The EU after Brexit by Francis B Jacobs

Author:Francis B Jacobs
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783319772790
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Impact on European Parliament Political Groups

Once Brexit has taken place there will be a considerable knock-on effect on the size and composition of the EP’s political groups. This will only occur after the next EP elections have taken place in 2019, so the precise impacts are not known. The likely scale of these impacts can be inferred, however, from the current distribution of British MEPs between the various political groups. Since the UK Conservatives gave up their link with the European People’s Party (EPP) in order to form a new Group, the European Conservative and Reformist Group (ECR ) (a major factor in helping to isolate the British Conservative Party from potential European allies), there have been no British MEPs in the EPP. The EPP would thus be the only group not to lose members and the gap between it and the second largest group, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group would go up from 27 to 47.

The S&D would lose 20 members as a result of the departure of British Labour MEPs and would go from 189 to 169. In the past Labour have been the largest single component of the group, have led the group on one occasion, and have had great influence within it. Their loss to the S&D will not only be numerical in nature .

The current Liberal Group (ALDE) will be less obviously affected, as they would only lose one seat because of the defeat of all but one of their Liberal Democrat MEPs in 2014, and they would again become the third largest group because of the losses within the ECR . It would also mean a return to the situation in the early days of the directly elected Parliament when the first-past-the post system in the UK meant that there were no Liberal or Liberal SDP Alliance MEPs. In practice, however, their loss will still be felt, as they had become very influential members of the group, had provided one group leader, and had shifted the balance of power within the group somewhat more to the left of centre on certain issues.

The ECR would lose 20 as a result of the departure of its British Conservative and Ulster Unionist members and go from 74 to 54 seats but would survive and remain the fourth largest group, although they would have a very different character without their British Conservative founders. The only remaining large government party would be Law and Justice in Poland. The current ECR contains a wide variety of parties, with most of them being Eurosceptic to differing degrees but also wishing to distinguish themselves from harder Eurosceptic parties to their right. Is there still a scope for a more moderate Eurosceptic group and on what real basis?

The European United Left Group (GUE) would lose only one member, its Sinn Fein Member from Northern Ireland whilst Sinn Fein will continue to be strongly represented within the group from the Republic of Ireland. There has never been a substantial party within the rest of the UK that has affiliated with GUE.

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