Epilogue

John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher in 1990: she departed Downing Streets in scarcely contained tears. He, winning an election to the surprise of most of the political and media worlds, set out to mend fences on the continent, most importantly, by relaunching the relationship with Germany and France. By the end of her leadership, Thatcher  saw  her credibility plummeting in Europe when she openly rejected further Union and  German reunification. This chapter highlights key moments in the process of decoupling from membership of the European Union that took Britain out. All four prime ministers discussed in this Epilogue had to deal with a process of acceleration towards Political and Monetary Union in the EC/EU. Major, much mocked in the media for being ‘ordinary’, nevertheless practised a sophisticated diplomacy through two intergovernmental conferences (IGCs), committing the UK to nothing, leading up to Maastricht in December 1991. This non-committal diplomacy had a purpose: as before, the main source of concern from the British viewpoint was that the IGCs pursued a goal of Political Union. As previous prime ministers before him had done when talking to foreign audiences, he chose a German, not British, public to try to convince them that Britain wished to be ‘at the heart of Europe’. A close study of Major’s premiership in those early days, and the results he obtained at the Maastricht negotiating table—the opting out from the single currency with the right to join European Monetary Union (EMU) later if desired, independence in foreign and defence policy, and control on immigration policies—has yet to be made. It can be noted that these, not negligible, outcomes were nevertheless seen as small; but more devastating for him and the Conservative government was the exit of sterling from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) on Black Wednesday in September of the same year. Euroscepticism as embraced by Lady Thatcher from her new perch in the House of Lords, together with rivalry within the party and a rising Euroscepticism blending with conservative rivalry, is another theme that needs reassessing. Lady Thatcher did not assist the new prime minister, once her protégé, by saying of the Maastricht Treaty, which Major had successfully negotiated, that it was ‘a treaty too far’ she would have not signed. After a landslide victory in 1997, the responsibility of government passed to New Labour, and with it, decisions on how to move forward on the European question. We have seen how all British governments since accession rejected teleological end-goals in the Community, while declaring themselves willing to proceed pragmatically, one step at a time, in the pursuit of long-term strategies that could prove to be generally accepted. Blair gave a stronger signal than his predecessors in his approach to Europe: he was critical, but less dogmatic, arguing that ‘Europe isn’t working in the way this country and Europe need’. It felt like a fresh start, especially when the start included signing the Maastricht Social Chapter—prioritising further enlargement, achieving the completion of the single market, reforming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and allowing Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in selected areas—while retaining national veto on taxation, defence, security, immigration, and the budget. On EMU, a decision to join the single currency was made contingent on a plan, developed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, to assess Britain’s economic interest against five points that had to be satisfied before the UK would consent to adopt the common Euro currency at its launch. An announcement in 1999 made it clear that Britain would not join. It was a setback for Blair, who had wished to join, but he did not cease to be prominent in the EU institutional conversation, including joining the debate on the European Convention and promoting active policies of adaptation in the UK’s presence within the governance of the EU. The bilateral St Malo Franco-British Security Treaty in December 1998 created a new framework for the integration of European forces and peacekeeping operations, compatible with membership of NATO and the Treaty of Amsterdam. Successful in its own terms as it was, the treaty illuminated the puzzle which was Blair’s diplomatic approach. It was not strictly bilateral—as in the exceptional St Malo case—but nor was it trilateral. Blair created circles of collaboration at multiple levels, defined by some of his fellow members as ‘promiscuous’. Three additional areas within his diplomacy deserve further discussion. First, how could the British prime minister make a successful pro-European case, as on the European Constitution, while working in a culture of visceral hostility from media groups, feeding a rising popular Euroscepticism. Second, what were the concrete obstacles that prevented him from successfully informing the British public on European issues, while tackling misinformation thrown up by the media barrage? Third, a reassessment of the split between Chirac and Blair over Iraq (it was on the mend by autumn 2003) could open new perspectives on how the core countries of the EU understood the Iraq intervention and planned to move on in European diplomacy afterwards. At home, Blair’s relationship with Brown in 2005, and the latter’s approach to the EU, were both fraught with differences, both on the global level and on domestic finance. As chancellor, with more power than most in that role, he ruled out joining the single currency for the ‘foreseeable future’ and made no moves in that direction during his three years in office. He sought to keep controversial European themes in low profile, especially the single currency and the last incarnation of the constitutional treaty, now the Treaty of Lisbon. Brown argued that the Lisbon Treaty did not cross the red lines on the defence of national interest set out by the government: but for the large group of anti-Europeanists in parliament and elsewhere, the treaty fed the perception that a superstate was indeed in the making in Brussels, and that the British public was unable to express an opinion to prevent its creation. The last part of this epilogue is a question which only access to sources can settle. That is, how dogged was David Cameron—who had enabled the referendum on EU membership (then resigned when Leave narrowly won)—in insisting that his fellow EU heads of government revise previous concessions to the EU and future treaty reform which would involve any transfer of powers from the UK to European policies and institutions? Historically, a comparison between Wilson’s and Cameron’s renegotiations shows how profoundly the society in Britain and public perceptions of the EU had changed. Cameron pursued two paths: negotiating with other member states to obtain a radical transformation of what membership meant for the UK by repatriating areas of power, and seeking a popular Remain decision on EU membership after completing his round of renegotiations. What we do now know is that Cameron’s strategy opened a Pandora’s box: by reclaiming British independence from the EU beyond the existing and extensive opt-outs already in place in key areas such as immigration, parliamentary sovereignty and the level of the British contribution, he created the platform for a rising against the Union, whose effects are still being worked through.