3.

Why did the UK find itself in the position of holding a referendum on

European Membership in 2016?

This paper seeks to identify the main reasons which explain why did the UK find itself in
the position of holding a referendum on European Membership in 2016. In doing so, I will
be firstly explaining the history of the poor relationship of Britain with Europe which goes as
far as the 1950’s, then moving on to the emblematic Bruges speech (1988) which represents
the birthplace of modern skepticism towards Europe and the 2003 decision of the Blair
government to permit full freedom of movement rights to all of the 2004 accession states.
First of all, Britain has always been considered as the awkward partner in Europe, an
island country which was separate from Europe. Historically speaking, the tense relationship
between Europe and the United Kingdom started decades before the Bruges speech when
Britain refused to join in the early 1950’s the European Coal and Steel Community, which
represents the forerunner of the European Economic Community (EEC). After attending to
join the community twice, Britain finally becomes a member of the EEC in 1973, already
having a tumultuous background. Joining late meant that by the time Britain was a member
of the EEC, the key policies of the European community had been established in a way that
simply could not suit Britain’s interests. Notably, the agricultural and trading policies of the
community were the most problematic factors. Being relatively small in terms of
employment but efficient in terms of productivity, UK farming sector never stood to benefit
from the community. Moreover, Britain has always been a large trading country, which
meant that the common external tariff could potentially damage UK’s trading interests,
rather than improving them. Structurally, from the beginning Britain could not find itself
benefiting from the European membership.
Furthermore, in June 1987 the Conservatives, still led by Margaret Thatcher, won the
third successive election. During this campaign, Europe had played a rather marginal role.
Shortly after the election, Margaret Thatcher was persuaded to deliver a major speech on
Europe and the future of European Community which meant that she would use the speech
to showcase Britain’s pro-European character. Therefore, in 1988 the Prime Minister was
formally invited to deliver a speech to the College of Europe, a university based in Belgium.
The Foreign Office accepted the offer on her behalf and advised the Prime Minister to be as
positive as possible towards Europe. However, considering that the European Economic
Community had been pressing for deeper integration under Delors’s leadership plus his
close political relationship with the Labour Party, Thatcher decided to ignore the Foreign
office and rewrite her speech. The emblematic Bruges Speech was used to attack federalism
and promote cooperation of nation states but without closer integration. Many
Conservatives came to believe that the logic of supranationalism would lead to socialism,
and that the sharing of sovereignty, even to create a market, was unacceptable as a matter
of principle. All of which confirms that Thatcher’s Bruges speech did indeed play a crucial
role in setting the UK on the path to the 2016 referendum. On the other hand, it was not
entirely obvious that Margaret Thatcher was what would eventually become known as a
Eurosceptic. The most relevant example is that during the 1975 referendum, she had voted
for Britain to actually remain in the European Economic Community.
Second of all, a more recent distinctive British act, which also had a significant part to
play in the referendum, was the 2003 decision of the Blair government to permit full
freedom of movement rights to all the 2004 accession states. As a consequence, on 1
January 2004, full free movement was extended by the United Kingdom (as well as Ireland)
to all the 10 accession states, from Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, Cyprus and
Malta. All the other Western European Member States except Sweden maintained their
Treaty rights to suspend full free movement of workers for seven years. As the UK, Ireland
and Sweden were the only three states which provided full free movement the number of
people seeking work in the UK from the CEE and Baltic states surged. Clearly, it was a British
decision not to exercise their Treaty rights to restrict free movement. Nevertheless, in the
EU Referendum campaign it was not difficult for the Leave campaigners to pin the surge of
workers into the UK, on the EU, and not the British government. This influx was reinforced
by the economic crisis. As the Eurozone failed to deliver growth across its 19 members, and
the economy of debtor nations contracted sharply, more people arrived from southern
Europe and Ireland. The British economy rapidly righted itself after the crisis, as the UK was
in control of its own currency, and debt and could deploy effective fiscal stabilisers.
However, London then found that because of the Eurozone’s addiction to fiscally rigid
economic policies, the UK was also acting as the employment shock absorber for Frankfurt.
In conclusions, all of the factors mentioned above represent strong arguments for the
2016 referendum when 51,9% of the people voted to leave the European union. Historically
speaking, UK’s relationship with Europe has been a fragile one since the 1950’s, while
Margaret Thatcher’s Burge speech made Euroscepticism mainstream. Last but not least, the
