BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
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notably in respect of the single currency, EU treaty reform rounds, and
EU budgetary reform. Yet though public attention is focused on the EU
only periodically, enduring processes of change in Britain’s relations
with Europe are continually under way beneath the surface. This being
so, the lens in this chapter is focused not just on the elite level but also
on the more routine domains of politics and policy-making – where
European and domestic affairs have in some respects become almost
indistinguishable.
Further to this, when thinking about Britain and Europe it is necessary
to consider the relevant domestic changes which, while not necessarily
directly connected to policy on Europe, have influenced the nature of
Britain’s relations with the EU. These changes too have been a relatively
neglected part of the narrative of the Blair governments’ relations with
the EU. Of particular importance here have been institutional and constitutional changes – in particular those promoting devolution – which
have increased the degree of ‘fit’ between the British and the EU systems
of governance.
As we write, the dust has yet to settle on the Blair years, Iraq remains
prominent and the country has just undergone a change of leadership. In
developing our analysis we have tried to stand back from this immediate
context, difficult though it is. We begin by considering the legacy of
Britain’s relations with the EU that was inherited by the Blair government
in 1997.
The Conservative legacy
During the years of Conservative government after 1979 Britain came to
be seen as Europe’s most ‘awkward’ partner.3 This conception was based
on essentially Eurosceptic governments adopting either oppositionalist
or minimalist positions on virtually all significant European issues other
than those that were designed to open up and liberalise the internal
market. Underlying this stance was a dilemma in Conservative attitudes
to Europe that continued throughout the Blair years: on the one hand a
recognition and acceptance of the benefits accruing to Britain from the
Single European Market; on the other hand strongly held beliefs, going to
13 See Stephen George, An Awkward Partner: Britain in the European Community, 3rd edn
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
the very heart of the political identity of most Conservatives, that
European integration involves a loss of national sovereignty in a zerosum manner: what Britain loses ‘Brussels’ gains.
In policy terms, Thatcher’s antipathy to the EU was most strongly signalled in relation to the UK budgetary rebate and in opposition to the
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and to the redistributive accompaniments to the single market programme. Major stamped his own brand
of awkwardness through opting out of the single currency, rejecting the
Social Chapter at Maastricht, and for a short time in 1996 obstructing
decision-making in the Council of Ministers in response to the EU’s ban
on the export of British beef following the BSE outbreak.
Major’s position in the 1996–7 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC),
which was established to prepare the EU for the anticipated accession of
former Soviet bloc states, was to block it unless there were changes to the
Common Fisheries Policy and a reversal of a European Court of Justice
(ECJ) decision that the directive on a 48-hour maximum working week
should apply to Britain.4 Largely because of his government’s obstructionist stand, very little progress was made in the IGC in 1996 or early
1997 on such difficult issues as extensions to qualified majority voting
(QMV) in the Council and revisions to law-making procedures. This was
despite the IGC being scheduled to be concluded by the European
Council in June 1997. However, this lack of progress was viewed with
general equanimity in EU circles because the Major government was the
main hindrance to decisions being made and it was known that a UK
election would have to be held before June 1997, with all the indications
being that a more amenable Labour government would be returned to
power.
Things can only get better? The Blair years
In line with the words of Labour’s 1997 adopted campaign anthem,5 it
seemed the new government could barely fail to alter the perceived negative and dismal British record on Europe under the Conservatives. The
promise in May 1997 was of a positive approach to Europe, a ‘step change’
in the relationship, with Britain taking advantage of the opportunities
offered by the EU rather than concentrating on the threats that the
Conservatives had emphasised. However, many of the dilemmas that the
14 Ian Bache and Stephen George, Politics in the European Union 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), p. 185.
5 ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, by D:Ream.
Labour government was to face over Europe turned out to be those that
had hamstrung the Conservatives. Moreover, the response was sometimes similar, both in style and substance.
