New pro-European Conservative alliance highlights Britain’s divisions over Europe
Anna Sonny, 25 April 2014
A group of pro-European British Conservatives have formed a new party to stand in the upcoming EU elections underneath the European People’s Party grouping.
The centre-right EPP grouping is the largest of the European political parties – the Tories were formerly part of this group but struggled to find ideological allies and eventually left. After the 2009 elections, Cameron formed the more eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists party, in alliance with Polish and Czech centre-right parties.
The new British EPP party (or 4 Freedoms Party), led by Dirk Hazell, believes Britain should lead Europe, not leave it. The party’s very creation highlights the longstanding tension in Britain’s relationship with the EU, which exists across a series of extreme divisions, across both the British political spectrum and within the Tory party itself.
Euroscepticism in Britain is strongly associated with the hard right (mainly Ukip), while the Liberal Democrats are the country’s only major pro-European party. The recent debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have only served to exacerbate this gap, with both leaders debating around an axis of ‘in or out’. At the European level, parliamentary groupings are supposed to foster supranational co-operation; but this is too far beyond local level to really make a dent in the deep apathy of the British public. Hyperbolic debate around the EU, with the bandying about of unsubstantiated facts and figures, will only cause this apathy to crystallise into antipathy, towards both the EU and towards British politicians.
The 4 Freedoms Party will publish its manifesto next Monday, but says securing jobs is its main priority and that it wants to see a ‘reformed Europe’. The real message here is that nobody is happy with Europe the way it is, not even pro-Europeans.
The Tories’ lack of consensus on Europe sends a confusing message and tells of a political identity crisis. Instead of dividing over everything, cross party consensus (and even single party consensus for the Tories) would achieve a more realistic debate. The inclusion or at least acknowledgement of the euroscepticism of the left would dampen hyperbole and would foster a more coherent debate amongst the British public.