EUROPEAN POLITICS FUNDAMENTALS — Chapter 9, Exercise 1
Classifying the Three Forms
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QUESTION:
Using the real hard/soft Euroscepticism framework, explain why
Brexit counts as hard Euroscepticism while the PVV's 2023 election
platform is better classified as soft Euroscepticism.

SOLUTION:

Brexit counts as hard Euroscepticism because the actual real-world
outcome — a referendum asking voters to leave or remain, followed by
the UK's real, formal exit from the EU on 31 January 2020 — was a
rejection of EU membership itself, in its entirety. Hard
Euroscepticism, per Taggart and Szczerbiak's own definition, is
exactly this: outright rejection of the whole project of European
integration, not opposition to one or two specific EU policies.
Brexit didn't seek to reform the UK's relationship with the EU from
within; it ended that relationship altogether.

The PVV's 2023 platform, by contrast, is better classified as soft
Euroscepticism because — despite Geert Wilders' own long history of
anti-EU rhetoric — winning the most seats in a Dutch general election
and attempting to form a government within the existing Dutch and EU
political system is not the same as campaigning for the Netherlands
to formally leave the EU. Soft Euroscepticism, per Taggart and
Szczerbiak, means qualified opposition to specific EU policies or to
the current or future direction of integration, while still operating
within the framework of EU membership rather than rejecting that
membership outright.

The real dividing line, in short, is whether the actual goal is
withdrawal from the EU itself (hard) or a change in specific policies
or in the EU's own future direction while remaining a member (soft).

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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The strongest answers apply the hard/soft DEFINITION directly to each
case's own real, concrete goal (full withdrawal vs. policy change
from within), rather than simply asserting that Brexit is "more
eurosceptic" than the PVV without explaining what specifically makes
the two cases fall into different formal categories.