But there was an essential difference between the approach of New
Labour and that of the Conservatives, which rested on a different worldview. Blairism was built on reconciling paradoxes – economic excellence
and social justice, better relations with both the US and the EU, a stronger
Britain and a stronger EU. On the latter, Blair sought to advance a different
conception of sovereignty in Britain’s relations with the EU: a shift from
the Conservatives’ zero-sum view of what Europe gains, Britain must lose,
to a positive-sum view that both Britain and the EU would win by closer
integration. As Blair put it in 2001:
I see sovereignty not merely as the ability of a single country to say no, but
as the power to maximise our national strength and capacity in business,
trade, foreign policy, defence and the fight against crime. Sovereignty has
to be employed for national advantage. When we isolated ourselves in the
past, we squandered our sovereignty – leaving us sole masters of a shrinking sphere of influence.6
Labour’s aims
Labour approached office in 1997 with relatively modest European policy
aims. The 1997 election manifesto identified six specific goals: the
rapid completion of the single market; a high priority to be given to EU
enlargement; urgent reform of the CAP; the pursuit of greater openness
and democracy in EU institutions; the retention of the national veto over
key matters of national interest; and the signing of the Social Chapter.7 Of
these six goals, only the last was different from Conservative policy. On
the thorny issue of the single currency, Labour was non-committal, with
membership not being excluded (as it was by the Conservatives) but with
any decision to be determined by ‘a hard-headed assessment of Britain’s
economic interests’ and to require the approval of the British people in a
referendum.8
Labour’s specific policy goals in 1997 were, therefore, much like
those of the Thatcher and Major governments. What
was intended to be
16 Tony Blair, Speech to the European Research Institute, University of Birmingham,
23
November 2001, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/euro/story/0,,604413,00.html
(accessed 3 April 2007).
17 Labour Party Manifesto, 1997, accessible at http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/
1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml.
8 Labour Party Manifesto, 1997.
significantly different, however, was the tone. Unlike the claimed negativity and suspiciousness that Labour (with cause) claimed had characterised Conservative policy in the EU, a much more positive and
cooperative approach was to be taken. As Blair stated in April 1995, and
in so many words repeated frequently in the period up to and beyond
May 1997: ‘My belief is that the drift towards isolation in Europe must
stop and be replaced by a policy of constructive engagement.’9
Such an approach would be allied with a resolve that Britain should
seek to exercise a leadership role in the EU. Before being elected Blair frequently emphasised that Britain had traditionally played a leading role on
the world stage and under Labour would continue to do so. But, such a
role could now only be exercised from a firm and positively participating
European base: ‘The fact is that Europe is today the only route through
which Britain can exercise power and influence. If it is to maintain its historic role as a global player, Britain has to be a central part of the politics
of Europe.’10 At the same time, Blair was keen to stress that Britain’s
Atlanticism would be a strength rather than a weakness in relations with
Europe: ‘we have deluded ourselves for too long with the false choice
between the US and Europe’.11 The Labour government would provide a
bridge between the two.
Labour in government
Following the Tories, it was not difficult early on for Blair to score high
and score easily on Europe.12 The signing of the Social Chapter shortly
after taking office was seen as an ‘important symbol of positive intent’.13
Moreover, the new government instigated changes in Whitehall to
improve the internal coordination of policy-making to enhance Britain’s
capacity to project its preferences onto the EU: before 1997 Whitehall had
been much more geared to the task of processing EU policies than trying
to influence them. The overall effect of these changes within Whitehall
though was to centralise European policy-making, in particular by closer
19 This quote is taken from a speech delivered at the Royal Institute of International Affairs,
reproduced in Tony Blair, New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country (London: Fourth
Estate, 1996), p. 280.
10 Tony Blair, New Britain, p. 283.
11 See Anne Deighton, ‘European Union Policy’, in A. Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect: The Blair
Government 1997–2001 (London: Little, Brown and Company), p. 310.
12 Deighton, ‘European Union Policy’, p. 312.
13 Ian Bache and Andrew Jordan, ‘Britain in Europe and Europe in Britain’, in I. Bache and
A. Jordan (eds.), The Europeanization of British Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006), p. 8.
integration of work of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat and No. 10
and by augmenting the staffing and resourcing of both. 14
Yet while it became increasingly popular to characterise Blair’s style generally as presidential and to equate government policy on Europe with the
position of the Prime Minister, there were early indications of the limits to
this authority: particularly in relation to the economy. Chancellor of the
Exchequer Gordon Brown’s announcement in November 1997 that membership of the single currency would depend on five economic tests disappointed Blairites, even if it was not a major surprise. Moreover, as the
Treasury made it clear that there was no immediate prospect of these tests
being met, the position was effectively understood as an indefinite opt-out.
