Introduction
In his foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on 10 November 2003,
Tony Blair confided to his audience `the British Prime Minister's European dilemma:
do you hope that Europe develops of its own accord in Britain's direction before
participating; or do you participate at the outset in the hope of moving Europe in
Britain's direction?'1
Blair is not the first prime minister to have to deal with this
predicament and neither will he be the last. If there is one certainty in the history of
Britain's relations with Europe, it is that they are rarely, if ever, uncomplicated.2
Blair's dilemma encapsulates the central issue for British governments since the
Second World War of how to define policies towards European integration. From
the moment European co-operation was first contemplated after 1945, the vexed
question rested, mostly uncomfortably, on whether Britain should join its western
European neighbours in their endeavours to create an integrated community. Once
the Macmillan government announced its intent to seek negotiations on the terms
of membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) on 31 July 1961,
an unstable mix of national interest and national identity made Europe an issue of
controversy in British political discourse. After the United Kingdom joined the
European Community in 1973, the question rested, still largely uncomfortably, on
how far Britain should involve itself in the developments which have produced the
modern European Union. Partly in consequence of the all-pervading and often troublesome
contemporary significance of Britain's European quandary, but also due to
the prominence of the issue in the annual release of government papers, the subject
has received much attention from scholars of British history and has become a dominant
historiographical field of enquiry.3
This chapter explores that field of enquiry. It begins by considering three major
historiographical perspectives on Britain's relations with Europe: the missed opportunities
school; the revisionist response to it which considers whether Britain's differences
from other European powers explain its troubled relationship with European
integration; and Alan Milward's national strategy thesis. The chapter then gives these
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Britain and Europe
JAMES ELLISON
historiographical views their place in the specifics of the subject by considering the
key points in the chronology and how historians have advanced our understanding
of them. Here it concentrates on the period 1945­1963, about which most historical
research based on archival material has been carried out. The chapter concludes
by drawing out the innovations in the field and by contemplating its development.
Three Historiographical Perspectives
Any delineation of historiographical perspectives on a subject as complex as Britain
and Europe will not do the literature entire justice, but it is possible to identify three
broad approaches. The first is the missed opportunities school, which suggests that
misjudgement at the top condemned Britain to the ill-befitting position of demandeur
for too long with deleterious consequences. The second is the revisionist
response to the missed opportunities school, which variously discards its premise,
seeks to understand and explain British policy choices and actions and the difficulties
experienced by the British in pursuing, achieving and benefiting from membership.
The third and the most recent is Alan Milward's national strategy thesis, which
rejects the methodology of previous research, sets Britain's European policy within
a wider framework and argues that the strategy chosen by British governments was
essentially the right one. The features of each of these perspectives will now be
explored further.
The missed opportunities school
Reflecting in 1996 on Britain's relations with Europe, Sir Oliver Wright, the retired
British diplomat and adviser to the prime ministers Alec Douglas-Home and Harold
Wilson, commented: `I've often thought the patron saint of British European policy
was Ethelred the Unready.' He went on to say:
At key moments, we've always been unready, including the first key moment. We have
always been unready to take decisions from which we could have derived maximum
advantage instead of which so far, like Johnny come lately, we've had to run and catch
up and accept what the others have already decided and in a sense got very little advantage
from it. But if you adopt a permanent policy of Ethelred the Unready you've only
got yourself to blame, haven't you?4
Wright's patron saint has played his part in configuring a significant school of thought
which describes Britain's relations with Europe as a history of failure. Actors in the
events, prominent commentators, political scientists and historians have to varying
degrees promoted the supposition that Britain forfeited early chances to influence,
join and lead Europe, and then suffered isolation until 1973, deprived of the economic
growth enjoyed by EEC members in the Community's first decade. A long
tradition exists amongst former British ministers and officials involved in the development
and implementation of Britain's European policy of lamenting the lack of
British foresight and initiative towards European co-operation. Frequently noted are
the detrimental effects of being `Johnny come lately' on a country which needed to
shed its imperial baggage earlier than it did, embrace a European destiny more suit-
518 james ellison
able to its geographical location, and benefit from this new foundation for its international
position.5
Indeed, the prime minister most associated with beginning
Britain's transition towards the EEC, Harold Macmillan, led the way in this admission
of failure, writing in his memoirs that Britain `should have been more alert to
the dangers' in 1955 when the Six powers (Belgium, France, the Federal Republic
of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and The Netherlands) met in Messina, Sicily, to
discuss their plans for further European integration.6
This idea that Europe was a missed opportunity for Britain has also found a
dominant place in scholarship. Miriam Camps, in her landmark work of contemporary
history, Britain and the European Community 1955­1963, published in 1964,
was the first substantive account which had elements of such a premise.7
Unique in
her position as an insider and historian, Camps's criticisms of the British government
were measured, but the balance of her judgements was later clearly influenced by
the course of British policy post-1963. In 1993 she argued that `The British
failure to give their relationship with Western Europe a higher priority in the early
post-war period was one of the biggest of several missed opportunities to establish a
satisfactory relationship with continental Western Europe. Also, many of the actions
taken and the attitudes adopted in this early period created problems for the British
later.'8
Amid the troubled contemporary affairs between Britain and the European Community
in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, historians and political scientists elaborated
upon the perspective of witnesses to the events and early historians such as Camps.
Michael Charlton's The Price of Victory, a hybrid publication, part populist history,
part witness testimony, had as its theme the failures of British decision-makers to
attach requisite importance to the events leading up to the founding of the EEC.
