Cross-cutting issues, intraparty dissent and party strategy: The issue of European integration in the House of Commons

Abstract

When do legislative opposition parties use wedge issues to attack the government? In this article, I focus on the issue of European integration and its impact on party strategy in the 1992–1997 British House of Commons. Utilizing both voting and rhetorical data, the analysis reveals that both government and opposition were split on the issue, and thus the opposition was not able to use it. This, I argue, stems from the complexity of the issue, i.e. the fact that it combines redistributive cleavages with pre- and post-material ones, which cannot be suppressed by party leaders. The results demonstrate the importance of taking into consideration both the government’s and the opposition’s cohesion in modeling party strategies. Further, the combination of voting and rhetorical data adds to our understanding of the dimensionality and structure of partisan ideologies in Europe. We have won more elections than any party in Britain because we are the most united and the most determined party in Britain. Over the same period Labour has been the most divided and the most undisciplined party. That is why they have lost, and lost, and lost, and lost again. Sir Norman Fowler, Conservative Party Chairman, 1992 Party Conference.

Issue expansion and selective scrutiny – how opposition parties used parliamentary questions about the European Union in the national arena from 1973 to 2013

“…Apart from their mobilization potential, general EU aspects are also issues suited to use in attacking mainstream competitors. European integration is considered a wedge issue, which means that it cannot easily be subsumed in the left-right dimension and is likely to divide mainstream coalition governments and mainstream parties (Tzelgov, 2014; Van de Wardt et al., 2014). Extreme parties face no constraints of present or future government participation and are therefore likely to exploit the potential of general discussions about the EU to confront their mainstream competitors with questions about EU aspects that they would prefer to avoid talking about.…”

Communicating supranational governance? The salience of EU affairs in the German Bundestag, 1991–2013

“…In contrast, parties with smaller and thus more cohesive constituencies either on the extreme left, criticizing the EU for its neoliberal stance, or on the extreme right, criticizing the EU on the basis of identity issues, should have much less to lose from raising European affairs in plenary debates. On the contrary, knowing that European affairs might be a ‘wedge issue’ for their mainstream contenders (Tzelgov, 2014), they should push respective topics to the fore. Following a similar and partially related logic, parties might face significant internal dissent on European issues among their actual partisan activists, factions, and leadership (Gabel and Scheve, 2007; Ray, 1999).…”

The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

“… 5 The existing literature on Euroscepticism in British political parties is of course rather extensive. For example, Heppell (2013) looks at Euroscepticism within the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs, Hertner and Keith (2017) examine the messaging of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats on Europe, and Tzelgov (2014) explores the voting behaviour of MPs on Europe between 1992 and 1997. This body of literature is invaluable in helping us understand the context that ultimately set the scene for the 2016 EU referendum, but it does not focus on how politicians ultimately voted in June 2016. …”