"The British Labour Party and the Politics of EMU"

McDowell, Manfred. (1991) "The British Labour Party and the Politics of EMU". In: UNSPECIFIED, Fairfax, Virginia. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

[From the Introduction]. The British Labour Party has been the last major social-democratic party in western Europe to reconcile to the European Community (EC). Its resolve that Britain "negotiate positively" with her European partners, on the basis of the post-1992 Single Market, to achieve further economic cooperation and integration in the Community (1) is widely regarded as the key signature of its highly publicized and explicitly revisionist 1990 Policy Review. However, it has been not only to the dismay of the beleaguered left-wing of the party but also to the astonishment of many of its critics on the political Right, that Labour's embrace of a "single Europe" has included British accession to the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS) and endorsement of the European Monetary Union (EMU) which the ERM foreshadows. Rehearsing the objections to monetary union which he believes should be obvious to a party of the Left, Thatcher-loyalist Brian Walden suggests that Labour has talked itself "into a monetarist minefield". (2) Effectively "an attempt to force German monetary discipline on the European Community," the could be subtitled "a mechanism for making sure that a Labour government cannot carry out its favorite policies and that the British trade unions are brought to their cake and milk".

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