Europhoria! Explaining Britain’s Pro-European Moment, 1988–1992

Abstract

British attitudes to ‘Europe’ have been long characterised as ‘reluctant’. This article uses a range of qualitative and quantitative sources to describe and explain an anomalous period in which Britons were highly ‘enthusiastic Europeans’. This ‘Europhoria’ is interpreted using an expanded ‘calculation, cues, and community’ theoretical framework, including: (1) calculations driven mainly by anticipation of the ‘1992’ single market launch and ‘social chapter’ and trust engendered by unrealised negative predictions raised during the 1975 referendum; (2) proactive domestic European policy leading to harmonious, influential, insider status; (3) benchmarking of comparable, better performing European economies and (4) newfound belief that Europe was Britain’s most important international community. ‘Europhoria’ interplayed with a sense of European community and geopolitical possibilities stimulated by the fall of the Berlin Wall and unusually ‘European’ cultural trends in media, sports and arts. The reversal of these factors – in some cases at pan-European level – explains the British return to Euroscepticism thereafter. These findings have profound theoretical implications for public attitudes to Europe and historical understandings of Britain and Europe.