debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
David Cameron’s pugnacious speech about the UK’s position within the European Union has performed a service for Europe. While the speech was greeted with much withering criticism — and for the understandable reasons that many have stated – it also gave a backhanded boost to the European project because it helps to clarify and even finalize “next steps”. Cameron’s [...]
Last Friday I joined a radio discussion on the Voice of Russia talking about David Cameron’s Europe speech. Here is how they announced it: VoR’s Tom Spender asks a mixed panel if David Cameron’s announcement that he would hold an ‘In/Out’ referendum on the EU if re-elected is a significant milestone in British history or [...]
David Cameron’s call for a referendum is a transparent domestic political maneuver. Above all, it is designed to strengthen the Conservative position in upcoming elections scheduled for 2015. His government will have difficulty surviving the next popular vote. Risks must be taken, and right-wing support will be critical, given the unrepresentative nature of the British [...]
On Wednesday, David Cameron delivered his long awaited speech on the UK’s relationship with Europe, guaranteeing a referendum on the country’s EU membership should his party win the next election. Simon Hix gives a critical reading of the speech, noting that the content was far more pro-European than might have been expected. He argues that there are [...]
David Cameron’s speech has generated much the expected reaction. Domestically those on the Conservative right who hate Europe have welcomed the offer of an in/out referendum as giving them the chance to finally escape a continental union they despise, while those on the left decry Cameron for his reckless disregard of UK national interests and [...]
Julian Priestley takes an in-depth look at David Cameron’s speech on the UK’s relationship with Europe. He finds that that it fell into familiar Eurosceptic fallacies about the EU, ignored linkages between regulation and the internal market, and overestimated the UK’s chances of renegotiating the relationship with the EU. Instead, he writes, this morning’s speech was [...]
When placed under too much strain, chains tend to break at the weakest link. Figuratively speaking, the same applies to the European Union. So the entire world quite naturally assumed that any process of EU disintegration would start primarily in the crisis-ridden European south (Greece, first and foremost). But, as British Prime Minister David Cameron has [...]
Unlike some in Britain’s Conservative Party, Prime Minister David Cameron has not previously given the impression of being obsessed with Europe. He demonstrated no enthusiasm for the European Union, but he appeared clearly less exercised by its supposed iniquities than many Tories are. This view of Cameron’s position is now difficult to sustain. His long-gestating speech [...]
So, it is finally delivered. I have just finished watching David Cameron’s big speech on Britain’s relationship with Europe and I think it is fair to say that Tory Eurosceptics had a much bigger influence on Cameron’s position than pro-European voices. Peter Mandelson, rightly in my view, called the speech ‘schizophrenic’ as it really says [...]
In his ‘big speech’, UK Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to promise a referendum on any new settlement brokered with the EU. But what are the likely implications of such a referendum? Who is likely to win a referendum on UK-EU relations? Past votes and recent polling offer some helpful clues: 1. When a [...]
The prospect of a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union was a recurring theme in 2012. Iain Begg assesses recent developments ahead of an anticipated speech by David Cameron on Britain’s future relationship with Europe. He argues that current trends are making a British exit from the EU more likely, and that even if [...]
The present EU budget dispute between David Cameron and the other European leaders, which concluded in its expected impasse, is of course an expression of deeper conflicts and divisions in Europe. And if the UK/EU dispute can be taken as emblematic of these divisions – its resolution is of deeper importance than just a bilateral [...]
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