A leader without followers: Tory Euroscepticism in a comparative perspective

Abstract

This article examines the rare phenomenon of mainstream Euroscepticism that has characterised the British Conservative Party and asks whether a similar pattern has appeared elsewhere in the EU. The study traces the long-term evolution of salience and positions on the EU issue in the manifestos of a heterogenous set of centre-right parties, paying particular attention to whether Brexit or successive EU crises have had some noticeable effect. The thesis of Tory exceptionalism is largely supported by the findings – no other mainstream conservative party in the EU has talked more, and more negatively, about the EU over a long time period. Most other centre-right parties were part of the permissive consensus on the EU and have supported, more or less openly, the integration project throughout the past 30 years. However, some parties of mainstream conservatism have shown a similar negative shift as British Conservatives did in the 2000s, such as the Austrian ÖVP, the Hungarian Fidesz, the Polish PiS and (marginally) the Dutch VVD. Being in opposition or pressured by radical right challengers does not necessarily make the mainstream right more critical of the EU. Internal organisational developments (i.e. the ascent of more Eurosceptic influences within the party) constitute the most convincing proximate explanation for mainstream Euroscepticism on the right.

Keywords:

• Centre-right
• Euroscepticism
• Brexit
• political parties
• manifestos

Funding

Argyrios Altiparmakis and Anna Kyriazi acknowledge financial support from the research project ‘Policy Crisis and Crisis Politics: Sovereignty, Solidarity and Identity in the EU Post-2008’ (SOLID), funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (Grant no 810356 ERC-2018-SyG).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Using manifesto data presents distinct advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, parties are much more likely to touch upon the issue of Europe, as the manifesto provides an opportunity to survey the entirety of issues the party wants to take a stance upon. As such, the party’s position should be documented there, even if perhaps presented in a more sophisticated or elegant way than the everyday way its members speak (or do not speak) about the issue of European integration. On the other hand, exactly because the manifesto has no strict space constraints, it does not necessarily portray the priorities of a party in the most transparent way and could also provide a more rounded image of what the party line is on any issue.

2 Manifesto data is not available for the latest general elections held in 2019 in Greece.

3 The texts are available at the Manifesto project website. For this analysis, we downloaded, translated (when necessary), and closely read the relevant programmatic documents. They are listed in the Appendix.

4 Fidesz has not published an electoral manifesto for general elections since 2014. The MARPOR data, and therefore our own qualitative analysis, is based mainly on a compilation of speeches and interviews by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Argyrios Altiparmakis

Argyrios Altiparmakis is a Research Fellow at the European University Institute. His research focuses on party politics, political behaviour and the recent European crises. He is currently working on the SOLID-ERC project. [[email protected]]

Anna Kyriazi

Anna Kyriazi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan. Her research focuses on comparative European politics and public policy, migration and political communication. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Common Market Studies and Electoral Studies, among others. [[email protected]]