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Liberal Democrats in coalition: Europe The coalition and Europe Tim Oliver he recent vote to leave the European especially when in coalition with a Eurosceptical Union has reenergised Liberal Demo- Conservative Party. How then did the party suc- Tcrat commitment to the EU. In promis- ceed in managing the issue in government? Did ing to challenge the decision to leave, the party it balance or constrain Conservative Euroscepti- has found itself an issue that has helped it stand cism? Or were the demands of government such apart, appeal to large numbers of British voters, that the party was overwhelmed by events and and uphold a core party commitment to liberal inadvertently helped pave the way for the 2016 internationalism. The turmoil that now defines referendum? UK–EU relations (the settling of which will likely dominate the rest of this parliament) led to jus- tifiable quips that David Cameron was only able Europe in the party’s worldview to last a year without Nick Clegg and the Liberal If, as David Cameron once argued, Atlanticism Democrats. is in the DNA of the Conservative Party, then Europe, however, has not always been an easy the Liberal Democrats have Europe as a large issue for the party, either internally or externally, part of theirs. It has long been a core part of the Journal of Liberal History 92 Autumn 2016 55 Liberal Democrats in coalition: Europe party’s liberal internationalist worldview. Vari- largely concluded that the balance of powers was ous parts of that worldview have shaped views about right. of the EU, not least the party’s commitment to However, the referendum lock merely fuelled international justice and anti-imperialism. The Conservative backbench demands for a referen- party’s localism and activist heart might be sus- dum of some kind. The Balance of Competences picious of the EU as a distant source of power, Review limited the case for a repatriation of pow- but the belief in federalism has helped locate the ers. To some extent this was a victory for the EU in a wider framework through which the Liberal Democrats, but the review was largely party believes the UK should be governed. Even buried by the Conservatives and overlooked by in relations with the USA, the party has seen the media. close US–European relations as essential to an Despite the detail of the coalition agreement, it outward looking, global liberal agenda. Being was to be events that largely defined how the two out of government at UK level between 1922 and coalition parties approached the issue of Europe. 2010 meant that some of these ideas have been And events in UK–EU relations were not neces- shaped more by idealism and protest than the sarily on the Liberal Democrats’, or indeed David realities of national government. Cameron’s, side. The need for further reform in The second, the the EU to tackle the Eurozone’s problems meant some form of treaty change or new arrangement Europe in the coalition government Balance of Com- was already on the cards as the coalition came into The coalition government came to power against office. This would inevitably run into a barrage of a long-standing backdrop of Britain as ‘an awk- petences Review, hostility in British politics where memories were ward partner’ in the EU. A late joiner, British still raw about the difficulties all parties had faced governments, political parties and public opinion was an evidence- over ratifying the Lisbon treaty in 2008. have rarely if ever appeared comfortable with the When proposals for a change to the Lisbon idea of European integration, preferring instead based review of Treaty were put forward in December 2011 to take a transactional view to relations. Rare has the full-range of in order to deal with ongoing problems in the been the British politician prepared to stand up Eurozone, the UK found itself out of sync with and make a full-blown case for Britain’s member- UK–EU relations. the rest of the EU thanks in no small part to ship of the EU. David Cameron’s failure to connect with other That unease could be seen in all of the UK’s Eventually com- European leaders. The result was his ‘veto’ of political parties, including to some extent the attempts to introduce an EU-wide fiscal com- Liberal Democrats. Tensions over the signing of prising thirty- pact. Cameron’s move was designed to protect the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 had left the party as the British interests, especially those of the City of only one of the main three UK parties to cam- two volumes and London. But his move sparked anger around the paign in the 2010 general election with a com- rest of the EU (which bypassed the UK and set mitment to holding an in/out referendum on 3,000 pages of up the fiscal compact as a separate treaty) and EU membership, albeit with the caveat that this analysis, it was a moment of jubilation amongst Conservative would happen the next time a British government backbenchers until they realised the veto had signed up for fundamental change in the relation- the most detailed actually achieved little. ship between the UK and the EU. It continued a It also strained relations with the Liberal Dem- tradition dating back to the party’s commitment study ever under- ocrats, with Nick Clegg eventually making clear in the 1990s to being the first to commit to hold- his anger at the outcome of Britain being left iso- ing a referendum on membership of the Euro. taken of the EU lated. Such was his anger that he shunned Cam- Despite concerns that the issue of Europe eron’s appearance before the Commons to explain would bring down the coalition, the coalition by a member the veto. Yet, while he might have objected to agreement provided a constructive basis of ideas how Cameron had got himself into the mess that that led to two outcomes. The first was the EU state. Intended to led to the ‘veto’, disagreement focused more on Referendum Act 2011 – a referendum lock to identify powers the flawed ways and means by which he had raised limit the transfer of further powers to the EU British objections than that Britain had objected without a national referendum. A commitment for repatriation, to proposals that were not in its interests. drawn primarily from the Conservative election Similar differences overshadowed the appoint- manifesto, it also met the Liberal Democrats’ own to the dismay of ment of Jean-Claude Juncker as the new Com- 2010 commitment to holding a referendum at the mission president following the 2014 European time of a major treaty change, albeit as an in/out some Conserva- Parliament elections. In the run-up to the 2014 referendum. European Parliament elections some of the par- The second, the Balance of Competences tives the study liament’s groups had named a ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ Review, was an evidence-based review of – top candidate – as their candidate for Commis- the full-range of UK–EU relations. Eventu- largely concluded sion president, the aim being to democratise the ally comprising thirty-two volumes and 3,000 that the balance process of filling the position. As the European pages of analysis, it was the most detailed study People’s Party’s (EPP) choice for Spitzenkandi- ever undertaken of the EU by a member state. of powers was daten, Juncker had the backing of Angela Merkel’s Intended to identify powers for repatriation, CDU. Cameron’s decision to withdraw the Con- to the dismay of some Conservatives the study about right. servatives from the EPP had long been criticised 56 Journal of Liberal History 92 Autumn 2016 Liberal Democrats in coalition: Europe as a move that might have met the demands of The decision to in seeing UKIP come top in the elections, mak- Eurosceptics in his own party but left him and ing them the first non-Conservative or Labour his party disconnected from the dominant cen- enter into coa- party since 1910 to win the most seats at a national tre-right group of parties in European politics, election. including the CDU. While no other UK party lition with the had bought into the Spitzenkandidaten idea, includ- ing the Liberal Democrats, Cameron’s opposi- Conservatives The referendum legacy tion to Juncker once again left him and the British inadvertently Throughout the period of coalition government government isolated in the EU. He was unable to one of the Liberal Democrats’ main claims to suc- call on the support of Angela Merkel who, despite helped set the cess was that they were able to constrain, or at her own doubts about both Juncker’s suitability least balance, the more extreme sides of the Con- and the Spitzenkandidaten idea, in the end decided UK on a course servative Party, not least when it came to Europe. to back him, leaving Cameron and the UK largely In doing so, however, they may have inadvert- isolated. towards the June ently played a part in setting the stage for the 2016 If Cameron was able to get away with such referendum. I say ‘in part’ because ultimately the flawed approaches then it might have owed some- 2016 referen- one person responsible for the referendum and thing to the way in which the Liberal Democrats dum. The party its outcome was David Cameron. And as we all were positioned in government. That the party know, the divisive nature of Europe in UK poli- spread itself too thinly is now a well-documented became the coali- tics long predates the 2010–15 coalition.

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