David Cameron
LONDON: A potent force in British politics for decades, euroscepticism forced Prime Minister David Cameron to call a referendum on leaving the European Union - and could still thwart his efforts to stay in.
If Cameron secures a deal at a Brussels summit on Thursday and Friday to reform Britain’s relationship with the EU, the “remain” and “leave“ camps will immediately begin the battle to win voters over for a vote likely to be held in June.
Despite the prime minister’s own support for staying in, some of his senior ministers, including Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, look poised to come out in favour of the out campaign as early as this week.
Many Britons, encouraged by an often hostile popular press, share their anti-EU views.
“I’m English and not European,” said Fred Varley, an 80-year-old who wants to leave the EU, in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, a hotbed of euroscepticism. “I believe Germany has tried in two world wars to overtake this country and they’ve failed and they’re doing it legally now through the European thing.”
Some 51% of Britons currently want to remain in the EU compared with 49% who want to leave, according to an average of opinion polls by the What UK Thinks research project - though this average does not count the many voters who are still undecided.
“The most difficult thing about the referendum is that the arguments in favour are complicated, economic, numerical and rational,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank. “The arguments against are simple, emotional and romantic: do you want to be ruled by foreigners or not?“
ROOTS OF EUROSCEPTICISM
Cameron first promised an in-out referendum on EU membership in 2013 in a bid to placate powerful eurosceptics in his centre-right Conservative party who already harboured suspicions about the European project and were growing increasingly concerned by the rise of the anti-EU UK Independence Party.
The word euroscepticism seems first to have been used by The Times newspaper in 1986, but its roots go back further than that.
Britain had bids to become part of the European single market vetoed twice by France in the 1960s, finally joining in 1973 - its membership was sealed by a previous referendum two years later - and has since negotiated significant opt-outs.
It does not use the euro, is not a member of the Schengen passport-free movement area and receives a significant rebate from yearly budget contributions.
“From Britain’s perspective, it has never been totally committed to European integration as an end in itself because it always felt it has other options in the world,” such as ties with the United States, said Tim Oliver of the London School of Economics.
One of Cameron’s predecessors, Margaret Thatcher, is an icon for eurosceptics for securing the rebate and proclamations such as her defiant 1990
“No, no, no!” speech against greater centralised European control.
A recurring question during recent weeks of the campaign has been “What would Maggie do?” with former advisErs and commentators arguing about how Thatcher, who died in 2013, would have voted in the referendum.
BATTLEGROUND ISSUES
Many Britons believe the EU’s role should be purely economic and that it should stay out of domestic politics. Immigration in particular will be an important issue in the campaign - Cameron has fought hard for an emergency brake on welfare payments to EU migrants as part of a reform deal which he will use to argue for Britain to remain in the bloc.
“For remain voters, it is their view of the economic implications of leaving that is more likely to be the key to their referendum choice, whereas amongst leave voters, immigration is the bigger concern,” said John Curtice, politics professor at Strathclyde University.
Eurosceptics face their own hurdles. With experts believing as many as 20% of voters are undecided, they must make a convincing case for a jump into the unknown by leaving the EU.
“The aim of the out campaign is to portray Europe as a burning building with an exit,” George Eaton, political editor of the New Statesman magazine, wrote this month. “But like a cartoon character who succumbs to gravity in mid-air, voters fear a painful landing.” - AFP
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