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171. The UK media and 'Europe': from permissive consensus to destructive dissent

Author:
Oliver Daddow
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming.' With Britain's main parties of government deeply divided on the question of European integration, the country's politicians have been reticent to the point of paranoia about opening up national debates about the European Economic Community/European Union. The national media, by contrast, have had no such qualms about professing their opinions on the merits and downsides of the European project and Britain's contribution to it. This article argues that on the issue of 'Europe' most organs of the British media have, in a variety of ways and for various reasons, been on a journey between 1973 and the present from permissive consensus to destructive dissent. In putting forward this interpretation the article adapts Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks's judgement that, since the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, European policy-making elites have increasingly had to 'look over their shoulders when negotiating European issues'. This is because public interest in notionally European-level affairs has risen in proportion to the number and contentiousness of landmark decisions being taken at the supranational level. Crucially, there has been a marked rise in Euroscepticism across the Continent, with national politicians having to 'make room for a more Eurosceptical public' when coming to decisions on European integration, especially on sensitive topics such as fiscal union and constitution-building.2The title of this article reflects the specificity of the British case, where a seismic shift took place during the 1980s. Widespread (but by no means total) media support, sometimes manifest as quiet or just plain uninterested acquiescence in the European project in its 'common market' guise, has given way to a vigorously partisan hostility bordering on a nationalist and in some arenas xenophobic approach to the coverage of European affairs.
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

172. A high price to pay? Britain and the European budget

Author:
James Spence
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Shadows of 'bougets', in the old sense of moneybags, loom over Britain's stance on the EU budget today, as they did over EC budgets 40 years ago. Three of the make-or-break issues for the UK in the negotiations over the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the period from 2014 to 2020 concern the direct cost of UK membership. The first is maintaining the British correction or 'rebate', while also maintaining member state sovereignty over budget revenue decisions. (The current rebate, some claim, was finally gained by another 'bouget', Mrs Thatcher's fabled handbag, in 1984.) Cutting finance to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the second, and closely linked to the first. At the time Britain was negotiating its terms for accession, its less Eurocentric agricultural trade patterns, and its higher dependence on cheap food imports from outside the Communities, marked it off from the six founding EC member states for which food security was a high priority. UK food prices were relatively low compared to Continental prices. Agriculture was a smaller economic and employment sector in the UK than it was in Continental Europe, and land ownership patterns also differed markedly. The third, and again related, issue is reducing the overall size of the MFF: that is, limiting the amounts available for the EU's annual budgets over several years, and therefore reducing the UK's contributions.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

173. The City and EMU

Author:
Malcolm Levitt
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The City of London's leading position in international financial markets is the basis of its central role in the UK economy in terms of its contribution to UK GDP and tax revenue and the City's own balance of payments surplus. The City's prosperity has long been associated with its international role and openness to foreign business, as illustrated eight centuries ago by the Magna Carta.
Topic:
Disaster Relief
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and London

174. The European dividing line in party politics

Author:
Julie Smith
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
European integration is a cross-cutting political issue that has divided British political parties for over half a century. When Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath sought to take Britain into the then Common Market, he relied on the votes of 69 pro-European rebel Labour MPs to get the European Communities Bill through the House of Commons in 1971—an early sign of the divisive impact membership of the European Union would have on British party politics. Barely a decade after accession, the Labour Party had sought to renegotiate the UK's terms of membership, held a referendum on whether the UK should remain in the Common Market, split in part over the issue and finally fought an election in which it called for withdrawal. Fast forward another three decades and the Labour position was broadly pro-European, while Tory rebels, alongside a party established to oppose membership, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), were advocating withdrawal from the Union. And if withdrawal was not the official Conservative position, Euroscepticism has certainly become prevalent in that party, leading one Conservative parliamentarian to claim: 'The dividing line in the Conservative Party is now in/out.'
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and England