This view was given greater weight by the discussion of it in the first surveys of postwar
British European policy, written by historians who had cut their teeth on the
period 1945­50.9
It then grew specific in its attention to two particular moments,
both of which will receive attention later in this chapter, the Schuman Plan of 1950
and the Messina conference of 1955, when a supposed parting of the ways took place
between Britain and the Six.10
Perhaps the most articulate explication of the missed opportunities school is that
of the late journalist and political commentator Hugo Young. Young admitted the
hindsight involved in his argument, a contravention of one of the tenets of historical
research but a hazard for all those who argue that Britain failed to recognize earlier
the opportunity offered by European integration. Focusing on the actions of central
individuals, Young argued that British leaders made judgements on `misperceptions
of truth':
The people who made the error had their reasons, but subsequent events show that, for
too long, their attachment to Britain's cultural and historic differences got the better of
their political judgement. Ultimately, Britain did choose the fate her leaders long resisted
or failed fully to embrace ­ but only after a period in which much opportunity was, by
sheer lapse of time, wasted.11
The missed opportunities school's arguments have been confirmed by events
time and again since Britain took the decision to apply for membership and then
britain and europe 519
eventually gained it. But this confirmation in itself raises a problem. Hugo Young's
admission of hindsight stands out, as historians have generally been very careful about
the positions they take when finding fault with British policy to avoid such a perspective.
The missed opportunities school may be criticized for writing history backwards,
conditioned by the long-run development of the Six and Britain's problematic
relationship with European integration. Consequently, it has had its detractors who
contest its methodology and standpoint in relation to specific issues, examples of
which will be considered below. Prior to that, two further major historiographical
perspectives need to be examined, both of which by their very design reject the first
school.
The revisionist response
Largely in reaction to arguments based on accusations of missed opportunities and
failure, the majority of historical research on Britain and Europe may be categorized,
somewhat unsatisfactorily given its complexity, as revisionism. Historians of this perspective
often take issue with the methodological appropriateness of the missed
opportunities school and seek instead to explain and understand policy-making and
policy implementation rather than condemn it. This is not to say that such historians
do not offer critical judgements, but instead that they are careful to avoid the
dangers involved in hindsight or in teleological interpretations, particularly those
based on the premise that the course of integration chosen by the Six in 1950 was
set on a trajectory of success.12
The first examples of revisionism came in the work of a group of historians who
analysed the European policy of the Attlee government and the role in particular of
Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary.13
Here, the emphasis of the research was on the
reconstruction of decision-making processes, on the influence of personalities, party
politics and institutional attitudes, and on the relationship between Britain's European
policies and its wider policies, especially towards the United States, the Commonwealth
and the Cold War.14
The methodology of this early work has significantly
influenced the consequent writing of the history of Britain and Europe to the present
day, especially after it found wide expression in the first surveys written on the
subject.15
There have been various avenues of research leading on from the arguments raised
by these revisionists, especially in their surveys of the history of Britain and Europe
over the whole post-war period. One has been particularly productive, namely
Stephen George's contention that Britain is essentially different to the founding
members of the EEC and that this uniqueness explains much of the difficulty in its
acceptance of European integration.16
George applied his thesis to the history of
Britain's membership of the European Community after 1973, but it has nevertheless
either overtly or tacitly informed historical analysis of the period from 1945
onwards.
The debate concerns the degree to which Britain's geographical location, its
history, the nature of the British state, its systems of government, and the attitudes
of its leaders and peoples explain the difficulties it faced in adjusting from a global
to a European regional position in the post-war period. This concept of difference
520 james ellison
is what Winston Churchill implied in his famous phrase that described Britain as being
`with but not of' Europe. Yet the idea has recently been criticized, mainly on the
grounds that Britain was not distinctly different to other western European states
who are members of the European Union.17
As one of the leading revisionists, John Young, points out, Britain has indeed
shared similarities with other member states in that it has sought to achieve objectives
related to the national interest through the process of European integration.
But at the same time, Britain was different from the Six. Its historical development
was in many ways uncommon, not least during the Second World War when it was
neither occupied nor saw its institutions destroyed. Britain's immediate post-war
outlook was also unique; policy-makers recognized the importance of Europe, not
least in Cold War terms, but nevertheless had other priorities, specifically in relation
to economics and defence and Anglo-American and Anglo-Commonwealth/empire
relations. These aspects of the British national interest strengthened British leaders'
anti-supranational stance in response to the proposals of the Six. However, a main
contention of the revisionists is that this did not mean that Britain was ill-disposed
towards European co-operation, rather that it had a different conception of it to that
of the Six.18
These are the general themes that have been explored and developed by revisionist
historians, who have produced more comprehensive and credible explanations of
British policy than those offered by the missed opportunities school. This will be seen
below in the discussion of particular moments in the post-war history of Britain and
Europe but beforehand it is necessary to introduce the third historiographical perspective,
which responds to the work of both the missed opportunities school and
the revisionists.
The national strategy thesis
Although it cannot yet be described as a school of thought, standing as it does alone
and ahead of the field, Alan Milward's national strategy thesis warrants singular attention
in this survey of the historiography of Britain and Europe for the novelty of its
methodology and the originality of its argument.19
In the first volume of his official
history of the UK and the European Community, The Rise and Fall of a National
Strategy, 1945­1963, Milward eschews the missed opportunities approach and develops
an argument which, though having shades of revisionism, distinguishes itself by
its perspective.
