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British Political Discourse on the EU in the Context of the Eurozone Crisis

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The UK Challenge to Europeanization

Abstract

It has frequently been noted that the eurozone crisis has also been a crisis of European identity,1 and has provoked a general increase in Euroscepticism in public opinion across the EU (Serricchio et al. 2013) reflected in the unprecedented success of Eurosceptic parties in the 2014 European Parliament elections (BBC 2014) and the increased participation of Eurosceptic parties in government (Szczerbiak and Taggart 2013). A central theme of this book is that Euroscepticism is on the increase in Britain, as evidenced by the rise of UKIP (BBC 2014) and David Cameron’s pledge to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership. In contrast, Schmidt (2012), for instance, suggests that, at least early in the economic crisis, Britain had acted as a leader in the EU, shedding its traditional role as the EU’s ‘awkward partner’.

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Authors
  1. Catherine MacMillan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Toulon, France

    Karine Tournier-Sol (Senior Lecturer in British Politics) (Senior Lecturer in British Politics)

  2. Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Huddersfield, UK

    Chris Gifford (Head of Department) (Head of Department)

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© 2015 Catherine MacMillan

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MacMillan, C. (2015). British Political Discourse on the EU in the Context of the Eurozone Crisis. In: Tournier-Sol, K., Gifford, C. (eds) The UK Challenge to Europeanization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137488169_11

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