decision to allow Eastern European migrants unrestricted access to Britain in 2004 when
over 128.000 migrants entered Britain had a huge political and economic cost and overall
public dissatisfaction. Other emblematic figures worth mentioning when talking about
Brexit are of course John Major, David Cameron as well as Theresa May who has recently
resigned.
 5. Why is disaffection with British politics so high?
The purpose of this essay is to present and explain some of the major aspects of public
disaffection towards British politics. Firstly, I will refer to the expenses scandal which rocked
British politics, it decreased trust in politicians and changed the rules of the game.
Furthermore, another crucial factor is represented by the underrepresentation, where I will
mainly focus on gender issues as well as the inequality caused by neoliberalism in Britain’s
society.
First of all, one of the biggest factors that cause public disaffection towards politics is
represented by the major lack of trust. Statistics show that just 21% of the British people
trust politicians to tell the truth. This question has been asked consistently since 1983 and it
shows that public trust in politicians has always been low: at no point since 1983 have more
than a quarter of the public ever trusted politicians to tell the truth. The lowest trust score
was recorded in 2009 in the wake of the expenses scandal, when only 13% said they trusted
politicians. On the 8th of May 2009 the Daily Telegraph published the first of its stories
about MPs’ expenses under the headline ‘The Truth About the Cabinet’s Expenses’. Key
political figures were involved in this scandal such as Gordon Brown, Margaret Beckett, or
Sir Peter Viggers who claimed £1,645 for a floating duck island for his pond. This scandal
had a huge political impact especially because it was just a year before the UK general
election but outside the electoral arena, scandal has also been shown to negatively affect
public trust and confidence. Unsurprisingly, scandal has been found to harm the overall
reputation of both the individual politicians and the institutions implicated in scandal.
Britain has become a place in which dissatisfaction with the political system and a lack of
trust in politicians and other public office-holders is the new normal. The expenses scandal
remains a go-to reference point for anyone who wants evidence to argue that politicians
really are as bad as everyone assumes they are.
Secondly, the underrepresentation of class, gender and race is a significant source of
public dissatisfaction. Even if the 2015 General elections were historic, where an
unprecedented high of 191 women MPs (29 per cent) were elected to the House of
Commons on 7 May, an increase of 48 from the immediate post-2010 election results,
women continue to be under-represented at all levels of British politics. Women are more
than half of the population, but less than a third of MPs. Several studies have found
evidence of well-entrenched gender bias in British party politics, including widespread
incidences of direct and indirect discrimination by party selectors towards women
candidates, ranging from gendered assumptions regarding women's traditional roles to
explicit sexual harassment. Moreover, the continuing exclusion of women from British
politics is a serious democratic deficit that demands action. Besides the gender
underrepresentation, the majority of ethnical minorities still struggle with this issue and it
causes serious public dissatisfaction between these groups.
 Last but not least, another reason of disaffection which somehow links up to
underrepresentation is caused by inequality. Because inequality is itself a complicated
concept, there is no single way of measuring inequality and there are lots of different things
that can analysed to see how equal or unequal their distribution is, such as the distribution
of market income, final income, as well the distribution of income by gender and ethnicity,
wealth, and social mobility. Britain is, as Jeremy Corbyn argues, ‘grotesquely’ unequal.
There is also a simple one-word explanation as to why inequality has risen: neoliberalism.
What matters for neoliberals is not equality of outcome but equality of opportunity. In
some ways, Britain has become far more unequal over the last few decades and it is likely to
become much more unequal in the future. On the other hand, the levels of income
inequality have diminished over previous decades. The public’s attitudes to inequality have,
however, remained relatively stable. The British Social Attitudes survey asks people whether
they think the ‘income gap in Britain is too large’ and it seems that in 1983 74 per cent
agreed it was and by 1995, this had risen to 89 per cent. Other reasons which should be
included are represented by the political instability caused by the recent events such as
Brexit, as well as the declining significance of the left and right divide which means that all
politicians have come to look and sound the same and the lack of vision where politicians
seem to believe in nothing besides getting elected.
In conclusion, political disaffection has been a perpetual element in Britain’s society but
in the context of the financial crisis, it degraded the public’s trust towards politicians.
Moreover, factors such as the underrepresentation of gender or minorities contribute to
this feeling of distrust, while inequality proves that in some cases, even if the situation
becomes more stabilized, it still faces major backlash and cynicism.