Unlike those who have gone before him, Milward presents two key propositions:
first, British policy towards European integration can and should be understood as
an aspect of a greater national strategy for post-war renewal; second, that strategy,
and thus British European policy, was a rational choice for a country whose assets
were largely extra-European and whose aims, like those of any other country, were
to provide economic and physical security for its population. From this conceptual
position, Milward is able to deal with the issue of Britain and Europe unburdened
by the negativity of the missed opportunities school, a point he makes in his introduction:
`a critique of the grandiosity of British strategy usually posits "Europe" as
an alternative to the worldwide stage on which the United Kingdom is judged no
britain and europe 521
longer to have had the resources and the influence to perform. The argument of this
volume is that such critiques themselves are unrealistic.'20
The analytical framework that Milward constructs to judge British policy towards
Europe is that of the wider national strategy of which it was a part. While other historians,
particularly revisionists, have explored Britain's European policy as an
element of its wider foreign and economic policies, none have done so with the coherence
that Milward has. The national strategy that he describes as being in place by
1950 sought to make the best of what Britain had to bargain with ­ principally its
Commonwealth trade preferences ­ in full knowledge of the limited endurance of its
global reach and power, and in the hope of securing a long-term settlement on the
basis of a grand tariff agreement with the United States. The aim was to construct a
one-world system uniquely advantageous to Britain's position, economically and
politically. Limited co-operation with Europe was only one aspect of the rise of this
strategy but, in Milward's view, it was the deciding factor in its fall: `In 1962 in the
negotiations for entry into the European Community, a major element of [the strategy],
the importance attached to trade preferences in the Commonwealth, had to be
abandoned, and the search for a new strategy had to begin.'21
With this concentration on the goals and course of Britain's national strategy,
Milward is able to render invalid `the simplistic question of whether the United
Kingdom should have joined the European Communities or not' by arguing that
this was not Britain's primary aim as long as the national strategy existed.22
Milward
exonerates Britain from decisions others have described as failures. He states that
there was no imperative for Britain to join the European Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC), that association with the European Defence Community (EDC) was the
appropriate policy, that the Free Trade Area proposal's failure was not a foregone
conclusion, and that Britain could not have done more, earlier, to deflect de Gaulle's
veto of the first application. These are controversial statements. Yet Milward is not
an apologist for British policy. He argues that there were weaknesses in the strategy,
particularly in the reluctance of British governments to adjust relations with the Commonwealth.
He also argues that, once Britain decided to modify its national strategy
to accommodate the development of the European Community, errors in judgement
and presentation contributed to its demise. Ultimately, though, in Milward's view,
Britain's European policy, as a by-product of a greater national strategy based on a
rational appreciation of Britain's place in the world, was sustainable until other, largely
uncontrollable, events, such as the success of French strategy within the EEC and
the American preference for a regional European discriminatory trade bloc, rendered
it unobtainable. It was at that point in the summer of 1962 that a new strategy, based
on EEC membership, became Britain's principal policy.
Such is the state of the major historiographical debates about Britain and Europe.
The three perspectives outlined above hold the high ground in an area of enquiry
which is rich in detail, examples of which are the focus of the next section of this
chapter.
The Historiography in Detail
Although historical research on the question of Britain and Europe now deals with
it in its most contemporary sense, the majority of scholarly attention has followed
522 james ellison
the release of government documents and other archival papers under the 30-year
rule. The leading edge of the subject has thus reached 1970, although a mature
debate only exists for the period 1945­63 with new research initiating the discourse
for 1964­70.23
In light of this, the following discussion will select events from 1945
to 1963 to exemplify key areas of historical interest. These will be the adjustments
in Ernest Bevin's European policy from 1945 to 1949, Britain's rejection of the
Schuman Plan in 1950, its response to the Messina conference of June 1955, the
evolution of its policy towards Europe from 1956 to 1961, and the failure of
the first application for EEC membership in 1963.
Ernest Bevin's European policy
To an uninitiated audience, it often comes as some surprise to learn that in the immediate
post-war period, the British government seriously considered the prospect of a
foreign policy based on association with western Europe rather than with the United
States. Such an audience is enlightened by the debate about Ernest Bevin's aims as
Foreign Secretary in the Attlee government, which rests on two premises. The first
has it that Bevin placed little importance on Anglo-European co-operation and, motivated
by anti-communism and pro-Americanism, sought from 1945 to orchestrate a
mutual defence arrangement with the United States.24
The second, almost a mirror
image, suggests that Bevin, `so far as Europe was concerned . . . was remarkably integrationist
and embraced the idea of Britain, through close collaboration with her
European neighbours, holding an intermediate and cooperative position between the
two new Superpowers ­ a "third force"'.25
It is the second of these two premises that now holds the ground. The first places
too much weight on the interest of Bevin and the British government in prioritizing
relations with the United States, and gives too much coherence to the search for an
Atlantic alliance from 1945. Moreover, it fails to accommodate the fluidity of events
leading up to the formation of NATO in 1949, a period unusual in the post-war era
for its tumult. The more convincing second interpretation sees British attitudes
towards Europe undergo change in response to the development of events. Britain
was not entirely prejudiced against a European-based foreign policy or predisposed
towards one which elevated the United States to first ally status. Indeed, the significant
evidence that Bevin and the British Foreign Office considered the idea of a
western European union in 1947­8, perhaps including colonial assets, points towards
this. Bevin's famous Commons speech on 22 January 1948 is crucial to this view.
The European priority waned only when the onset of the Cold War, weakness in the
British economy, and the unreliability of the western Europeans for British security
coalesced to force Bevin and the British government to seek a link with the United
States which could sustain Britain's fundamental national interests.
At this early post-war stage, therefore, it was the paramount importance of providing
security which ensured that relations with the United States dominated relations
with Europe. It was not that the Attlee government was instinctively opposed
to Anglo-European unity, rather that such unity (especially in the form conceived by
some on the Continent) did not fit with Britain's main objectives at that time. This
view has found further support in Alan Milward's national strategy thesis which
develops a similar line but places primary importance on Britain's post-war economic
britain and europe 523
goals.26
Continental proposals for a European customs union built on Marshall Plan
aid did not suit Britain's economy, based as it was on the pre-eminence of sterling
as an international currency and on trade with the Commonwealth and empire.
