Editing Euroscepticism (section)

===United Kingdom===
{{Main|Brexit|Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom}}
[[File:Nigel_Farage_(45718080574)_(cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Nigel Farage]], former Leader of [[UK Independence Party|UKIP]] and current leader of [[Reform UK]] and former co-leader of the [[Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy]] group in the European Parliament. Farage is one of the most prominent Eurosceptic figures in the UK.]]

The European Union, and Britain's place in relation to it, is one of the primary issues today dividing opinion among the British public, political parties, media and civil society.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-case-for-brexit-lessons-from-1960s-and-1970s|title=The case for Brexit: lessons from the 1960s and 1970s|last=Williamson|first=Adrian|date=5 May 2015|website=History & Policy|access-date=13 July 2016}}</ref>

Euroscepticism has been an element in British politics ever since the inception of the [[European Economic Community]] (EEC), the predecessor to the EU, and its salience as an issue has fluctuated widely over the years. The [[1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum|European Communities membership referendum]] of 1975 took place in the context of Conservative and Liberal parties which were generally in favour of membership (in the 1971 House of Commons vote on whether the UK should join the European Economic Community, only 39 of the then 330 Conservative MPs had been opposed to membership<ref name=georgiou>{{cite journal |last1=Georgiou |first1=Christakis |date=April 2017 |title=British Capitalism and European Unification, from Ottawa to the Brexit Referendum |journal=[[Historical Materialism (journal)|Historical Materialism]] |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=90–129 |doi=10.1163/1569206X-12341511 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Lewis |first1=Anthony |author-link1=Anthony Lewis |date=29 October 1971 |title=Commons Votes, 356 to 242, for Britain's Membership in the European Market|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/29/archives/commons-votes-356-to-244-for-britains-membership-in-the-european.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=1 |access-date=14 September 2019}}</ref>), and a Labour party which was sharply divided.  After the referendum, which gave a strong assent to continued membership, Euroscepticism was a strand of opinion characteristic of the Labour party; at the [[1983 United Kingdom general election|1983 general election]], for example, Labour campaigned on a promise to withdraw from the EEC.<ref>{{cite news|title=Michael Foot: What did the 'longest suicide note' say?|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8550425.stm}}</ref>  This opposition to membership faded quickly after the election of [[Neil Kinnock]] as leader of the party, and Euroscepticism gradually came to be less popular on the left of politics than on the right - though left-wing opposition to membership continues to this day.  Current and recent supporters on the left of British politics include [[Frank Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead|Frank Field]], [[Graham Stringer]], [[Ian Austin]], [[John Mann, Baron Mann|John Mann]], [[Tom Harris (British politician)|Tom Harris]], [[Gisela Stuart]], [[Austin Mitchell]], [[Kate Hoey]] and [[George Galloway]].<ref name="Mance">{{cite news|last=Mance|first=Henry|date=19 February 2016|title=George Galloway joins anti-EU rally as Brussels talks reach climax|work=[[Financial Times]]|location=London, UK|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcf6df22-d754-11e5-8887-98e7feb46f27.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcf6df22-d754-11e5-8887-98e7feb46f27.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription|access-date=19 February 2016}}</ref>

When [[Margaret Thatcher]] came into power as the Prime Minister in 1979, she was as strongly in favour of membership as most Conservative MPs, having campaigned for "yes" in the 1975 referendum.  By the time she left office, however, she had developed what at the time was a strongly Eurosceptic stance; she has been called the "spiritual mother"<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alexandre-Collier |first1=Agnès |title=Euroscepticism under Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron : From Theory to Practice |journal=Observatoire de la société britannique |date=2015 |issue=17 |pages=115–133 |doi=10.4000/osb.1778 |s2cid=55603749 |url=https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01287011/file/Article%20OSB%20Thatcher%20-%20Cameron%20AAC%20Vdef.pdf }}</ref> of Euroscepticism.  She never argued for secession while Prime Minister, envisioning continued membership of a less integrationist EEC, and became one of the most significant Eurosceptic voices in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, influencing the Conservatives’ view on the EU. In 2009 the Conservative Party actively campaigned against the [[Treaty of Lisbon|Lisbon Treaty]], which it believed would give away too much sovereignty to Brussels. [[Shadow Cabinet|Shadow]] Foreign Secretary [[William Hague]] stated that, should the treaty be in force by the time of an incoming Conservative government, he would "not let matters rest there".<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7470078.stm |work=BBC News |title=Cameron's Britain: Euro-doubts |date=26 June 2008 |access-date=1 April 2010 |first=Mark |last=Mardell |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090212231633/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7470078.stm |archive-date=12 February 2009 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The right-wing [[UK Independence Party]] (UKIP) was set up for the specific purpose of advocating for the UK unilaterally [[secession|seceding]] the European Union ([[Brexit]]) from its foundation in 1993.<ref>{{cite news|title=How UKIP became a British political force|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22396689|access-date=6 February 2017|work=BBC News|date=3 May 2013}}</ref>  This party initially had very little support from the UK population as a whole.  It was initially eclipsed by the [[Referendum Party]], which fought the 1997 general election on the single issue of a referendum to leave the EU.  The party's main success was found in elections to the European Parliament, where they experienced a continuous rise in their support from [[1999_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom|1999]], when they came fourth and won their first seats.  In [[2004_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom|2004]] they came third, becoming the first "small" party to overtake the Liberals in a national vote since Labour in the 1920s.  In [[2009_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom|2009]] UKIP came second, and then, [[2014_European_Parliament_election_in_the_United_Kingdom|in 2014]], they topped the poll, pushing the Conservatives into third for the first time in their history.  UKIP also had some strong support locally in solidly working class areas, with 163 councillors elected to local authorities and gaining overall control in 2015 of [[Thanet District Council elections|Thanet District Council]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Election 2015: UKIP controls Thanet council|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32672010|access-date=8 November 2024}}</ref>  

