Europe divides British politics, again

AS the United Kingdom’s party conference season draws to a close, the country can begin looking toward 2016 with a sense of expectation. Prime Minister David Cameron has yet to name a date for the country’s referendum over its continuing membership in the European Union, but there is a good chance that it will take place in the next year. For Cameron’s Conservative Party the subject may not have dominated the discourse at the party conference, but it will have lingered in the background, with everyone present well aware that it has the power to tear the Tory party apart in the coming months.

In theory, Cameron has never been in a more comfortable position than now, entering his sixth year in charge of the United Kingdom. The general elections in May saw the Conservatives win a surprise majority, releasing them from the shackles of their coalition with the Liberal Democrats that had restrained them since 2010. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, the Conservatives’ traditional sparring partner, received its worst result in decades, losing its Scotland support base almost in one fell swoop to the Scottish Nationalists.