Moreover, to a country set on restoring its international position, association with
the United States was the only course which would enable Britain to pursue its oneworld
economic policy or, as Milward describes it, its national strategy.
Historical research on British policy towards European co-operation from 1945
to 1949 has thus produced a persuasive interpretation. Policy towards Europe was
at first a priority as a means of re-establishing British power (and did not involve the
abrogation of British sovereignty). It lost its status in the Attlee government's agenda
once Britain's economic policies pointed in the opposite direction to ideas for a continental
customs union and when the Cold War began to bite. Between 1948 and
1950 this became the basis of British policy towards European co-operation just as
Britain was invited to join its European neighbours in their first attempt to create a
supranational organization.
Britain and the Schuman Plan
Britain's rejection of the invitation to join the discussions initiated by the French
Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman, on 9 May 1950 has been the focus of much historical
research, not least because Schuman's call for a pooling of coal and steel production
under the auspices of a supranational authority produced the ECSC, the
institution which began the process of economic integration which would eventually
lead to the EEC. This moment and its intricacies (not least the nature of the invitation
to the British, the question of whether the French wished to exclude Britain,
perhaps with tacit American agreement, and the British Cabinet decision of 2 June
1950) have produced a historiographical debate which serves as a microcosm of the
study of Britain and Europe involving each of the three perspectives outlined earlier
in this chapter. In particular, it reveals the character of the missed opportunities school
and responses to it.
Britain's self-exclusion from the negotiations following the Schuman Plan has
especial magnitude for those who argue that this was the most critical of the
missed opportunities in Britain's relations with the European Community. Anthony
Nutting first took this position in his 1960 publication, and it was supported by
Michael Charlton, who argued in 1983 that `as subsequent events were, in the end,
to prove, Britain had made the first major misjudgement of how Europe was going
to "evolve" and would pay a heavy price for standing back in 1950'.27
This view
had endurance and despite the revisionism of Bevin's European policy was invigorated
in the work of Edmund Dell.28
In a classic expression of missed opportunity,
Dell takes each of the major principles upon which the Attlee government rejected
the Schuman Plan and counters them. The foremost of these, the potential abrogation
of British sovereignty on joining a supranational institution, is reversed as Dell
argues that, by excluding itself from the formation of the ECSC, the British
government in the long run weakened its own sovereignty. The leadership of Europe
was handed to France, Britain's influence in Europe and in the United States (the
US government keenly supported the ECSC) was reduced, and within 11 years
524 james ellison
Britain had to seek entry into the club formed in 1950. The bus had left the station
and Britain had missed it, condemned, in Oliver Wright's phrase, to being `Johnny
come lately'.
The element of `what could have been' in the missed opportunities school
involves varying degrees of hindsight, but its proponents have done historical understanding
a service in generating debate. Other historians' replies to their work offer
two kinds of antidote. The first, of the revisionists, seeks to understand the decision
of the British government rather than denounce it. In this view, while some dismissiveness
of the proposals may have been involved in the numerous opinions which
produced the decision on 2 June 1950, there were also reasonable grounds for rejection
of the French plan. Britain's interests simply did not fit with a supranational
European grouping. The issue of sovereignty was not just constitutional but was
related to the fact that there were no economic incentives for Britain to pool its
coal and steel industries with those of the Six. Moreover, Britain's outlook was
global, not European, especially during the early years of the Cold War. This did not
mean, however, that the British wished ill on the European undertakings. Indeed,
John Young suggests that Britain sought association with the ECSC, as it would
with the EDC, in a policy of `benevolence towards, but non-involvement in,
supranationalism'.29
The second antidote is that of Alan Milward's thesis. His view of the British rejection
of the Schuman Plan reveals how his national strategy argument shares similarities
with the research of the revisionists. Milward deals with the issue of a missed
opportunity head on and employs some of the arguments ranged by, for example,
John Young. Yet he takes the economic grounds for Britain's decision further and,
more significantly in historiographical terms, sets it within the wider framework of
the global national strategy. From this perspective, the decision in June 1950 is
entirely understandable and furthermore, in answer to the question of whether
joining the ECSC would have led to Britain becoming a founding member of the
EEC, Milward argues that `The break between the United Kingdom and the Six in
1955 would not have been avoided by earlier British membership of the ECSC, unless
British foreign policy and commercial policy had changed as a result of an overall
change in national strategy. Membership of the ECSC would not have had such a
sweeping impact.'30
It is to 1955 and the second occasion that Britain was invited to
join the Six that we now turn.
Britain and Messina
The Eden government's response to the Messina conference of June 1955 is fodder
for a conclusion similar to that reached by proponents of the missed opportunities
school on Britain and the Schuman Plan. Messina was the moment when Britain
could have joined the ECSC powers on the infamous bus heading towards Rome
and the creation of the EEC.31
Yet such a view has been questioned on two grounds.
On the one hand, it has been suggested that there was no bus to catch as the `success
of the Messina initiative was not at all guaranteed' and that, having examined it, `no
[British] minister seriously considered buying a ticket'.32
On the other, the bus debate
is rendered a non-issue methodologically: `Discussions of "lost opportunities" or the
britain and europe 525
"missed bus" . . . bristle with methodological difficulties; they are both highly speculative
and, in the end, rather unsatisfactory. Because of the range of assumptions
and historical might-have-beens involved, the debate seems unanswerable in anything
like precise terms.'33
This has to be close to the last word on the topic, showing that
the Messina bus takes historians, unlike the Six, to a dead end.