However, UKIP — like most small parties in the UK — found it almost impossible to break into Westminster politics, only ever achieving one elected MP, in 2015.<ref>{{cite news|title=UKIP gains first elected MP with Clacton win|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29549414}}</ref>  Accordingly, after the [[2010 United Kingdom general election|inconclusive general election result of 2010]], resulting in a [[hung Parliament]], the issue of EU membership remained low on the political priority agenda at Westminster — broadly speaking a non-issue. This changed with UKIP's victory in the [[2014 European Parliament election]], in the wake of which two Conservative MPs defected to UKIP.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29394697|title=Mark Reckless defects to UKIP from Tories}}</ref>  The party with the largest number of seats in the 2010 Parliament was [[Conservative Party (UK)|the Conservatives]], which was firstly deeply divided on the issue, being led by a pro-European leadership on the whole, but with a large number of very vociferous Eurosceptic [[backbenchers]], and secondly concerned at UKIP's possible electoral threat to the party at the following election.  The Conservative leader [[David Cameron]] promised a referendum on EU membership in the party's [[2015 United Kingdom general election|2015 general election]] manifesto.

By 2015, support for the Liberal Democrats had shrunk considerably, a phenomenon widely attributed to a policy U-turn on [[Tuition fees in the United Kingdom|university tuition fees]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Ed Davey: Lib Dems are winning back trust after 2010 U-turn on pledge to scrap tuition fees|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-reform-uk-nigel-farage-ed-davey-lib-dems-bbc-one-interviews-panorama-b1167570.html}}</ref>  In the [[2015 United Kingdom general election|election]], the Lib Dem vote collapsed, leading to an outright Conservative victory, to the surprise of many, as national polling had consistently predicted another hung Parliament.  This majority meant that David Cameron's pledge now had to be fulfilled.  In an effort to reduce Euroscepticism, Cameron sought and gained from the EU a [[2015–2016 United Kingdom renegotiation of European Union membership|renegotiation of some of the terms of Britain's EU membership]], to a mixed response from the media and his party.<ref>{{cite news|title=Tory MPs attack David Cameron's EU reforms plan as 'pretty thin gruel'|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/11985483/EU-referendum-David-Cameron-sets-out-his-demands-to-Europe-live.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=EU renegotiation: What David Cameron wanted – and what he really got|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-renegotiation-what-david-cameron-wanted-and-what-he-really-got-a6885761.html}}</ref>

For the 23 June 2016 [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|referendum on the EU membership]], whilst the Conservatives had no official political policy position either way, its leader Cameron was avowedly in favour of remaining in the EU — though with the renegotiation of the terms of membership little political mileage was gained — and the party remained profoundly split, as it had been for many years.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Conservative Party split over Brexit|url=http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/04/05/the-conservative-party-split-on-brexit/|access-date=6 February 2017|work=LSE BREXIT|date=5 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Goodenough|first1=Tom|title=Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence?|url=http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/which-tory-mps-back-brexit-who-doesnt-and-who-is-still-on-the-fence/|access-date=6 February 2017|work=Coffee House|agency=The Spectator|date=16 February 2016|archive-date=22 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161022111657/http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/which-tory-mps-back-brexit-who-doesnt-and-who-is-still-on-the-fence/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] policy officially supported remaining in the EU, although with long-standing Eurosceptic [[Jeremy Corbyn]] party leader, he and his [[Momentum (organisation)|Momentum]] supporters gave a lacklustre defence against secession.  Since first being elected in 1984 as a stalwart adherent of Eurosceptic [[Tony Benn]] on the left wing of the party, Corbin had personally advocated withdrawal throughout his terms as a Labour MP, so he suggested early on in the campaign that he would willingly consider withdrawal contrary to official party policy.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Mason|first1=Rowena|title=Labour voters in the dark about party's stance on Brexit, research says|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/30/labour-voters-in-the-dark-about-partys-stance-on-brexit-research-says|access-date=6 February 2017|work=The Guardian|date=30 May 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Cooper|first1=Charlie|title=Corbyn is now genuinely against Brexit – but is it too little too late?|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-live-updates-polls-remain-leave-a7094081.html|access-date=6 February 2017|work=The Independent|date=21 June 2016}}</ref> The [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]] were the most adamantly pro-EU of the main parties, and since the referendum, pro-Europeanism has been their main policy.<ref>{{cite news|title=Liberal Democrats regroup around pro-Europe message|url=https://www.ft.com/content/65fec126-e874-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/65fec126-e874-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539 |archive-date=10 December 2022|work=Financial Times|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

