British Approach to the European Union: From Tony Blair to David Cameron

Abstract

Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron all were supportive towards the European integration, but as they attempted to combine it with the powerful images of British otherness and island nation, British foreign and security policy doctrines have paid tribute to the British exceptionalism and the special relationship policy with the United States. The exceptionalist neo-conservative doctrine of the George W. Bush administration of the United States produced a gap between Atlanticist and community-oriented EU nations. In sum it forced the British government to develop more Atlanticist stand in its foreign and security policy and gave rise to the integration dilemma with the Franco-German alliance. Following the Global War on Terrorism, national security issues became more prevalent and pushed cooperative politics of the 1990s into the background. Later, the Euro-zone crisis and the migration crisis weakened the European unity and nationalist movements became stronger. In Britain, euroscepticist UKIP has met success in the European Parliament elections. As follows, the Conservative Party adopted more eurocritic positions on the European Union and David Cameron decided to lead the British nation to the secessionist referendum—Brexit.