Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and the Eurosceptic Tradition in Britain

Abstract

This article advances the interpretivist perspective on British foreign policy by studying Tony Blair's difficult encounter with the Eurosceptic tradition in Britain, popularized by Margaret Thatcher from the late 1980s. Using discourse data taken from key foreign policy speeches by the two leaders across their periods in office, the article investigates the problems Blair and his New Labour team faced when trying to justify and legitimize Britain's more constructive approach to the European Union from 1997. The article argues that Blair failed to modernize public attitudes and build support behind a Europeanist consensus in Britain because, contrary to the reputations they have built up over the years, the two leaders’ webs of belief about the British in Europe were remarkably similar. Blair reworked rather than undermined core themes within the British Eurosceptic tradition.

Britain and the Crisis of the European Union

“…It is a time to recognise that only by change will Europe recover its strength, its relevance, its idealism and therefore its support amongst the people. (Blair 2005) The continuity in rhetoric and policy towards Europe between Thatcher, Major and Blair is starkly revealed in this speech and has since been well researched (Wall 2010, Daddow 2013. Differences between Blair and his predecessors were often more about tactics than objectives.…”

Review of Humanitarian Refuge in the United Kingdom: Sanctuary, Asylum, and the Refugee Crisis

“…Britain joined the European Community in 1973 amidst a perceived risk that the demise of the empire would lead to a loss of markets and marginalization in a globalizing world. Despite this union, closer ties to Europe produced sustained anxieties concerning the European Union being a threat to British sovereignty and identity based on Britain's spatial separation as an island and equally its historical and racial distinctiveness (Daddow ; Wall ). With the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 the Community was turned into a Union (i.e., from a predominantly trading block to a more political entity with looser internal borders).…”

Fantasies of subjugation: a discourse theoretical account of British policy on the European Union

“…The analysis presented here focuses on the debates surrounding policy discourses. Despite the evidence of intertextuality between media and elite discourses presented above (see also Daddow 2013), additional studies are needed to examine more systematically the extent to which political decision-making is shaped and confined by broader societal discourses. Following previous applications of the critical logics approach, this may be undertaken through the analysis of policy documents.…”

“…The article identifies a hegemonic and highly sedimented Euroskeptic discourse, which constructs a radical separation between Britain and the EU and which structures British debates about the EU. Whilst the clearest articulation of the Euroskeptic discourse can be found in the right-wing press, it dictates the terms in which the EU is discussed in other sections of the media and in elite political discourse (Hawkins 2012; see also Daddow 2013). By examining the discourse in terms of social, political and fantasmatic logics, it is possible to comprehend the structure, political dynamics and affective power of this account of Britain's relationship with the EU.…”