Thus Eurosceptics covered a range of opinion from covert opposition to
those who simply felt cautious. The issue itself almost lost independent
meaning because it did indeed become a rallying cry for those who wanted
a hard-rightlaissez-faireeconomic policy allied to minimum welfare, and a
rejection of many of the symbols of pluralist and liberal society. There was, for
example, a very high statistical correlation between homophobic attitudes,
anti-immigrant orientation, preferences for capital punishment and lengthy
prison sentences, tax-cutting, welfare minimalism and euroscepticism. By the
beginning of the 21st century, the majority of the remaining parliamentary
Conservative Party, after two electoral defeats, were Eurosceptic. In part they
clung to this position because of a probably mistaken belief that it was the only
policy on which they could win votes. At this stage some degree of authen-
ticity had re-entered the term because of the centrality of one technical issue:
whether or not Britain should fully join the EU’s Economic and Monetary
Union and relinquish its separate currency in favour of the euro.
Executive
The 18th-century French political theoristMontesquieudivided the political
system into three distinct elements: thelegislature, thejudiciaryand the
executive. Each branch performed a different function and, in Montesquieu’s
view, ought to be kept separate from the other branches ofgovernment(see
separation of powers). The executive is defined as the part of a governmental
system which takes decisions and enforces the state’s will, as opposed to making
laws, although modern political systems in fact allow their executives to
legislate. In countries like France the executive has whole areas reserved where
it, not the legislature, passes binding decrees. In all parts of the world, the
executive has a good deal of influence over what statutes the legislature will
effectively be free to pass.
In the United Kingdom members of the executive are recruited from
Parliament, whereas in the USA and France no one may be simultaneously a
member of the government and of the legislature. In many systems the term
‘executive’ covers both the elected political and the non-elected bureaucratic
parts of government. There are various types of executive, but the most
important in modern democratic systems arepresidential government,
quasi-presidential, as in France, andcabinet government. There is ambi-
guity, theoretical as well as empirical, as to how extensive the executive is—
should it be used to refer only to the political heads of the state apparatus, does
it include for example, the civil service? Oddly it is perhaps best defined
negatively—the executive is that part of the organized and official political
system which is not the legislature and is not the judiciary.
Executive