ABSTRACT

Over the last two decades, the UK Labour party has been viewed as among the most pro-European parties in British politics. Although Labour argued for withdrawal from the European Community (EC) during the early 1980s, it then shifted position as the Conservatives increasingly embraced a virulent strain of Euroscepticism. By 1997, Labour was evincing a policy of explicit support for British membership of the European Union (EU). The argument that the UK should become a ‘leading player’ in Europe was an animating theme of the Blair premiership. Having supported the case for the UK remaining in the EU during the 2016 referendum, Labour’s pro-European credentials as a ‘socially liberal, internationalist party’ were well established. Labour is the ‘anti-Brexit’ party in UK politics, a stance affirmed at the 2017 general election.