Abstract
Brexit has led to many questions about the future of the European Union without one of its larger but most Eurosceptic member states. One of these questions concerns how the European Parliament (EP) looks in the absence of UK MEPs. The British Conservative party had shaken up the EP’s party group system by leaving the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in 2009 and forming the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. By the beginning of their second EP term (in 2014), the ECR had become the third largest grouping in the parliament. Brexit saw the group decline in size, not only because UK MEPs, who had constituted a considerable proportion of the ECR, left the EP but even before then, because the British government’s handling of Brexit arguably had a negative effect on Conservative support in the 2019 election. Nevertheless, the ECR is an important part of understanding greater Eurosceptic representation in the EP over time. Martin Steven views its development as part of a process that, among other things, led to the UK’s departure from the EU. Furthermore, questions about the group’s strategy in a post-Brexit EU remain significant for understanding the politics of the European Parliament.
In this volume, Martin Steven offers the first book-length study of the ECR. He provides a detailed and extensive account of the origins, membership, ideology and activities of the ECR group in the EP. He sees this as a story partly of the UK’s relationship with the European Union but also as one of alliances between the UK Conservative Party and partially like-minded parties in central and Eastern Europe. These alliances were established with the aim of achieving a voice on the right of the EP opposing ‘ever closer union’ and calling for reform of the EU. Drawing on interviews with politicians and officials in the group as well as archival research, Steven points to the similarities and differences in the parties that have been part of the ECR group over time and speculates about its future without the party that was central to its creation.
One of the main contributions of the book is in analysing the concept of Euro-realism, on which the ECR’s political position is based. This analysis sheds light on the differences between some of the ECR parties’ stances and the principles underpinning the Euro-realist position. Steven argues that Euro-realists want to see reform of rather than an end to the European Union. This Soft Eurosceptic (Szczerbiak and Taggart 2008) approach to integration involves criticising the quality of government in the EU and the democratic deficit. Reforms to deal with these issues should be in a conservative direction with priority given to free markets, a smaller European state and the aim of an EU based largely on trade. For the ECR, reforming the governance of the EU is closely linked to deregulating markets. However, Steven points out that important differences remain among the original member parties of the ECR particularly between the economically protectionist and socially conservative stance of Poland’s Law and Justice party, which includes a more leftist approach to the welfare state (see p. 106), and the UK Conservatives’ free-trade approach, a more socially liberal stance - particularly under David Cameron - and a preference for a smaller welfare state. These inconsistencies raise questions about the direction the ECR takes without its British MEPs.
The book also uncovers those areas prioritised by the ECR in their activities within the EP. We hear of policy areas in which ECR politicians feel they have achieved influence, including the shift to an EPP (centre-right) President of the EP after the Social Democrat Martin Schulz left the position early. More broadly, Steven shows how the ECR sees itself as opposing the consensus among the largest EP groups that more Europe is the answer to problems facing the EU. The book’s analysis of ECR policy activities might, however, have been supplemented with measures of how often they are on the winning side in EP votes or the frequency with which they vote the same way as each of the other party groups.
The book also adds to our understanding of how EP groups function with its discussions of leadership and decision-making structures in the ECR. In addition it looks, in chapter 2, at some of the attitudinal basis of ECR supporters in the form of those identifying with the British Conservative party in the run up to the 2014 European elections. As support for centre-right parties has been examined extensively elsewhere, perhaps an examination of how much correlation exists between the Euro-realist views of ECR politicians and the attitudes of those who vote for ECR parties might have fitted more closely with the aims of the chapter. Still, Steven builds on his analysis to argue that by setting up the ECR group, the then Conservative leader David Cameron achieved the opposite of his aim of dampening down Euroscepticism.
Steven hopes his book ‘will provide the main starting point for those who are interested in learning more about the ECR’ (p. 118) and this will surely be the case. The book adds a wealth of information on the ECR to the literature on party groups in the EP, conservative parties and the UK-EU relationship. Looking ahead, the effectiveness of the ECR group will depend, as is argued in the concluding chapter, on resolving differences between member parties prioritising nationalism and social conservativism on one hand, and those, on the other, who see the promotion of free-market economics as central to their aims.