This decision was a defining moment for UK–EU relations in the early
years of Blair’s premiership. For to provide the leadership role in Europe
that Blair had talked about would have meant to end Britain’s opt-outs on
key issues. In opposition, Labour had promised a referendum on entry to
the single currency and, while it was uncertain whether the government
could have secured a vote in favour even in its honeymoon period, it
seemed clear to most in government (though in Blair’s case not as early
as in that of most others) that once the honeymoon period was over, it
probably could not. Moreover, this episode demonstrated above all
others that government policy on Europe was not being determined
exclusively by the Prime Minister.
In the later Blair years, absence from the Eurozone continued to
damage Blair’s EU leadership aspirations, though less so than initially, as
the merits of the British case for not adopting the euro became more
widely recognised and as the number of non-Eurozone states grew with
enlargement in 2004. In any event, from late 2002 Britain’s non-membership of the euro became overshadowed by Iraq: an issue that distanced
the UK from some other key EU member states. For though more EU
states initially sympathised with the US–UK position on Iraq than
opposed it, Blair’s position on the war drove a deep policy division
between himself and several very important EU leaders, not least the
French President and German Chancellor. And, unlike the single currency, Britain’s position on the war clearly had Blair’s personal imprint.
Blair’s European polices have been described by Peter Riddell as being a
failure overall.15 But though, as the following sections will show, they
14 Simon Bulmer and Martin Burch, ‘Central Government’, in I. Bache and A. Jordan (eds.),
The Europeanization of British Politics, pp. 37–51.
15 See, for example, Peter Riddell, ‘Europe’, in A. Seldon and D. Kavanagh (eds.), The Blair
Effect, 2001–5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 362–83.
certainly did fail in important respects, the case should not be overstated. In
important areas and in important respects there were clear policy successes.
Labour’s successes
Policy orientation successes
One general policy aim that was achieved was that the UK came to be seen
much more as a ‘normal’ EU member state rather than as an awkward
partner. To be sure, under Blair the British government remained
towards the Eurosceptic end of the integrationist/Eurosceptic spectrum
of opinion amongst the governments of the member states, but it was not
seen to be as anything like as difficult as its Conservative predecessors.
Indeed, by the time Blair left office the Czech Republic, Poland and
Sweden were arguably more sceptical EU members than the UK.
This changed position of the UK was partly accounted for by some
softening of the UK’s stance in certain key policy areas, such as aspects of
social policy and internal security policy, but was also a consequence of
‘mood change’. The Major government had
at times seemed almost to
want to raise confrontational stakes so as to satisfy domestic audiences –
not least hard-line backbench Conservative MPs – that it was defending
Britain’s corner. Under Blair a more open and positive approach was
adopted by British ministers from the outset. Certainly they sought to
defend national interests in Council forums, but the tone was less defensive than under the Conservatives and generally was more one of ‘we have
come here to be helpful and to do a deal’.
Specific policy successes
As for specific policy successes, three in particular stand out. The first is
EU enlargement, which has long been supported by British governments
of both political persuasions. The main reason for this support is the economic benefits likely to accrue to the UK, as a major trading country,
from a European market that is as wide as possible. Associated with this
reason is the fact that both Labour and Conservative governments have
subscribed to a European vision that starts with a focus on market integration and tends not, especially in the case of the Conservatives, to stray
too far beyond this.16 One way of trying to ensure that integration does
16 Some exceptions to this focus under Labour have included the government’s leadership on
tobacco advertising, food labelling and some environmental policies. On the latter, the
indeed not proceed too far is to have a larger and more heterogeneous EU,
in which decision-making becomes increasingly difficult and in which it
becomes almost impossible for the hopes of those who dream of some
sort of European federal state to be realised.17 During Blair’s premiership
the UK government was a consistent champion of the enlargement
process, both as regards the enlargement round that in 2004 and 2007 saw
ten former Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) plus Cyprus
and Malta join, and the enlargement round that was launched in 2005
with the opening of accession negotiations with Croatia and Turkey. Both
of these enlargement rounds have been controversial, with several
member state governments believing the accession of the CEECs was
being over-rushed and some governments – notably the Austrian, French
and Cypriot – being opposed to the opening of accession negotiations