Abstract

Since before accession, the relationship between the UK and the process of European integration has been divided between the advantages of the single market and national pride. The oscillation between sentiments in favour of integration and the adoption of attitudes peculiarly distant from European politics has always been discernible in the leadership groups of the two major parties in Great Britain. This was especially the case with regard to issues relating to the Union’s monetary policy. The article argues that the issue of monetary sovereignty has been at the center of British public discourse for three decades, and how the fault lines between British politics and society have deepened around membership in the monetary unification process on the one hand. and the Union on the other. The deepening of the dynamics of inequality due both to the inefficiency of income redistribution strategies, and to the slowdown in the capacity for innovation and productivity of the British industrial system has prompted an electorate who is ready to seek an “external enemyµ to identify constraints of the Union which, for its part, did not shine for its capacity for renewal.