© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/�569�06X- � �34�5�� Historical Materialism �5. � ( �0 �7) 90–� �9 brill.com/hima British Capitalism and European Unification, from Ottawa to the Brexit Referendum Christakis Georgiou Centre Emile Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux christakis.georgiou2@gmail.com Abstract British capitalism has from the very beginning entertained an ambivalent relationship with the process of European unification. But that ambivalence has gone through dif- ferent stages and since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 a new, conflictual, stage in that relationship began. This is the essential backdrop against which the Brexit referendum should be understood and its consequences evaluated. Keywords European unification – institutions – political economy – City of London Two interrelated questions have emerged as the key issues in European politics in the wake of the great financial and economic crisis of 2008–9 that shook the advanced capitalist world. The first, and more important one, is obviously the question of the Eurozone. The broader capitalist crisis combined with growing imbalances in Europe as well as the institutional deficiencies of the Eurozone to give rise to an acute speculative crisis on government bond markets in 2010–12. That crisis has in turn provided the political opportunity for European capital- ists to implement a policy of wage depression and structural adjustment in the weaker member states of the Eurozone. But it has also triggered a process of institutional innovation to shore up the Eurozone’s architecture, crucially involving the centralisation of banking policy as well as initial steps towards a I would like to thank John Palmer and Nigel Harris as well as six anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies. Downloaded from Brill.com06/15/2020 07:34:38AM via free access