The first referendum

Reassessing Britain's entry to Europe, 1973–75

Lindsay Aqui

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526145215
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern British History
• Index: History

Although the United Kingdom's entry to the European Community (EC) in 1973 was initially celebrated, by the end of the first year the mood in the UK had changed from 'hope to uncertainty'. When Edward Heath lost the 1974 General Election, Harold Wilson returned to No. 10 promising a fundamental renegotiation and referendum on EC membership. By the end of the first year of membership, 67% of voters had said 'yes' to Europe in the UK's first-ever national referendum.Examining the relationship between diplomacy and domestic debate, this book explores the continuities between the European policies pursued by Heath and Wilson in this period. Despite the majority vote in favour of maintaining membership, Lindsay Aqui argues that this majority was underpinned by a degree of uncertainty and that ultimately, neither Heath nor Wilson managed to transform the UK's relationship with the EC in the ways they had hoped possible.

1

The road to membership

On 2 June 1950 the British Cabinet met to discuss the Schuman Plan, a French proposal to pool Europe’s coal and steel resources under a supranational framework, governed by a High Authority. The French wanted a commitment ‘in advance to accepting the principle of the scheme before it was discussed in detail’. This, in the Cabinet’s view, would not be possible due to the constraints of public opinion, domestic industry and the UK’s ‘Commonwealth connections’. Furthermore, the French scheme ‘appeared to involve some surrender of sovereignty’.¹ That day, the Attlee government formally rejected the invitation to participate in the talks that would eventually lead to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). In the weeks following the decision, Parliament debated the Schuman Plan. It was on this occasion that Edward Heath, then a young Conservative backbencher, made his maiden speech in the House of Commons. Although he over-stated the enthusiasm for the ECSC within the Conservative Party, he claimed that ‘we on this side of the House feel that, by standing aside from the discussions, we may be taking a very great risk with our economy in the coming years’.²

In October 1972, another Cabinet meeting had a substantial discussion of European integration. This time, Edward Heath was prime minister. He gave an update on the most recent EC Summit which he had attended in Paris on the eve of the UK’s accession to the EC, scheduled for 1 January 1973. Heath felt the UK could ‘be well content with the results of the summit’. There was now ‘an opportunity to play a leading role in the Community’. The Cabinet debate was not consumed with concerns about the constraints that might prevent the UK from participation. Instead, the government was ready to take a commanding role as a full member of the EC.

The literature on the UK’s relationship with European integration in the period 1950–72 is vast. One chapter could not do justice to the many complex debates explored by historians who work on this subject. Rather than attempting to address all of the historiographical questions about this period, this chapter is concerned chiefly with setting out the diplomatic and domestic context of UK–EC relations prior to accession.

Missed opportunities?

In order to understand the Community that the UK joined, it is worth going back to some of the early twentieth-century discussions about European integration. One of the first attempts at creating a united Europe was proposed by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand in the late 1920s. He envisioned ‘a bond of solidarity’ through which an ‘economic European union’ would be created alongside the League of Nations. The details of Briand’s plan, including proposals for institutions with representatives from all of the European governments, were circulated to 26 European capitals in May 1930.³ The German and British responses were the most critical and, in the end, the plan was ‘stillborn’.⁴

It was not a straight line from these early proposals to the EEC of the 1960s. Following the Second World War, Jean Monnet, the French statesman now revered as the ‘father of Europe’, believed that there would be ‘no peace in Europe if States re-established themselves on the basis of national sovereignty … Europe must form a federation’.⁵ When the war was over this became one of the main aims of postwar reconstruction. Speaking in Zurich in September 1946, Winston Churchill declared that it was time to build a ‘United States of Europe’. The first step, he argued, was ‘a partnership between France and Germany’.⁶ It was in this context, that of the growing Cold War and slow economic recovery, that French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed the pooling of Europe’s coal and steel resources. Although there were other motivations for the proposal, these were two of the key resources necessary for war and so reducing the control exerted by national governments over them seemed an appropriate method for ensuring peace on the European continent. The Attlee government rejected the proposals.

