European Union

The spectre of a British exit from the European Union has begun to recede, although it has far from vanished.

The surprise result of the UK general election that is returning the governing Conservative party to power for another five years suggests that Britain’s voters prefer the devil they know to the devil they don’t. That may well apply to EU membership too.

The question-mark over the UK’s future within the EU had been widely seen throughout continental Europe as key to this election, yet it figured hardly at all as an issue. It posed too many awkward issues for the country’s mainstream political parties, and was therefore pushed aside by their focus on domestic economic and social problems.

The main message of the UK election result is that British voters do not welcome the fragmentation of the political system and the birth of smaller parties leading to a new era of coalition governments. That doesn’t mean that the debate over shifting to some form of proportional representation is over, but it does suggest that the British electorate favours the stability of its traditional ‘first past the post’ system that favours the Conservative and Labour parties.

The clear loser in this election has been UKIP, the anti-EU ‘independence’ party that within only a few years has been threatening to alter the British political landscape. Despite gaining some 12-13% of the overall vote, its representation in the House of Commons has been halved to just a single MP. Nigel Farage, UKIP’s charismatic leader, has been denied the parliamentary seat he so desperately sought, and the party’s bandwagon appears to be slowing and perhaps going into reverse.

None of this should be taken as an end to the ‘Brexit’ threat. The next major political test for prime minister David Cameron will be the ‘in-out’ referendum on EU membership that he has pledged by, or before, 2017. The number of votes cast yesterday for UKIP candidates still points to a hard fight by the government to keep Britain in Europe.

Cameron’s first reaction to exit polls indicating that the Conservatives would be able to govern without a coalition partner was to call for a return of his Tory party to the ‘One Nation’ policies of 50 years ago that emphasised the reduction of social and economic inequalities. The major issue, though, is whether his party will also embrace a ‘One Europe’ policy.

David Cameron has long insisted that he and his government will campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote when the British people take part in a referendum on whether to stay in the EU. But the rank-and-file of his MPs seem increasingly eurosceptic, and there are now reckoned to be at least 60 die-hard anti-European MPs out of the Conservatives’ total of 300-plus seats.

This parliamentary arithmetic suggests that while Cameron’s personal stature and authority will have received a strong boost, he will be very vulnerable to pressure from his own eurosceptic MPs. Unless he agrees to water down the new government’s pro-EU stance, runs the argument, he could very well suffer a rebellion and even the collapse of his majority.

Because the Europe issue figured so little in the UK’s pre-election campaigns, it’s hard to gauge the country’s mood on EU membership. Business leaders have of late swung belatedly into action with warnings of the serious economic consequences of a ‘Brexit’, but voting intentions – as this general election has plainly demonstrated – are opaque.

Cameron sees himself as an internationalist who is at odds with the ‘Little Englanders’ who are a force to be reckoned with in the Tory party. His best policy now will be to capitalise on his surprise election victory and set a very early date for the referendum. He has been repeatedly advised that his promised “re-negotiation” of Britain’s UK membership cannot yield any substantial results, so he should opt for a vote before the end of this year that would pre-empt the humiliation of Britain’s demands being rejected by almost all the other EU governments.

For British voters, this election was all about Britain; whether the sacrifices of tough austerity measures are now being rewarded by economic growth that outstrips the eurozone has been a constant theme, and the outcome has endorsed that view. But the view of many European politicians and commentators that this election was about much more than the UK is also true.

Europe can heave a sigh of relief that the UK’s membership of the EU will not be a political football to be kicked around in an unruly melée of coalitions, and that British voters apparently favour the status quo rather than the unknown. But David Cameron will still face a tough fight over Britain’s future in Europe.

 

IMAGE CREDITS: CC / FLICKR – UK Ministry of Defence

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General : Celebrate Europe Day on 9 May by visiting the European Parliament in Brussels! As part of the Festival of Europe, the Parliament will organise quizzes, exhibitions, a debate with MEPs, mini-conferences and a film screening. Since 2015 is the European Year for Development, this year’s celebration of Europe is focused on what the EU does to reduce poverty in the developing world and many activities will be centred on development cooperation.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

General : Celebrate Europe Day on 9 May by visiting the European Parliament in Brussels! As part of the Festival of Europe, the Parliament will organise quizzes, exhibitions, a debate with MEPs, mini-conferences and a film screening. Since 2015 is the European Year for Development, this year’s celebration of Europe is focused on what the EU does to reduce poverty in the developing world and many activities will be centred on development cooperation.

Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP

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Source : © European Union, 2015 - EP