ABSTRACT
There are two competing visions of Euroscepticism. The first, which has long dominated political and academic discussion, views it as the grit in the system, the squeaks of adjustment as a new mode of governance emerges. The birth of any political system, per this narrative, is a fraught one and there are always those who disapprove, either in principle or in practice. It would be unreasonable to expect the EU to be any different. By recasting power in and around the fundamental units of the modern age – nation states – there must be those who lose out, be that in substantive political terms or in more ideational ones. In this view, if enough political agents move to or, at least, acquiesce in the formation of the new system, then those who protest will suffer one of two fates. More positively, they might become progressively socialised into that new arrangement, as they come to discover new opportunities, or at least find that their fears are unrealised. Less positively, they continue to rail against the system, but lack agency to effect change and so suffer until such time as they metaphorically (and literally) die out. This conceptualisation is found across the parliaments and chancelleries of Europe even today. The decrying of Eurosceptics as ‘fruitcakes’, ‘loonies’, ‘anti-democratic’ and the like is part and parcel of this: the projection of them as people who do not, or cannot, understand how the world has changed is aimed at their marginalisation. There is no need to engage with them, because their agenda is outdated and irrational and they deserve sympathy for not making the shift to the new realities of the situation.
