Britain's EU-US Conflict

From Winston Churchill to Tony Blair, every post-war prime minister has been consumed by a foreign policy that has boiled down to the choice between Europe and the United States while trying to establish an independent British role in the world.

Although Britain emerged as an allied victor from the ashes of World War II, some say she won the war, but lost the peace.

Her vast imperial empire had disintegrated, and the "special relationship" with the United States, a partnership forged by a common heritage and the war, went through rough patches after the Suez Crisis in 1956.

The Anglo-French conspiracy to topple Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser met with US hostility, shattering both British pretensions in the Middle East and illusions about the loyalty of its closest ally.

America emerged as a superpower, while Britain, like France, was reduced to a mid-sized nuclear power with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. As an increasingly junior partner in the Anglo-American relationship, she had to look for alliances elsewhere, and this meant reluctantly throwing in her lot with neighbors across the English Channel.

That the UK was a latecomer in joining the European club in 1973 had to do with what French statesman Charles de Gaulle perceived as the conflict of her ties to the Commonwealth and America. De Gaulle had used France’s veto to keep Britain out of the European Economic Community (EEC), so when the UK finally did join 15 years after the founding of the Treaty of Rome, she joined a club where the rules had already been set by others.

Hence Britain's relationship to Europe has often been an adversarial one. Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher had made Britain a pariah state by demanding a rebate for the amount the UK was paying into EEC coffers in farm subsidies and opting out of the community’s social charter.

In a decade of the current Labour government, Britain is the only major European Union country which has not signed on to the border-free Schengen accords, and not adopted the common currency, the euro.

Iraq war

But above all, it was outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair’s staunch support for the American-led Iraq war against overwhelming public sentiment that greatly diminished his premiership and reinforced the view among the French and Germans that Britain still favors the US over Europe

Although Gordon Brown, Blair's almost certain successor on June 27, was closely identified with the cabinet’s Iraq policy, experts say that he is more likely to distance himself from the Bush administration, yet seek closer trans-Atlantic ties in conjunction with Britain's European partners.

"Brown's under public pressure not to have an exclusive relationship with the White House that was so damaging for Britain under Blair," said Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank.

Brady also sees a greater convergence of the EU's Big Three -- the UK, France and Germany -- in spite of Brown's reputation as a euro skeptic who as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain's finance minister, kept his country out of the euro zone.

The fact that newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy has expressed admiration rather than contempt for "Anglo-Saxon" free markets also helps, and even Germany’s Angela Merkel is a natural ally when it comes to her Atlanticist leanings and advocacy of structural reforms that could bring further boost continental Europe's economy.

Above all, all three leaders, who belong to Europe's post-war generation, are more pragmatic than their more ideologically motivated predecessors.

EU relations

"Brown is not passionate about Europe, but because of it, he will be able to get further in Brussels than someone so outwardly messianic about it like Blair," said Brady, who explained that Blair went too far with the British public in pushing for an EU constitution, which Merkel wants to salvage before the end of Germany's six-month rotating EU presidency.

After French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005, the British referendum was called off, saving Blair from the embarrassing risk of a likely "no" at the ballot box.

"Even the founding member states are more cautious about guarding what they perceive as their national interests and uncomfortable about the idea a superstate imposed on them from Brussels, so the British are less on the outs than they used to be," said Julie Smith, deputy director of the Centre of International Studies at Cambridge University.

As Blair's finance minister, Brown has said that he did not support the euro, because it was not in Britain's economic interest, although others say that the decision was purely political.

"People are attached to the sterling. It's a symbol of British greatness," said Brady.

The one controversial issue that keeps Britain aligned with the United States in opposition to its European partners is the country's support for Turkey's membership in the EU, which has been opposed by Sarkozy and Merkel, although she has softened her stance since becoming chancellor. Britain, like the US, favors keeping the door open to Turkey for geopolitical reasons, whereas France and Germany see an influx of cheap labor and the problems of integrating a poor, predominantly Muslim country.

The Turkish issue also reflects the difference in the British vision of a broader confederation of nation states with the conflicting French desire for a deeper political integration and a tighter club.

Relations with the United States are expected to be less divisive among the EU-3, making it even possible for the UK to have good relations with both Europe and the US at the same time, according to Smith.

"Britain has never achieved the right balance. Tony Blair tried, but gravitated too far towards America. Gordon Brown may have a better chance of getting it right," she said.

Furthermore, according to Brady, a humbled George W. Bush in the twilight years of the American presidency is more likely to treat Europe as an equal partner.