News analysis: Europe to dominate Britain's post-election foreign relations

he new Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron faces the serious challenge of handling its relations with the European Union (EU).

Cameron's Conservative party contains many members of the Parliament (MPs) who are skeptical about Britain's membership of the EU, with some wanting a renegotiation of membership terms and a vociferous group demanding to leave altogether.

As a result, Britain's relationship with the EU is likely to become more strained over the next few years and a dominant theme in Cameron's premiership, according to Dr Alexandre Afonso, politics lecturer at King's College, London.

"This will probably be one of the most important factors in the post-election period, in the sense that the Liberal Democrats (the former coalition partner) were very pro-EU and acted as a strong constraint on the Conservatives who have a very strong Eurosceptic base," said Afonso.

"So it is very likely that relationships between Britain and the European Union will become more strained. We don't really know what is going to happen once a referendum is organized, something that the Conservatives have promised."

Cameron's Conservative Party is a far cry from the Conservative Party of the 1960s and 1970s, whose leader, Prime Minister Edward Heath, led Britain into the European Economic Community, the forerunner to the EU.

However, by the early 1990s under the prime ministership of John Major, a small group of Conservative MPs who were opposed to the Maastricht Treaty which established the current format of the EU, rebelled and carried out a lengthy campaign to prevent the Treaty's aims from passing into British law.

They failed, but caused considerable trouble for Major.

One reason for this was that Major had won 336 seats at the 1992 general election, more than Cameron's 331, giving him a slim majority in the House of Commons and laying him open to disruption from the rebels.

Cameron's promise of a referendum on continued membership of the EU is enough to stop a similar rebellion, but he is also seeking a renegotiation of EU membership and this will impact on Britain's relationship with the EU over the next two years.

However, Cameron's victory does not make it more likely that Britain will leave the EU, according to Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University London.

"I think David Cameron will probably be able to renegotiate some kind of package that he will be able to sell to the British people. If you look at the opinion polls, Euroscepticism, while quite strong, is also in some ways quite soft," Bale told Xinhua.

"Most people are worried about the economic risk of leaving, most people want reform but they don't necessarily want to leave. I think if David Cameron came up with a package which he said is good enough - even if some of his backbench MPs disagree - I think with the help of business he will be able to sell that back to the British people and he will get a referendum result which will keep us in the EU."

UK-CHINA RELATIONS

As a prime minister for five years, Cameron has already established relations with Chinese leaders, and Britain is to host a state visit later this year by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

With relations already established, Cameron can be expected to continue UK-China relations on their present path, said Afonso.

"I'm not sure that there is going to be a big change in this respect in relationships between China and the UK. I think the Conservatives had already presented relationships with the wider world - including China, the U.S., and the rest of the world - as a way to free themselves from the relationship with the EU. So this is not going to change much, but it is definitely not going to weaken this relationship," he said.

Bale also believed that UK-China relations would be largely unchanged by the general election result.

"I think all British governments are very realistic about our relationship with China. We are a small or medium-sized country on the edge of Europe; China is a rising power, a much bigger country with an economy that is powering ahead of ours," said Bale.

"British governments are actually in the end quite realistic. They are not going to be making any demands of China, and they realize that China is a huge market for the UK. So I think relationships between the two countries will actually be pretty good."

Craig Calhoun, the director of the London School of Economics (LSE), believed that because Cameron can form a majority government without any coalition partner, Britain's relations with China would strengthen.

"Britain is a relatively small player in relations with China, but it will be a stronger player because there is a clear winner," he said.

Michael Cox, professor of international relations at the LSE, said that the British government was interested in doing business with China, and that business relations would grow.

He said: "You saw the decision on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (which Britain applied to join), which went right against American advice. They pursued business interests, and from that point of view I foresee a real improvement, an acceleration of the relationship." Endit