Whereas there is still debate about Britain's supposed first missed opportunity in
1950, a consensus is being reached over the second in 1955. No historian disputes
that this was an instance when the British government machine malfunctioned. From
the first archival studies to the latest, the most constructive research has examined
personal and institutional attitudes and the process which led Britain to discount and
even oppose the Six's plans for a common market.34
Much rests on what principles
the Eden government was able to set aside its officials' judgement in November 1955
that if a European common market succeeded, `the disadvantages [for Britain] of
abstaining would, in the long-run, outweigh the advantages'.35
The picture that is
painted in response to this question reveals much about the tenets of British
European policy.
In 1955 an essentially economic issue was decided on political grounds.36
There
is some debate about quite how far the failure of the EDC and the success of the
British intergovernmental lifebuoy, the Western European Union (WEU), predisposed
the British to discount the Six's efforts, but there is agreement that British
involvement was rejected on the basis of the pre-existing stance of prioritizing extraEuropean
policies. Of the entire British government machine, there were only three
voices of dissent. One came from the Economic Section of the Treasury, which counselled
that a successful common market excluding Britain would be harmful to its
economic interests, and the others from the now legendary Board of Trade official
who attended the Spaak Committee, Russell Bretherton, and his superior, Sir Frank
Lee, both of whom raised concerns about British policy. These were no match for
an overwhelming combination of ministerial and Whitehall anti-Messina opinion.
The significance of historical research on this subject reveals how much the decision
of autumn 1955 was official-led. Ministers, motivated either by doubt bred by the
EDC/WEU experience, disinterest due to the problems Europe posed for Conservative
Party politics, or indifference, played no active role (Harold Macmillan's part
has been a point of debate). Instead, the Foreign Office, in one of its most unenlightened
moments, discounted the Six's chances and the Treasury saw their proposals
as an unwanted complication for Britain's one-world policy. Only the Board
of Trade, a relatively lowly department, urged a more productive response to the Six,
but even it did not favour a common market. Political judgements, largely from Treasury
officials opposed to the Six's form of economic co-operation, configured the
economic case against British membership which was accepted by ministers who were
not politically disposed to consider Messina seriously, especially given the Foreign
Office disinclination to apportion credence to the Six.
This interpretation of Britain's response to Messina synthesizes the general thrust
of recent accounts, but it is important to note that there are differing emphases.
Revisionist diplomatic historians, while giving full attention to the decisions of
October/November 1955, also concentrate on the diplomacy associated with
them. In their démarche the British departed from the policy of benevolent noninvolvement
to one of short-lived malevolent involvement which had enduring effect
526 james ellison
on Britain's reputation amongst the Six, ensuring their suspicion of subsequent
British policy initiatives.37
This important diplomatic fall out is not the focus of Alan
Milward in his recent research, which concentrates instead on how Britain's national
strategy dictated the decision taken over the Messina proposals. Milward argues that
the Eden government simply reaffirmed the national strategy set out by 1950, and
thus `Britain crossed the Rubicon almost by default' because membership of a
European common market appeared to British ministers `as the death of the global
strategy which they all, with considerable differences of emphasis, supported'.38
Milward also questions the health of that strategy and the Messina decision, especially
in light of British economic performance and the evidence of French commitment
to European integration from 1950 to 1952.
This is the state of the field on Britain and Messina. A certain maturity in the historiography
has been achieved in relation to the missed opportunities school, and
through the research of diplomatic and economic historians we have a full picture of
the reason why Britain decided against membership of a European common market
and the impact of its consequent diplomacy. The same maturity is also having a similar
effect on the study of policy from 1956 to 1961.
The evolution of British policy, 1956­1961
The period from the failure of Britain's initial response to the Messina conference to
the announcement of its intent to negotiate terms of membership of the EEC on 31
July 1961 is when British policy towards European integration underwent, in the
words of historian R. T. Griffiths, `a slow one hundred and eighty degree turn'. The
decision of 1961 reversed that of 1955. Ostensibly, this was a straightforward development,
yet the two moments of greatest policy evolution since 1948­50 ­ the Free
Trade Area (FTA) proposal of 1956­8 and the first application of 1961 ­ are matters
of conflicting historical opinion. The debates centre on the intent of Britain's FTA
proposal and the degree to which the first application marked a turning-point in
British attitudes towards Europe.
In its early stages, historical enquiry concentrated on contemporary suspicion,
heightened by Britain's diplomacy towards the Messina proposals, that Plan G, as the
FTA proposal was known in Whitehall, was a British attempt to sabotage the common
market by dissolving it in a wider, looser economic area `like a lump of sugar in an
English cup of tea'.39
While it may have left a nasty taste in the mouth of some of
its opponents, it is now accepted that the FTA was ultimately not intended to destroy
the common market. Although it cannot be ruled out that there were those in
the British government from 1956 to 1958 who hoped that it would have this
effect, recent research suggests that the FTA was based on the assumption that
the common market would endure and that Britain would make peace with it. It
was less a case of dissolving and more a case of blending.40
The problem for the
Macmillan government was that this was a British recipe for a continental chef. The
result was rejection, at the hands of the first of General de Gaulle's vetoes in
November 1958.
This is an important aspect of the FTA, but its real significance in the study of
Britain and Europe is what it represented in the overall advance of British attitudes.
