David Cameron’s EU renegotiation and referendum pledge: A case of déjà vu?
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Authors
Publication Date
2016-09Journal Title
British Politics
ISSN
1746-918X
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
11
Pages
324-346
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Smith, J. (2016). David Cameron’s EU renegotiation and referendum pledge: A case of déjà vu?. British Politics, 11 324-346. https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2016.11
Abstract
The United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union has long been fraught, creating tensions with European partners and dividing the main political parties. To try to overcome internal divisions in the Labour Party, Harold Wilson sought to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership and then held a referendum on whether the country should stay in. The result – a two to one majority of remaining - was thought to have ended the question marks over British membership definitively. Four decades later, it was the Conservatives who were divided over Europe and Prime Minister David Cameron, in what appeared to be almost a carbon copy of Wilson’s actions, promising reform, renegotiation and a referendum. Yet the stakes in 2016 were rather higher than in 1975 and the challenges far greater - the more multi-faceted and institutionalised nature of the EU rendered the debate, and the potential costs and benefits, more complex. This article assesses the similarities between the two prime ministers’ decisions to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership and the frameworks established for the ensuing referendums and notes significant differences, which render over-interpreting the parallels a risky business.
Keywords
United Kingdom and the European Union, 1975 referendum, EU renegotiation, 2016 EU referendum, David Cameron, Harold Wilson
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2016.11
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/256243
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