Conference Agenda

Irish politics has been dominated by nationalism for over a century, and this has meant an unpropitious context for social democracy and the Labour Party. This is suggested in the famous phrase, ‘Labour must wait’ – meaning that social and economic concerns must be kept on pause until the questions of the nation are settled (O’Connor Lysaght 2001). However, the traditional nationalism of Ireland has been transformed because of the membership of the European Union. This paper analyses how the EU has impacted on the Labour Party and social democracy. It provides a brief historical overview of Labour’s position in relation to European integration, before focusing especially on two recent crises that have impacted on Ireland: the Eurozone crisis from 2008, and the Brexit crisis from 2016. The paper analyses how the Labour Party has been affected by these crises. This paper mainly argues that Labour has failed to change the basic pattern of Irish politics, and is still waiting, still trapped in a minority position.

This paper examines the political culture and traditions of the British Labour Party in shaping the party's outlook on European integration and its approach in government. It adopts a historical institutionalist framework, examining the role of path dependency in defining Labour's approach to the European question. This paper focuses on Labour's approach to Brexit since the 2016 referendum. Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, the party adopted a cautious approach. Despite a long track record of principled opposition to the European Union (EU), Corbyn acted prudently on Europe, paying attention to the need to preserve party unity and shore up Labour's electoral coalition. The position that Corbyn adopted on the Brexit negotiations was redolent of Wilson's tactical approach in the early 1970s. On succeeding Corbyn as leader in 2020, Keir Starmer was expected to adopt a more pro-European policy stance but has resisted doing so. The last election manifesto suggested continuity on European policy with Labour's Conservative predecessor. The motivations are partly electoral (the need to win back pro-Brexit voters) and partly related to policy (the lack of a clear alternative post-Brexit European policy). However, now it is back in government, Labour will come under significant pressure to define a more coherent position on EU integration and Britain's future role in Europe.

The paper explores the intriguing issue of significant discursive shifts in the Liberal Democrats’ rhetoric on Brexit and the United Kingdom’s (UK) relationship with the European Union (EU) since the 2016 in/out referendum. Through a critical discourse analysis of public pronouncements, the study investigates the party’s evolving stance, from campaigning for a second referendum and revoking Article 50 to a more tempered position of acknowledging Brexit as a reality to labelling it a ‘disaster’ and pledging to rejoin the single market in the 2024 general elections manifesto. These discursive shifts not only reflect strategic recalibrations but also offer a window into the party’s attempts to navigate an increasingly polarized political landscape while maintaining its pro-European identity. By situating these shifts within the context of broader political developments in the UK, the paper highlights the dynamic interplay between strategic communication, policy framing, and political identity construction. It thus also explores the dilemmas faced by pro-European parties in a polity dominated by a pro-Brexit discourse. Theoretically, the study builds on Krzyżanowski’s, Triandafyllidou’s, and Wodak’s conceptualization of discursive shifts, which are at the foundations of observing how discourses within/across different contexts change over time. Empirically, the analysis draws on an extensive corpus of election manifestos, campaign materials, documents, speeches and other public pronouncements.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 sent shockwaves through Europe. Only three days later, Germany’s newly elected Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz coined a salient concept (‘Zeitenwende’) in his address to the Bundestag. Given Germany’s role within the EU, this step also marked a ‘turning point’ for Europe, making Zeitenwende a European phenomenon. Because of its historical and strategic importance, Zeitenwende has drawn rising scholarly attention, albeit largely around foreign and security policy dimensions. This paper originally looks at Zeitenwende from a novel perspective, which is the SPD’s European policy. It mainly argues that Scholz’s Zeitenwende discourse has concurrently marked a shift in the SPD’s European policy priorities. The Social Democrats were previously content with Germany’s role as ‘reluctant hegemon’ (Paterson 2011) within the EU, but Scholz’s Zeitenwende discourse has revealed the party’s intention to go beyond that. In the short run, this signals the SPD’s willingness to see Germany steer the EU’s foreign, security, and defence policies against the war in Ukraine. In the long run, this may lead to securing a stronger position for Germany inside the crisis-ridden EU. This study adopts historical institutionalism to understand the role of path dependencies on the SPD’s response to the Russia-Ukraine War, such as German foreign policy traditions. Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech and other speeches, as well as the key party officials’ selected speeches, will be analysed via discourse analysis. Some official party documents produced by the SPD on Zeitenwende will also be examined.