Although some historians still view it in negative terms, it has been depicted
britain and europe 527
otherwise.41
One account illustrates the seriousness with which the Whitehall departments
that had influenced Bevin's European policy, recommended rejection of the
Schuman Plan and opposed Messina, now recognized the importance of Europe for
British interests and initiated, with ministerial support, adaptation towards it.42
This
view is similar to Alan Milward's recent judgement that the FTA was a `tactical adjustment'
which sought `to bring nearer the grand tariff bargain with the USA which
would put in place the one-world system'.43
For Milward, the FTA was the initial
move in a two-step which produced the first application and ultimately brought the
demise of the national strategy which had governed Britain's European policy since
1950.
The debate about Britain's first application has largely been influenced by the question
of whether it was a `turning-point' in British policy.44
The answer offered by historians
has been no. Instead, the first application is represented as a shift in British
tactics to secure traditional goals, the same ends by different means. Two specific
interpretations are the most significant. The first, from Wolfram Kaiser, is that the
first application used Europe and abused the Europeans in `a dual "appeasement"
strategy' to maintain strong Anglo-American relations, particularly in nuclear terms,
and to hold the Conservative Party together while splitting the Labour Party.45
This sweeping argument has been criticized for underplaying the motives specific to
European integration and overplaying uncertain potential diplomatic and political
by-products.
The motives underplayed by Kaiser have been the focus of other research which
offers a more compelling interpretation of the first application. In a detailed study of
the process of policy-making, Jacqueline Tratt argues that trade concerns provided
the foundations for a decision which was then taken on political and geopolitical
grounds.46
Sharing elements of Tratt's analysis, Alan Milward also acknowledges
geopolitical motives, but emphasizes the link between the first application and
Britain's wider national strategy. In this view, the first application was the product of
Macmillan's `restless determination not to see the United Kingdom's position in
Europe deteriorate' and the efforts of `a small group of like-minded officials' set on
changing the national strategy to accommodate Europe's new economic, and political,
importance.47
Such a contention, part historiographical synthesis, part original
research, part innovative approach, produces the clearest and most convincing picture
of the motives for Britain's first application, suggesting that, while it was not a
turning-point, it had the potential to become one should the application fail.
The failure of the first application, 1961­1963
Britain's first application failed on 14 January 1963 when General de Gaulle issued
his second non to a British European initiative. It led a dejected Harold Macmillan
to make his often quoted diary entry of 28 January 1963: `All our policies at home
and abroad are in ruins'.48
The ramifications of the failed effort are clear in this statement,
and have led historians to ask two particular questions of Britain's policy: why
did it fail, and could Britain have done more to ensure its success? In producing
answers, three perspectives prevail, variously criticizing each other. The first, of
Wolfram Kaiser, is that high diplomacy outside the Brussels negotiations, specifically
528 james ellison
the Macmillan­de Gaulle relationship and the issue of nuclear co-operation, explains
the failure of the application. The second, of Piers Ludlow, is that the real explanation
can be found in the Brussels negotiations themselves, where Britain could have
done more, earlier, to stack the cards against a unilateral intervention by de Gaulle.
The third, of Alan Milward, analyses and dismisses the other two arguments, suggesting
that de Gaulle took the decision to veto regardless of nuclear diplomacy and
that Britain could not have done more in the Brussels negotiations.
Kaiser's main explanation for the failure of the first application is a mix of politics
and geopolitics.49
His view is akin to contemporary opinion which suggested that de
Gaulle was predisposed to veto a British application on the grounds that Britain was
insufficiently European and overwhelmingly Atlanticist. Given that de Gaulle aimed
to put distance between Europe and the United States via French leadership of the
EEC, British membership was therefore contrary to France's interests. The failure of
Macmillan to offer de Gaulle a substantive nuclear bargain as a form of compensation
and payment for entry ensured that the French leader alighted on the opportunity
provided by the exclusive Anglo-American nuclear agreement at Nassau in
December 1962 to break off the Brussels negotiations.
Ludlow's explanation of the failure of the talks, and his contention that there were
moments when Britain might have improved its chances of success, rest on his study
of the Brussels negotiations between Britain and the EEC powers from 1961 to
1963.50
He does not reject the issues of diplomacy raised by Kaiser, but instead argues
that the negotiations themselves reveal much about why the French were able to
defeat the British: the negotiations were `a central part of the plot, and, one which,
if acted out differently, could have totally altered the dénouement'.51
Had Britain
been more flexible, and the Six more wilful, then the application's potential for
success could have been improved prior to the strengthening of de Gaulle's domestic
position in 1962, which enabled him to veto unilaterally. It was thus Britain's own
negotiating tactics which help explain why its application failed.
Milward's explanation distinguishes itself from Kaiser's and Ludlow's by countering
their major suppositions and offering in their place an overarching judgement
related to his central national strategy thesis.52
He accepts that de Gaulle was influenced
by questions of Atlantic­European relations and nuclear diplomacy, but he discounts
them as reasons for his veto at some length, arguing that `It seems perverse
to ignore a total of three years of deadlock between Britain and France in economic
negotiations and to suppose that something else ­ the organization of NATO, the
lack of help for the development of French nuclear weapons, and of France's determination
to challenge the USA's dominance over western Europe ­ was the cause of
[the] final breakdown [of the Brussels negotiations].'53
Milward also analyses the
evolving positions within the British Cabinet over the Brussels negotiations in the
summer of 1962 and concludes that the Macmillan government could not have negotiated
more quickly `without an increased danger of division'.54
Ultimately, however,
for Milward, neither of these points offers the real explanation for the application's
failure. That must come from the clash between Britain's national strategy and
France's: `Britain's weakness in the negotiations did not spring from its tactics but
from direct conflict between its own worldwide strategy, which in the Conservative
Party still had powerful adherents, and that of France. It was not a part of the United
britain and europe 529
Kingdom's strategy to base its economic or political future on European preferences.
