranks and call for
Britain to leave the EU. One reason they
do not is the lack of interest of the
electorate. Although polls are regularly
produced showing majorities in favour of
an immediate referendum and of leaving
the EU, pollsters also gently point out that
when asked to rank the EU as an issue
only 1 per cent of the electorate regard it
as the most important issue facing the
country and only 4 per cent put it in the
top ten issues. This is one reason why
David Cameron advised his party to stop
banging on about Europe. Another rea-
son is that, unsatisfactory though the
relationship may be, there are powerful
reasons for remaining part of the club
which still persuade a majority of the
Britains political class.
The case for IN argues that the United
Kingdom has a strong permanent interest
in shaping the rules and policies which
govern its largest market: around 54 per
cent of British exports. Standards and
rules for the single market are set in
Brussels, and are necessary for genuine
free trade. The British concern has always
been to shape the single market in a
liberal, Anglo-Saxon direction, building
alliances to do so. Germany has often
welcomed the United Kingdom as a
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The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3
counter-weight to France. This strategy is
now threatened by events in the euro-
zone. If a separate economic governance
of the eurozone is allowed to develop
without British involvement, the Franco-
German alliance is likely to be strength-
ened, and the Commission weakened.
The United Kingdom has a natural inter-
est in supporting the Commission as the
upholder of the rules of the single market,
although that is not something any self-
respecting British politician wants to
admit to the British newspapers. The
case for being IN is therefore a case for
recognising, as Peter Mandelson puts it,
the complex grand bargain that is the
EU. This implies for example that the
reform of the eurozone is too important
to be left to the Europeans. There is the
risk that it might act to impose new rules
which were against British interests, and
might not take the measures needed to
make the European economy grow. This
is why there are still advocates of Britain
joining the euro itself, on the grounds that
had Britain been involved from the start
some of the design aws could have been
avoided. Supporters of the case for
remaining IN also point to the inward
investment into the United Kingdom
which comes in part because it is seen
as an entry point to the single market, and
argue that the City should be treated as a
global resource for the EU as a whole, not
as an exclusive national interest.
The case for OUT argues that Europes
direction is set, and it is not a direction
with which Britain can live. Tim Mon-
tgomerie of ConservativeHome recalls
that John Major had declared after Maas-
tricht that the direction of the EU was
towards decentralisation and demo-
cratisation. It wasnt. Disengagement
has become imperative, both for reasons
of party and electoral management, and
because of national interest. The burden
of regulation (one-third of government
time some eurosceptics calculate is spent
on compliance with European directives)
and the lack of democracy and account-
476 Andrew Gamble
The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3 # The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
ability in EU institutions cannot be
resolved without changing the whole
basis of the relationship. The euro has
become a disaster, and Britain should
not get involved. Simon Jenkins calls
plans for more bailouts and more quan-
titative easing as like pumping petrol into
a tank which is disconnected from the
engine. The OUT camp dismisses fears
that Britain would not be able to survive
outside the EU. On the contrary it would
thrive. Gwyn Prins has argued that the
United Kingdom is still a globally
engaged economy, and that the EU has
been a distorting inuence. With its dis-
tinctive culture, the City of London, its
links with the United States and its ex-
ible labour markets, the United Kingdom
has the capacity and the opportunity to
recreate itself as a global entrepreneur. In
doing so it would not need to sacrice its
trading ties with the EU. Since the United
Kingdom is such a valuable market, the
EU, it is suggested, would be keen to
continue to trade. The European ideal
has decayed and the idea of a scal union
to rescue the eurozone is only likely to
fuel a resurgence of nationalism. Britain
should stand aside.
The arguments on both sides are
powerful, and seem to leave little room
for compromise. There is no halfway
house with the EU, but it is a halfway
house that Britain has always craved.
David Nuttalls referendum proposal
contained three questions: whether Brit-
ain should stay in the EU on current
terms, whether it should leave, or
whether it should renegotiate and
repatriate powers. Like the proposed
Scottish referendum, the last question is
the devo-max option. Britain would stay
in the Union, but opt out of almost all EU
common policies. This seems the direc-
tion that Britain is headed. The other
members of the EU, and the eurozone in
particular, may tolerate this so long as the
United Kingdom does not obstruct their
deeper integration. The basis of a deal is
emerging. Some observers think that it
may never need to be made explicit
because the eurozone will not hold
together, and the result of its fragmenta-
tion or disintegration will be a much
looser and decentralised EU, if it man-
ages to survive at all. That would help
David Cameron enormously in the task of
managing his party, but if it led to a major
new economic downturn and nancial
collapse it would create a much larger
threat to the survival of his government.
If, however, the eurozone manages to
hold together and implements its scal
compact, with or without all its current
members, or even if it divides into a hard
currency zone around Germany and a
soft currency zone around the southern
states, that will spell problems for Britain
in the future. If the markets no longer
thought the countries of the eurozone at
risk, attention might turn to the fragile
economic fundamentals of the United
Kingdom, and just as in the 1980s a
British Chancellor might be forced to
link sterling to the resurgent euro or to a
newly re-constituted deutschemark. Opt-
ing to be a global player rather than a
regional player is supercially attractive,
but circumstances are very dierent and
Better O Out? Britain and Europe
# The Author 2012. The Political Quarterly # The Political Quarterly Publishing Co. Ltd. 2012
much less propitious from the last time
Britain was truly a global player, in the
nineteenth century. Enoch Powell argued
the case dierently, in terms of national
independence, and the merits of splendid
isolation, from the United States as well
as from Europe. Advocates of the Anglo-
sphere argue that it is not too late for
Britain (and Ireland) to turn their backs
on Europe in favour of building a net-
work commonwealth of the English-
speaking peoples. This is a dream that
has lasted more than one hundred years,
but it has always foundered on the di-
culties of reconciling dierent national
interests and nding common institu-
tions through which it can be expressed.
It has an emotional pull for many British
people that Europe seems unable to
match. But the Irish are unlikely to have
much time for it, and the Scots too,
whether they remain part of the United
Kingdom or not, want a European future.
Do the English want a European
future? They still seem not to know.
This article is a slightly revised version of the
2012 Norton Lecture, which was delivered at
the University of Hull on 10 February 2012.
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The Political Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 3