For some historians, British reluctance to participate in the ECSC, and the customs union that developed later, were ‘missed opportunities’. British governments saw their country as uniquely placed to handle the challenges of the postwar period and thus dismissed European integration. This led the UK to ‘abdicate the leadership’ of Europe and ultimately to economic and political costs.⁷ This explanation of the UK’s lack of direct involvement in the early phase of European integration reflected some of the feelings that were prevalent at the time. As the Economist put it, ‘the Schuman proposal has become a test. And the British Government have failed it’.⁸

Other European governments saw in Schuman’s idea a unique opportunity. The seed of the Community that Britain eventually joined was born when ‘the Six’ – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – formed the ECSC in June 1952.⁹ Three years later, and after an abortive attempt to establish the European Defence Community (EDC), the Six met again in Messina, Italy, to discuss the development of a customs union.¹⁰ Anthony Eden’s government sent Board of Trade Under-Secretary Russell Bretherton to observe the subsequent talks, but he withdrew at an early stage after it was decided that Britain could not fully participate. In March 1957 the Six signed the Treaties of Rome and created the EEC and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM). Their stated aim was to ‘lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe’.¹¹

Revisionist historians offered a new interpretation of these events. They see the decisions taken in 1950 and 1955 as rational, given Britain’s relative economic strength and position at the end of the war. London’s preference for a ‘global’, rather than ‘European’ role, and misgivings in Westminster about the sacrifice of national sovereignty necessary for involvement in either the ECSC or the customs union also feature prominently in revisionist accounts. Furthermore, they raise questions about the methodology and conclusions of the missed opportunities approach, which tends to analyse both decisions with the benefit of the knowledge that the ECSC would eventually become the EEC. This was not certain at the time. In fact, the previously failed Fritalux-Finebel plan (Fritalux was a proposal for a customs union of France, Italy and the Benelux countries, later revived under the name Finebel) and EDC initiatives seemed to suggest the Six might founder. Without becoming apologists, revisionists focus on the unique circumstances that shaped British European policy.¹²

It should also be said that despite the desire to avoid a direct entanglement with these new institutions, the UK never pursued a policy of isolation from the Community. The Eden government attempted to subsume the Messina process in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). The organisation, set up to administer Marshall aid, was intergovernmental in nature and committed to trade liberalisation. In these ways, it was more suited to British interests. When this failed, London produced ‘Plan G’, a design for a free trade area that would include the customs union of the Six. General Charles de Gaulle’s return to power in France signalled difficulties for the negotiations, which he eventually vetoed. Britain went on to form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. Although it failed, the free trade area proposal can be seen as a genuine advance in Britain’s policy towards a closer relationship with European integration.¹³ Thus the UK remained involved in and tried to shape European affairs even if it was not a direct participant in European integration.

The rise and fall of a national strategy

Alan Milward was the first ‘official historian’ of Britain and the EC. By rejecting the assumption that Britain ought to have participated in European integration, Milward advanced the revisionist debate. His radical and provocative ‘national strategy thesis’ focused on the fact that Britain’s primary aim was postwar recovery. Thus, a rational national strategy developed, influenced by Britain’s resources, which accounts for the slow acceptance of the need to join Europe.¹⁴ His work is complex and has proven controversial. Some criticise Milward for his loyalty to the assertion that European integration was driven primarily by economic and social factors, and the lack of a complete incorporation of political developments into the national strategy thesis.¹⁵ Importantly, however, Milward shifted the historiography away from the question of whether Britain should have opted for participation in the European integration project earlier than it transpired.¹⁶

Milward also sought to explain how the failure of the national strategy eventually produced t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: the beginning of a ‘very exciting time’
• 1 The road to membership
• Part I The first year of membership
• Part II The renegotiation
• Part III The referendum
• Conclusions
• Appendix: Louis Harris International’s research methodology
• Bibliography
• Index