Η Βρετανική ταυτότητα ως αφήγηση: Εργατικό Κόμμα και Ευρώπη, 1961-2000

Abstract

A common view of the British Labour Party’s troubled relationship with Europe since the early nineteen sixties explains the changes in policy purely in terms of inter-party and intra-party competition. However, globally induced changes such as the disintegration of the Commonwealth along with the foundation and further development of the European Community challenged the nature of the post-war geopolitical order and the position of the British multi-national state and gave rise to fundamental debates about identity. This article comes to challenge previous descriptive accounts of the Labour Party’s relationship with the European issue. By delineating the three main narratives of Britishness (the imperial nationalism; Little Englanderism; and the euronationalist vision of Britain in Europe), found in the Labour Party’s discourse on the European question throughout the last forty years, this study suggests, first, that the European issue has been primarily an issue of national identity for the Labour Party; and second, that these three narratives have been defined not only by their inter-relationships, but have been also produced through a process of negation. They have been primarily defined against the ‘other’: race and alien have constituted the conceptual partners of the British nation in the Labour Party’s discourse. The racialised significant ‘others’, in the form of, either, the black immigrants or, currently, the asylum seekers and refugees, have sustained British identity and will always be a glue strong enough to keep the country together at times of crisis.