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FUTURE OF BRITAIN IN EUROPE: IT WONT BE A DEMOCRATIC CHOICE Franco Zappettini Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication Birkbeck College, University of London http://birkbeck.academia.edu/FrancoZappettini On 23 January 2013 British Prime Minister David Cameron gave a long-awaited speech on the future of Britain in Europe. This was the latest - and almost certainly not the last - episode of a growing Europhobic saga in the UK that over recent years has seen some Tory backbenchers campaigning for the repatriation of powers from Brussels to London. In his speech Mr. Cameron pledged that the next Conservative manifesto in 2015 will ask the British people for a mandate for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next parliament (if it wins the election). The Prime Ministers hopeful plan is that when a new settlement is negotiated, an in/out referendum will be put to the British people asking them whether they want to stay in Europe on the new terms or leave altogether, this latter option being a one-way ticket, not a return as Mr. Cameron described it. At present no one can predict what this settlement will be and most importantly whether it will be achieved at all, as it involves all the other 26 countries accepting Britains demands. What is very clear however is Camerons idea of Europe. In his own words It will be a relationship with the single market at its heart. This is consistent with the way that a large proportion of British politicians (across all parties) have related to the EU since the UK joined in 1973, that is the EU should be a Union of States that co-operate primarily as a trade association. In this respect Mr. Cameron made it clear that if it came to the referendum he would advocate for the UK to stay in the club as it would be at the forefront [in the] race for the wealth and jobs of the future, for instance

benefiting from competitive trade deals with the US, Japan and India as part of the drive towards global free trade. Of course the hypocrisy of wanting to secure the best economic benefits whilst rejecting any commitment to social solidarity has not gone unnoticed by other EU members who have highlighted how Mr. Cameron wont get away easily with picking and choosing or having Europe a la carte his way. In other words the threat the EU must change on our terms or were leaving might well turn out to be a self-harming strategy for the UK. But on another level it seems to me that an even larger and more dangerous hypocrisy has not been made transparent, or at least has not been discussed enough in the media debate or in British society at large. This is the false idea of democratic choice on the EU that will be given by the British Government to its citizens. The rhetorical focus of his speech has been Mr. Camerons desire to give the British people the right to have their say and to have their will done. This has been discursively constructed as a democratic choice that could stop the allegedly undemocratic and unaccountable EU institutions taking over national sovereignty. His argument that democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer-thin becomes the basis that legitimises his claim: It is time to settle this European question in British politics .. I say to the British people: this will be your decision. Of course he claims to interpret the national sentiment and relies on polls telling us that today the majority of the British would be against the European status quo (this raises issues of the responsibility of Europhobic media which go beyond the scope of this article). However the democratic argument in my view is flawed. What Mr. Cameron has effectively done is imposed the UKs withdrawal from the EU on British citizens. Through the referendum he would only give them the restricted choice between a complete and a partial withdrawal. However, this would certainly not be a democratic choice as he

would exclude the voice of those who happen to differ from his idea of Europe. What choice indeed will those have who support integration and want Britain to have a more active and fully committed role in Europe? Some will say theyll have to vote Labour. However Labour has been shy and ambiguously vague on taking a stance on this issue in an arguably strategic waiting game ahead of the 2015 elections. Let alone Liberal Democrats who have performed a complete turnaround on their European principles once in the Government coalition. More importantly what Mr. Cameron tries to sell to the British public disguised as a democratic choice originates from a political balancing act that tries to appease the most Europhobic Tory backbenchers. As stated in his speech, what the Prime Minister is envisaging in a more flexible and looser relationship with the EU is a bigger and more significant role for national parliaments. In case that wasnt clear enough: It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU. The pro-European voice in Britain has been silenced and it ought not be so. How can Europeans (British and not) ensure that their voice is heard? I can think of Academia as a platform to mobilise those marginalised pro-European voices and I would encourage everyone sharing such view to come forward. In his speech Mr Cameron said: There is not, in my view, a single European demos. He might be proved wrong. The full speech given by Mr. Cameron is available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/23/david-cameron-eu-speech- referendum