Splendid Isolation: Looking to the Future of Britain and Europe‪.‬

KIRSTY HUGHES is Head of the European Institute Policy Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was formerly Deputy Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research. A confident British government, no longer at odds with its European partners as in the darker days of Conservative rows and crises with the European Union, is looking to the future with the aim of matching French and German influence and leadership in Europe. The broad immediate questions this raises are first, whether this is a realistic aim, and second, whether Prime Minister Tony Blair's government possesses the right strategies to achieve such a leading role. The current political conjuncture looks promising--center-left governments hold power in 11 out of the 15 EU member states. And, while some suspicions remain about Britain's reliability over time in its support for the European Union, the tone and nature of the United Kingdom's relations with its European partners have been transformed since the new Labour government took over in May 1997, leaving a Conservative Party nearly destroyed by its internal divisions over Europe. The leading Labour politicians, most significantly Tony Blair himself, take a constructive and pragmatic approach to the European Union, without any of the hostility or paranoia about potential loss of sovereignty embodied by the Tories, whose negative attitude significantly damaged Britain's reputation and influence in Europe.