The referendum [[Results of the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|resulted in]] an overall vote to leave the EU, as opposed to remaining an EU member, by 52% to 48%, on a turnout of 72%.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Withnall|first1=Adam|title=It's official: Britain has voted to Leave the EU|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-final-result-leave-campaign-secures-official-lead-a7099296.html|work=The Independent|date=24 June 2016}}</ref> The vote was split between the [[Countries of the United Kingdom|constituent countries]] of the United Kingdom, with a majority in [[England]] and [[Wales]] voting to leave, and a majority in [[Scotland]] and [[Northern Ireland]], as well as an overwhelming 96% in [[Gibraltar]], a [[British Overseas Territory]], voting to remain.<ref name="ft2">{{cite news|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/06a90f8c-39c0-11e6-a780-b48ed7b6126f,Authorised=false.html?siteedition=uk&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F06a90f8c-39c0-11e6-a780-b48ed7b6126f.html%3Fsiteedition%3Duk&_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-app|title=Scots' backing for Remain raises threat of union's demise|first=Mure|last=Dickie|date=24 June 2016|newspaper=Financial Times}}</ref> As a result of the referendum, the UK Government notified the EU of its intention to withdraw on 29 March 2017 by [[United Kingdom invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union|invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty]].

On 12 April 2019, a new Eurosceptic party, the [[Brexit Party]], was officially launched by the former [[UK Independence Party|UKIP]] leader [[Nigel Farage]], to use the [[2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom|2019 European Parliament election]] to put pressure on a Conservative government perceived to be failing to pursue Brexit with adequate enthusiasm or success.<ref>{{cite news|title=Inside Theresa May’s Great British Failure|url=https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-brexit-referendum/}}</ref>  In the event, although overall pro-EU parties score a similar share of the vote to Eurosceptic parties, the Brexit Party topped the national poll by a large margin, with 32% of the vote.  The Conservatives, on the other hand, suffered their lowest ever national vote share at 9%, with just 4 seats.  This historic electoral defeat – along with an inability to navigate an agreeable route between a "soft" or "hard" Brexit in Parliament – led to Theresa May announcing the day after the election that she would step down as the Conservatives' leader and Prime Minister on 7 June.<ref>{{cite web|last=Forgey |first=Quint |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-brexit-referendum/ |title=Inside Theresa May's Great British Failure |date=24 May 2019 |publisher=Politico.eu |access-date=15 July 2019}}</ref> After the elections, the Eurosceptic [[Blue Collar Conservativism|Blue Collar Conservative]] grouping of [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] MPs was formed.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48335109|title=Tory MPs launch rival campaign groups|date=20 May 2019|work=BBC News|access-date=25 March 2020|language=en-GB}}</ref>

The Conservatives' resounding defeat led them to elect a new leader who might gain votes back from the Brexit Party, by pursuing a "harder" Brexit more determinedly than Theresa May had done.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48522075|title=Notes from the first Tory leadership hustings}}</ref>  Following the [[2019 Conservative Party leadership election|election of Boris Johnson as leader]] in July, the Conservatives' new Cabinet became strongly supportive of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.  Its platform was changed to unequivocally support EU withdrawal, and there was a systematic campaign in preparation for the [[2019 United Kingdom general election|2019 general election]] to enforce loyalty to this aim by deselecting all MPs and candidates from the party who refused to explicitly undertake to support it.  The Conservatives fought the election on the slogan "[[Get Brexit Done]]", a slogan which attracted strong criticism from almost all the other parties in Parliament.  The election resulted in the largest overall majority for the Conservatives since the 1980s, the highest percentage of the popular vote for any party since 1979, and significant losses for the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrats.<ref>{{cite news|title=‘Get Brexit Done.’ The 3 Words That Helped Boris Johnson Win Britain’s 2019 Election|url=https://time.com/5749478/get-brexit-done-slogan-uk-election/}}</ref>

A month later, on 23 January 2020, Parliament ratified a withdrawal agreement from the European Union, which was in turn ratified by the EU Parliament on 30 January. On 31 January, the United Kingdom officially left the European Union after 47 years. During a transition period until 31 December 2020, the UK still followed EU rules and continued free trade and free movement for people within the European Union.