175. The UK and European defence: leading or leaving?

Author:
Sven Biscop
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The problem of European defence is that it does not work with the United Kingdom, but would not work without it either. Unlike in other policy areas, in defence the issue is not British resistance to Brussels directives. Populist outcries against a mythical 'Euro-Army' notwith-standing, British sovereignty is not under threat. The real issue is that other European countries are not doing enough in spite of being urged from both sides of Brussels—by the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 'Too many countries are failing to meet their financial responsibilities to NATO, and so failing to maintain appropriate and proportionate capabilities. Too many are opting out of operations or contributing but a fraction of what they should be capable of ', in the words of Defence Secretary Philip Hammond. Britain, on the contrary, is the leading European military power, accounting for 22.4 per cent of defence expenditure and 11.8 per cent of armed forces, and it is more willing than most to deploy those forces (providing 20.8 per cent of the average number of troops deployed), including for combat operations. Its military clout enables the UK to lead the others—any scheme for European defence without it would indeed be severely handicapped. But does Britain want to lead? The paradox is that while the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) would not have come into being without British leadership, it would be much more effective without British reluctance to make full use of it. In contrast to most European countries, the UK has never stopped seeing European defence and the continued assurance of transatlantic partnership (in the shape of its special relationship with the United States and the NATO alliance) as a zero-sum game.
Political Geography:
United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and North Atlantic

176. Britain, Europe and the United States: change and continuity

Author:
Arthur I. Cyr
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
There is no shortage of attention to disagreements and tensions between the United States and the nations of Europe, considered both individually and collectively. The 40th anniversary of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), now the European Union (EU), is a good benchmark anniversary not only for reflection on what has transpired to date but also for evaluation of current trends and likely future developments. The nation's course, regarding both entry into membership and participation, has hardly been smooth, but the relationship with the institution has endured.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, and Europe

177. The discomforts of life on the edge: Britain and Europe, 1963–1975

Author:
N. Piers Ludlow
Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Recent trends in both Britain and Continental Europe have made the question of the United Kingdom's position as a fully fledged member of the European Union more contentious than it has been for decades. The almost unchecked rise of Euroscepticism among both the British political elite—especially within the governing Conservative Party—and the media means that the possibility of British withdrawal from the Union, or at very least the renegotiation of its position within it, is discussed more openly and in more mainstream political circles than at any time since the 1970s. On the other side of the Channel, meanwhile, the perceived need to address the weaknesses of the single currency by increasing integration, whether across the EU as a whole or simply among those countries that share the euro, has helped create a situation in which many of the key decisions are taken in forums within which the British are either not represented at all or are marginal players at best. Few European governments openly aspire to a situation in which the United Kingdom moves away from the core European decision-making system, and several have publicly deplored the possibility. But faced with the need to press ahead, and the ever decreasing likelihood of the British being able to follow any such advance, European governments are being forced to contemplate the prospect of a core Europe without Britain.
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

178. Rio+20 must address the scramble for resources

Author:
Bernice Lee
Publication Date:
07-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Will Rio+20 just be a side show to the global scramble for resources or will it grasp the realities of the looming crisis and form a political agenda that can succeed?
Topic:
Politics

179. The 50-year war against drugs has failed and a new approach is needed

Author:
Claire Yorke and Benoît Gomis
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Drug policy is a toxic issue for politicians, one that they usually want to avoid for fear of the political backlash. To highlight the dilemma between politics and policy in this field, drug policy expert Sanho Tree often quotes Jean-Claude Juncker on economic liberalisation: 'We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it'. In other words, calling for change often means political suicide.
Topic:
Politics and War on Drugs
Political Geography:
Brazil

180. Legalization could make things worse

Author:
Bill Hughes
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
The prohibition of drugs is blamed for creating the problem of drug abuse, but is that entirely fair? Before the 1960s, despite longstanding legislation in most countries prohibiting dangerous narcotics, drugs were not a major world issue.
Topic:
Law