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Department of International Relations Master's Degree DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MASTER’S DEGREE IN EUROPEAN STUDIES Chair of Comparative History of Political Systems RETRACING THE ROOT CAUSE OF BREXIT: BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM INDEPENDENCE PARTY (UKIP) SUPERVISOR Prof. Giovanni Orsina CANDIDATE Elettra Perfetti 635832 CO-SUPERVISOR Prof. Domenico Maria Bruni ACADEMIC YEAR 2018/2019 2 “If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.” Margaret Thatcher 3 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 6 2. A BRAND NEW BRITISH POLITICAL FORCE IS BORN ................. 14 2.1 Euroscepticism or populism? .............................................................................................. 14 2.2 Prologue and the early years (1992-1997) ........................................................................... 16 2.3 1999-2002: UKIP’s first watershed years ............................................................................ 18 2.4 UKIP and the Conservatives: friend or foe? ........................................................................ 21 2.5 The first boom years: 2004-2005 ......................................................................................... 22 3. THE REAL TURNING POINT YEARS: UKIP AS AN AFFIRMED DOMESTIC POLITICAL FORCE ............................................................... 28 3.1 Immigration to the United Kingdom: a multifaceted problem .............................................. 29 3.2 UKIP in the British political background from 2005 to 2009 ............................................... 33 3.3 The 2009 European elections: Right in the middle of the global financial crisis .................. 34 3.4 Farage’s first quit of leadership, Islam and Lord Pearson of Rannoch ............................... 41 3.5 The British first-past-the-post system .................................................................................. 45 3.6 UKIP on its way to Westminster: the radical changes .......................................................... 49 4. CALL TO ARMS: TOWARDS 23/06/2016 AND BREXIT .................... 56 4.1 The 2014 European elections: a triumph for Eurosceptic parties ........................................ 58 4.2 Lessons from the Past: the 2015 domestic elections ............................................................. 63 4.3 The United Kingdom on its way to Brexit: from the promise of a Referendum to Referendum Day .......................................................................................................................................... 70 5. CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................... 85 5.1 The underlying reasons of a Leave vote .............................................................................. 87 5.2 And so, what? ..................................................................................................................... 88 5.3 What about UKIP? ............................................................................................................. 92 References ......................................................................................................... 96 ExEcutIvE Summary ....................................................................................... 106 5 1. INTRODUCTION It is a truth universally acknowledged that the European Union (and, previously, the former European Economic Community, EEC) and the United Kingdom have always had a troublesome, stormy, complicated, if not rocky relationship. Proof of it can be found effortlessly while tracking the key steps of the European Union history. Europe as we know it nowadays is nothing but a project conceived in the minds of a few distinguished and visionary politicians from the past century. Still bewildered by the advent of the two world wars in the continent, they envisioned the creation of a supranational authority able to avert any replication of these catastrophic phenomena. Before the Cold War period erupted, the farsighted leaders of some European countries established that the prosperity of the continent depended only on nations “as a whole, and not singly” (Hitchcock, 2004:147). The 9 May 1950 Schuman Declaration was the milestone of such a long process: only after 11 months, six founding members (Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany) agreed on the establishment of the so-called European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), where the aforementioned States would share their national production of coal and steel through a free circulation without customs barriers and unfair competition practises (like quotas, subsidies, etc.). The idea lying behind this was the fact that, in a situation of peaceful trade of such goods, two sworn enemy nations like France and West Germany (whose neighbouring areas of Alsace and Ruhr were rich of them) would have been prevented from provoking another conflict. In all of this, the United Kingdom was offered the possibility to join, but refused as the objectives of the community were not in line with its national interests. Representatives of the Labour party, such as Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin and Stafford Cripps committed themselves to preserving British parliamentary sovereignty and highlighted this, as well as British exceptionalism, as reasons for standing aside from European supranational integration (Forster, 2004: 13). In any case, it was the first non-member state to sign the Association Agreement in 1954. In 1957, the Rome Treaties instituted the European Economic Community and EURATOM, following the initiatives of such great European politicians as Gaetano Martini, Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak. UK former Prime Minister, Mr. Anthony Eden, concerned to be embedded in a European integrated system 6 and, subsequently, to lose the “special relationship”1 with the United States, rejected the proposal of a deeper European integration in the nuclear energy and transportation sectors. In addition, the United Kingdom, jealous of the success of the Rome Treaties, grouped together with Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Austria and forged the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960. Finland, Iceland and Liechtenstein joined in the following years. Basically, it aimed at reproducing the trade conditions offered by the EEC between those member states who had yet not or did not wish to join the EEC. However, the United Kingdom soon understood that EFTA could in no way compete against the revenue generated by the common market of the EEC (an astonishingly successful post-war recovery). It was as early as in October 1961 that the UK, under Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, made its first official application to join the EEC. After a long 16-months reviewing process, UK saw its application request fail due to the veto posed by the General Charles De Gaulle. In a press conference on the 14 January 1963, the French President justified his choice as a consequence of incompatibilities between the interests of continental European states and insular Britain. He declared: “L'Angleterre, en effet elle, est insulaire. Elle est maritime. Elle est liée par ses échanges, ses marchés, ses ravitaillements aux pays les plus divers. […] Bref, la nature, la structure qui sont propres à l'Angleterre diffèrent profondément de celle des continentaux. Comment faire pour que l'Angleterre telle qu'elle vit, telle qu'elle produit, telle qu'elle échange, soit incorporée au Marché commun tel qu'il a été conçu et tel qu'il fonctionne.” (Ina, 1963)2. De Gaulle highlighted the deep economic differences, particularly the Commonwealth free-trade area relations the UK held, which were inconsistent with the nature of the common market itself. He concluded by wishing Great Britain to change drastically in order to adjust to the other six members’ economic policies: only in that moment would the United Kingdom have found no obstacles to EEC accession. Nonetheless, it has been debated that De Gaulle harboured some resentment against the United Kingdom, as it appeared like a “Trojan horse” of the United States, leading to an “Americanisation of Europe” (Cvce, 2019). 1 Term firstly employed by Winston Churchill during a speech in 1946, it is nowadays widely used to outline unofficially the military, political, historical, cultural, social and diplomatic bond between the United States and the United Kingdom. 2 Translate: England, indeed, is insular. It is maritime. It is linked to different countries by the nature of its exchanges, market, supplies. In short, English nature and structure is profoundly different from the ones of the mainland. What can be done so that England as it is, produces, trades can be embedded in the common market as it is conceived and how it works. 7 Not only did UK face General De Gaulle’s veto once, but also history repeated itself in 1967. MacMillan was replaced by Harold Wilson; although he was not a European enthusiast, he decided to reopen the negotiations to join EEC’s common market. Once again, on the 27 November 1967, during his usual press conference at the Elysée Palace, General De Gaulle left the audience speechless. He put into question the new British application request with “extraordinary insistence and haste” (Ina, 1967), blaming the devaluation of the pound sterling and
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