France, however, would accept nothing less and the outcome was de Gaulle's veto.'55
The historiography of the fortunes of the first application exemplifies how a mature
debate between historians of different perspectives, uncomplicated by questions of
missed opportunities, can produce a full and comprehensive explanation of Britain's
early relationship with the European Community. This represents the field at its best,
and though Milward's thesis will be contested, as things stand, it offers the most
coherent explanation for British policy towards the European Community.
The Future of the Subject
This chapter has introduced the current state of historical research on Britain and
Europe with reference to the major historiographical perspectives and specific areas
of interest and controversy. In this final section, there will be reflection on the field
of inquiry and rumination on the development of the subject. Though it is an unusual
practice for the historian to look forwards as well as backwards, such navel- and crystal
ball-gazing may be useful, as it is clear that the relationship between Britain and
Europe has become a significant theme so far in the study of post-1945 British history
and is set to hold a dominant position in the future.
The enhancement of historical understanding of Britain's policies towards European
integration and relations with western European powers has largely been due
to the research of political and diplomatic historians, and also economic historians
and political scientists. Focus has concentrated on key moments of policy evolution
(the demise of western union in 1948 and the creation of the national strategy, the
rejection of common market membership and the proposal for a Free Trade Area in
1957, and the Macmillan government's decision on the first application in 1961) and
instances of historical magnitude (Britain's rejection of the Schuman Plan in 1950,
its response to the Messina proposals in 1955, and the failure of the first application
in 1961­3). A number of particular avenues of enquiry are notable. The objective of
explaining and understanding British policy in its development and implementation,
rather than criticizing it for simply missing opportunities over Europe, has produced
commendable, constructive research. Within this, the study of personalities has been
of benefit in and of itself and as a means of analysing the course of policy evolution.
Figures such as Bevin, Churchill, Eden, Heath, Macmillan and Wilson stand tall. So
too do key officials such as Bretherton, Cooper, Dixon, Jebb, Lee, Makins, O'Neill,
Palliser, Roberts, Robinson and Roll. At times almost forensic reconstruction of the
systems of government and the architecture of decision-making has produced a full
understanding of British policy. So too has the examination of its implementation on
both a diplomatic and a technical level. At its best, the writing of the history of Britain
and Europe incorporates all of these elements, which marks a significant methodological
advance as evinced by the ambition of recent research.
There have also been related areas of enquiry. Study of Britain's relations with
western European countries has produced particularly informative research, as has
scrutiny of the negotiations between Britain and the Six from 1961 to 1963.56
Associated
foreign policy questions are now benefiting from research. Most recently,
Britain's policy towards the EDC has been viewed through the lens of AngloAmerican
relations, and Britain's relationship with Europe has received its fitting Cold
530 james ellison
War angle.57
Also in foreign and economic policy terms, specific examination of
Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe is beginning to rectify the surprising lack of
interest in this topic.58
Related to these areas is research on British foreign economic
policy and Europe.59
It might be surmised from this description that historical research on Britain and
Europe has been energetic and comprehensive. The former assumption is accurate,
the latter is not. The historiographical debate is without question very rich, but it
has yet to enter all significant environs. In the domestic context, research on political
parties and Europe is still in its very early stages and, similarly, pressure groups
have received little attention.60
In the same vein, there has been all but no research
on the relationship between government policy, the press and public opinion.61
Consequently,
historians still refer to books published on these subjects in the 1970s and
1980s.62
In the European context, Ludlow's research on the Six and the British stands
almost alone in the study of Community negotiations and member states' views
of Britain.63
There have been relatively few analyses of the attitude of the Six and
their institutions, let alone other European powers, towards the British from 1950
onwards.64
Neither have there been extensive comparative histories, despite their
potential effectiveness.65
In the international context, while a full historiographical
debate exists on Britain's relations with the United States, there has been limited
analysis of the impact that relationship had on Britain's European policy or of the
effect Anglo-American relations have had on the course of European integration.66
The same can still be said about Anglo-Commonwealth relations and Europe, despite
the obvious relationship between economic change, the end of empire and the movement
towards Europe.67
The predominance of political, diplomatic and economic historians in the field
accounts in part for some of these lacunae. So too does the nature of historical
enquiry itself. Arguably, apart from aspects of the domestic context and the attitudes
of the Six towards Britain, these missing links had to be preceded by research on
the development of British governmental policy. There are other related factors.
Domestic political research demands a particular kind of historian and access to, and
analysis of, the sources related to such issues as public opinion is by no means as
straightforward as that related to government records. Also, in respect of the attitudes
of the Six and other European countries towards Britain, there has not been
great interest from non-British historians in exploiting European archives, neither has
the field in the UK bred large numbers of historians whose linguistic and archival
skills have encouraged them to travel to repositories in Brussels, Paris or Bonn, for
example.
These points have particular relevance to the future of the field. The now wellestablished
traditional approaches to the subject will endure. Political and diplomatic
historians will write event-specific studies beginning shortly with British entry in
1970­3, through the renegotiations and referendums of the mid-1970s, to Thatcher
and the British budgetary question, the Single European Act and then Britain and
Maastricht, the Exchange Rate Mechanism, Black Wednesday, and eventually Blair,
the euro and beyond.68
They will maintain the perspectives which have proven productive
in the study of Britain and Europe before 1970. But the subject will change
significantly once Britain has become a member of the European Community, rather
than an applicant.
britain and europe 531
Consideration of the plethora of effects that membership of the European Community/Union
has had on the life of the British state and peoples confirms that the
study of Britain and Europe after 1973 will be an entirely different subject than that
which exists now. Areas of interest will include: Britain as an actor within the Community/Union
and as a player in its system; the impact of membership on the British
state, especially in constitutional and legal terms; the implementation and effect of
Community/Union legislation; the relationship between the Community/Union
economy and policy and the British economy and policy; the attitude of successive
British governments to change within the Community/Union in relation to widening,
deepening and enlarging; European attitudes towards Britain as a member state
and the issue of foreign policy and foreign relations; the effect of membership on
Britain's place in the world; the consequences for British democracy in parliamentary,
party political and public terms; and finally, membership and the relations
between British governments, the media and the public. Even a modest survey such
as this indicates that the subject will grow in importance. It will demand historians
with a wider skills base and historians of different kinds than those who have
approached the subject so far.
