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Europe - The British Position: Stranger in Europe

Stephen Wall, May 2008

The World Today, Volume 64, Number 5

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The Irish people will soon vote in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the unloved child of the disowned and disregarded European Constitution. In Britain, the government has promised no more European Union institutional change for the lifetime of this parliament and the next. Elsewhere in Europe, our partners are generally happy to press the pause button on a process of treaty change that has been playing pretty continuously since the Single European Act of 1986. In that time, four successive Prime Ministers - including Gordon Brown - sensing public indifference, have pandered to a hostile press. Despite all the change, rhetoric about being at the heart of Europe remains just that.