Brexit or Bremain: what future for the UK's European diplomatic strategy?

Richard G Whitman

doi:10.1111/1468-2346.12607

Abstract

A major public debate on the costs and benefits of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union is presently under way. The outcome of the referendum on 23 June 2016 will be a pivotal moment in determining whether the EU has a future as a component of the UK's European diplomatic strategy or whether there is a major recalibration of how the UK relates to Europe and more widely of its role within international relations. Since accession to the European Economic Community the UK has evolved an uncodified, multipronged European diplomatic strategy. This has involved the UK seeking to reinforce its approach of shaping the security of the continent, preserving a leading diplomatic role for the UK in managing the international relations of Europe, and to maximize British trade and investment opportunities through a broadening and deepening of Europe as an economically liberal part of the global political economy. Since accession the UK's European diplomatic strategy has also been to use membership of the EU to facilitate the enhancement of its international influence, primarily as a vehicle for leveraging and amplifying broader national foreign and security policy objectives. The strategy has been consistent irrespective of which party has formed the government in the UK. Increasing domestic political difficulties with the process of European integration have now directly impacted on this European strategy with a referendum commitment. Whether a vote for a Brexit or a Bremain, the UK will be confronted with challenges for its future European strategy.

Highlights

Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to hold an in/out referendum has placed the UK’s relationship with Europe on the banks of the Rubicon.[1]
The UK stands on the banks of the Rubicon: it has reached a moment of reckoning in its long-term diplomatic strategy for Europe
A vote for Brexit would throw a central component of this half-century-old diplomatic strategy into disarray

Summary

Document Version

Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to hold an in/out referendum has placed the UK’s relationship with Europe on the banks of the Rubicon.[1]. The period from Brown’s assumption of the premiership in 2007 until the 2010 election can be characterized as one in which New Labour attempted to ‘normalize’ foreign and security policy by reducing its salience as an area of widespread public political concern, but found itself struggling to respond to an unprecedented challenge to the global political economy.[24] Brown’s preoccupation as prime minister with the global inancial crisis was pursued at some cost to the UK’s European diplomatic strategy He was generally viewed as disengaged from and uninterested in the EU’s agenda, as exempliied by the decision to be the only EU member head of state to be absent from the signing of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2007. To maintain inluence on this basis, the UK would need to boost its diplomats and diplomacy in EU member states signiicantly

The potential costs to the EU of Brexit

The impact of Brexit on key bilateral relationships

Findings

Conclusion