It is tempting to place British European policy at the heart of any discussion of recent British instability: the 2016 referendum unleashed a wave of disruption and systemic effects that continue to the present. This article argues that while the immediate destabilisation of Brexit has been contained and moderated, the 2024 General Election highlighted a longer-term source of instability, running throughout the post-1945 period as consequence of a failure (or inability) to resolve the fundamental purpose of relations with ‘the Continent’. Starting from the General Election campaign, the article also considers the first months of the Labour government before using primary and secondary data to explore the notion that policy is mainly driven by domestic considerations and incentives, resulting in over-inflating expectations, a lack of constructive engagement with European counterparts and a subsequent disillusionment. European policy is likely to continue to be a site of unstable policy outcomes, given the reactive managerial approach, even as there is a degree of stability created by the European Union’s caution about upsetting the hard-won agreements on British withdrawal and on the basic architecture of the future relationship.
Simon Usherwood (Wed,) studied this question.