The campaign leading up to the June 2016 referendum was primarily fought over immigration, sovereignty, the economy and a more general dissatisfaction with politics. Divisions over security played in the background with the Leave campaign arguing that full control of immigration and our borders was vital, while the Remain campaign stressed the importance of collaboration and data-sharing with our EU partners to address trans-national threats. Interestingly, as Home Secretary, Theresa May also saw the potential link between immigration and security and came down on the ‘Remain’ side of the debate. Both pro-Leave and pro-Remain campaigns were able to evoke recent terrorist attacks in their respective political agendas but to opposite ends.
Successive UK governments, including that of Prime Minister David Cameron, have consistently been at the forefront of attempts to ensure that the EU, especially on questions of security and defence, should not be subject to more influence or control by the Commission or the European Parliament (so-called ‘communitarisation’). There were instances where the UK played an obstructive role, such as the blocking of a functional operations headquarters at the EU level or, for seven years, any increase of the European Defence Agency (EDA ) budget. Historically, the UK has often been an ‘awkward partner’, to quote the title of a leading book on the UK’s role in the EU (George 1997). Cameron’s demands for a special status for the UK had deep historical resonance, but this came on top of the UK’s ‘opt-outs’ on the Schengen Agreement , Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the area of freedom, security and justice—opt-outs that were not available to the newer EU members who joined after 2004. Cameron’s demands were eventually agreed to by the other EU leaders on the understanding that, on this basis, he would campaign ‘heart and soul to keep Britain inside a reformed European Union’ following his January 2013 pledge to give the people a simple choice of remaining in the EU under the new terms, or to leave (Cameron 2015).
In a major pre-vote speech Cameron insisted that, ‘Britain has a fundamental national interest in maintaining common purpose in Europe to avoid future conflict between European countries. And that requires British leadership, and for Britain to remain a member’ (Cameron 2016). Patriotic references to Blenheim, Trafalgar and Waterloo and two World Wars were used to highlight Britain’s ‘heroism’. Kenneth Clarke, a well-known pro-Europe Conservative, wrote that ‘Britain’s political voice depends on our role as a leading and influential member of the EU’ and he observed that when the EU governments agree on political and economic policies, ‘they will remain a superpower to influence the Americans, the Russians, Indians and Chinese over the coming decades’ (Clarke 2015). Those campaigning for Remain subsequently echoed the connection between security and prosperity made by Clarke and Cameron (Whitman 2016a, 1).
The pro-EU campaign, Britain Stronger in Europe, was formally launched on 12 October 2015 and from the outset argued that, ‘Being in the EU gives Britain a more powerful role in the world and a say in major global decisions affecting you and your family’ (Britain Stronger in Europe 2015). The campaign included former Chief of the General Staff Sir Peter Wall, as well as former Prime Ministers John Major, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. The campaign made extensive use of prominent experts, including on security where the common message was that Britain’s security is enhanced by EU membership and would therefore be damaged in various ways by an exit. But, the establishment was clearly split.
The Vote Leave campaign , also founded in October 2015, was less specific about Britain’s global role but argued that border control and migration were key issues for Britain’s security and that, on defence, cooperation is good but centralisation of control over defence in Brussels is not (Vote Leave 2015).1 The Brexit campaign, most notably Boris Johnson, was able to largely side-line discussion of the UK’s post-Brexit security role by pointing out that an EU foreign and defence policy would only serve to undermine NATO and UK ties with the US. Falklands war veteran Major General Julian Thompson and General Sir Michael Rose, a former SAS head, also came out in favour of Brexit, with Thompson arguing against being ‘dominated by people who we do not elect’, while the latter argued that ‘European law has already seriously undermined UK’s combat effectiveness’ (Associated Press 2016). Rose joined Johnson and others in arguing that European defence can ‘manifestly be better made solely through NATO than by trying to spread our limited resources too thinly, in order to include European defence and security policy initiatives into the UK’s defence programme’ (Associated Press 2016).
Turning to internal security Sir Richard Dearlove, a former MI6 head, claimed that Britain’s open borders policy was against the UK’s interests and that post-Brexit bilateral ties could easily prevail over any losses suffered from withdrawing from the European Police Agency (Europol) (Robertson 2016). More generally , Dearlove (2016) argued that Britain gives much more when it comes to intelligence and security matters and that ‘its intelligence and security community is, and will certainly remain, the strongest and most mature in Europe’. This helped underpin the later assumption that the UK not only has the right to a deep and special relationship with the EU post-Brexit, but that this should be one that is not available to any other third country.
The Leave lobby also frequently invoked alleged plans to create a ‘European army’ as proof of the EU’s federalist tendencies. Although many analysts have dismissed this as a mythical fabrication of the less than scrupulous British press, it is worth noting that the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, called for the creation of a European army in March 2015 as a way of conveying to Russia ‘that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union’ (Deutsche Welle 2015). The UK’s former Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, opposed any attempts to create an EU army since it risked undermining NATO which ‘must remain the cornerstone of our defence and the defence of Europe’ (Fallon 2016). The toxic invocation of the ‘European army’ became a lode star of the Eurosceptical security and defence debate and one that proved remarkably difficult to debunk, due in part to the distrust of ‘experts’ promoted by Michael Gove, the UK’s Justice Secretary. As a prominent Brexit campaigner Gove opined that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’ (Mance 2016). Although he was referring specifically to the post-referendum economic plans being promoted by the Brexit campaign, his comment only served to lower the standards of informed debate.
The Balance of Competences
The respective sides in the Brexit campaign adopted positions that largely ignored the outcome of a major UK government review of the balance of competences between the EU and the UK. The review took place over three semesters, starting in April 2012 and concluding in autumn 2014. On ‘foreign policy’ (which included the security and defence aspects) the review concluded that ‘the balance of competences lies squarely with the Member States’ (UK Government 2013, 5). The evidence gathered in this domain led to the conclusion that ‘it was strongly in the UK’s interests to work through the EU in a number of policy areas’ (UK Government 2013, 6). The key benefits were identified as:
…increased impact from acting in concert with 27 other countries; greater influence with non-EU powers, derived from our position as a leading EU country; the international weight of the EU’s single market, including its power to deliver commercially beneficial trade agreements; the reach and magnitude of EU financial instruments, such as for development and economic partnerships; the range and versatility of the EU’s tools, as compared with other international organisations; and the EU’s perceived political neutrality, which enables it to act in some cases where other countries or international organisations might not.
The review also noted that there were also comparative disadvantages, such as:
…challenges in formulating strong, clear strategy; uneven leadership; institutional divisions, and a complexity of funding instruments, which can impede implementation of policy; and sometimes slow or ineffective decision-making, due to complicated internal relationships and differing interests. (UK Government 2013, 6)
In a similar vein, a Report by the House o...