The United Kingdom as an outsider to the EU: History, politics and ideological determinants

It will be one of the statements of this work that both of the subsequent governments in many respects can be seen in the tradition of the first mentioned, although it was then indicated in another way and hoped by many pro-Europeans that this would not be the case. Furthermore one aim will be to isolate a tendency that enables the percipients of this academic work to venture an outlook on the future relations between Europe and the UK, which is especially vital in regard of the sustainability of the Union: It has now enlarged to 27 members with some more countries in the waiting loop and its constitution is still on hold.

It must be emphasized that the UK is a major player in European politics and by no means just a by-stander.

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To support the above-mentioned tendency this paper will repeatedly recur on figures of surveys among the UK's people and examine if Euroscepticism was shared on both levels, in the governments and in the population or if classical patterns of bottom up or top down politics can be established. As Julie Smith and Mariana Tsatsas in their work The New Bilateralism point out, there are many factors that determine bilateral relations 5. This term paper is incorporating the points that are important in the examination of the topic; it names the treaties that shape the European interactions on a transnational level and provides the necessary terminology in the respective historical contexts.

Margaret Thatcher however could not conceal her disliking for her conservative counterpart in Germany: It has become common to declare Margaret Thatcher the greatest anti-European in British history after WWII - it is however necessary to take a look back into the early years of the community to understand that also the Iron Lady's policies were in some measure in line with those of her predecessors. Britain's sense of itself is a strongly encouraged self-perception by its imperial past and its geographical and linguistic isolation of the rest of Europe.

As in most western democracies, a strong sense of cultural identity and a concept of what Britain means is deeply rooted in Great Britain. Here Robbins offers a traditional view of cultural identification: Thus there are two factors: The second and most likely more vital factor stated by Robbins is "the natural closure of solidarity". It describes the unconscious intention of a specific social group to not only form this group for reasons of shared origins and characteristics, but to then defend it and its perceived status from an external threat.

This external threat is often referred to as "the Other", which shows that it can appear in various forms and always starts as an imagined or at least perceived threat, long before it can be grasped and named factually.

In the beginning the only thing that the specific social group might be certain of, is that there is a difference between their supposedly homogenous group and the external other. The manifestation of this difference rapidly turns "the Other" into an external threat against which the shared traditions and values of the group have to be defended. Thus according to contemporary social theory, it could be plausibly argued, that one element at least of recent expressions of Euro-scepticism in Britain "stems from the presence of and perceived threat from an external "Other", namely continental Europe" Robbins In consequence this would mean that Britain's cultural identity is not only based on a common an widely spread notion of what Britain is and what it means to be British, but also and maybe even more important: A major difference between Britain and the other member states of the European Union is that Britain up until this day has not joined the single currency Euro.

British Euro-sceptics repeatedly claim that to join a single currency would mean to under mine basic, proven British freedoms and the power to control and to determine Britain's economic future. In other words, they fear a loss of economic and thus political freedom and at the same time a loss of power through linking their economic fate to that of the European Union and its - mostly economically weaker - member states. The British taxpayer will subsidise the public expenditure of other governments whose economies are less efficient" Anderson, Weymouth Those voices of course fail to see that an EU single market without a corresponding single currency will probably never operate with full effectiveness.

Both agreed upon that "it is in the UK'S interests that a decision to 'wait and see' should be seen as a genuine postponement and not a disguised final rejection of economic and monetary union" Giddings Like many Britons they also feared financial dependence from weaker membership-economies, as was voiced by Lord Barnett in the ECC's report in Also in the election campaign in the political might of the Euro-sceptic voices in Great Britain became evident.

The Conservative Party adopted 'save the pound' as central issue into their programme for the next election. This again made it impossible for the various committees of the current government to directly answer the question of whether the UK was to join the EMU. The government, as well as the Conservative Party knew to well about the votes at stake; thus the committees decided to deliberately avoid this central issue and to support the well known 'wait and see' pattern.

So it can be concluded that "economic and monetary union, and especially joining the single currency, have been and are matters of high public and parliamentary controversy It can be agreed upon, that the EU constitution is set to creating a political union. The European Union with its shared currency will have its own supreme court, its own president, its own parliament — shortly, through the constitution a federal state will be established in its completion.

As President Chirac of France put it. One of the greatest fears of Euro-sceptics in Great Britain is that the EU constitution will stand above their own.

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In consequence that would mean that the EU was placed above the UK if hierarchies were to be established. British Euro-sceptics do not believe that the constitution is a mere set of rules to govern friendship and cooperation amongst a series of sovereign nation states, as some who are in favour of the Constitution like to argue.

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