In their endeavours, and their discourse, historians and other scholars have significantly
advanced our understanding of Britain and Europe as a subject of academic
study and popular interest. The early, sometimes hindsight-driven accounts have
been replaced by more objective, complex interpretations which provide deeper
knowledge of why Britain found it at first unnecessary and then difficult to make the
transition to membership of the European Community. We now have a better understanding
of Bevin's European policy, Britain's rejection of the Schuman Plan and
Messina proposals, the evolution of its policy from 1956 to 1961 and the failure of
the first application from 1961 to 1963. Recent research will soon begin the debate
about the period 1964­70 and thereafter build on the existing work on Britain as a
member state. This will be the major task of future scholars and their aim will be to
decide how Britain advanced, in Churchillian terms, from being `with but not of'
Europe to being, arguably, `of but not with' Europe.
NOTES
1 See www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page4803.asp, accessed 12 Nov. 2003.
2 The term `Britain and Europe' has become shorthand for Britain's policies towards, relations
with and membership of the European Community/Union.
3 See also Daddow, Britain and Europe since 1945.
4 Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, British Diplomatic Oral History Project,
Wright interview, 18 Sept. 1996.
5 The first prominent example was Nutting, Europe Will Not Wait. Thereafter, a succession
of former officials unburdened themselves of their Civil Service neutrality: see for example
Denman, Missed Chances and Gladwyn, Memoirs. Former ministers have made similar
points in print, e.g. Heath, The Course of My Life; Jenkins, A Life at the Centre.
6 Macmillan, Riding the Storm, p. 69. Though clearly an acknowledgement of fault,
Macmillan's choice of the word `danger' alludes to his view that the Six posed more of
a threat to British interests than an opportunity.
7 Camps, Britain and the European Community; see also Beloff, The General Says No.
532 james ellison
8 Camps, `Missing the Boat at Messina and Other Times?', p. 135.
9 Examples are Greenwood, Britain and European Cooperation, and Young, Britain and
European Unity.
10 Dell, The Schuman Plan, is the most prominent. Young has also been specific in his criticism
of decisions made during the period 1955­7, see Young, Britain and European
Unity, p. 191.
11 Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot, p. 3. For the longevity of the missed opportunities school,
see some of the contributions in Broad and Preston, eds, Moored to the Continent.
12 See comments on this point in relation to the Messina conference by Wurm, `Britain and
European Integration, 1945­1963'.
13 See for example Greenwood, The Alternative Alliance; Kent, British Imperial Strategy;
Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe; and Young, Britain, France and the Unity
of Europe.
14 Notable brief studies are Warner, `The Labour Governments', and Young, `Churchill's
"No" to Europe'.
15 Greenwood, Britain and European Cooperation; George, An Awkward Partner; Young,
Britain and European Unity.
16 George, An Awkward Partner.
17 Kaiser, Using Europe, pp. 211ff.
18 Young, Britain and European Unity, pp. 184­202.
19 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community.
20 Ibid., p. 3.
21 Ibid., p. 7.
22 Ibid., p. 6.
23 Examples are Parr, `Harold Wilson', and Pine, `Application on the Table', and the various
contributions in Daddow, ed., Harold Wilson and European Integration.
24 The most forceful proponent of this case is Bullock, Ernest Bevin.
25 Greenwood, Britain and European Cooperation, pp. 7­29. This debate is clearly summarized
in Young, Britain and European Unity, pp. 6­25.
26 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, pp. 10­47.
27 Nutting, Europe Will Not Wait, pp. 34­5. Charlton, The Price of Victory, pp. 122­3.
28 Dell, The Schuman Plan.
29 Young, Britain and European Unity, pp. 26­52, quote from p. 36. See also see Lord,
Absent at the Creation.
30 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, p. 77.
31 For a survey of this opinion, see Greenwood, Britain and European Cooperation, p. 61.
32 Kaiser, Using Europe, pp. 54­60.
33 Wurm, `Britain and European Integration', p. 255.
34 Compare Burgess and Edwards, `The Six Plus One' and Young, `"The Parting of the
Ways"?', with Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, pp. 177­216.
35 National Archives, Public Record Office, London, CAB134/1228, EP(55)54, 7 Nov.
1955.
36 Ellison, Threatening Europe; Kaiser, Using Europe; Milward, The United Kingdom and
the European Community; Young, Britain and European Unity.
37 See Ellison, Threatening Europe; Greenwood, Britain and European Cooperation; Kaiser,
Using Europe; and Young, Britain and European Unity.
38 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, pp. 179, 229.
39 Mayne, The Recovery of Europe, p. 252; Lamb, The Macmillan Years, p. 111.
40 Ellison, Threatening Europe; Kaiser, Using Europe; Schaad, Bullying Bonn.
41 Kaiser, Using Europe, pp. 72­87, is critical of the FTA.
42 Ellison, Threatening Europe.
britain and europe 533
43 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, pp. 255, 269.
44 This was Macmillan's contention: see Macmillan, At the End of the Day, p. 1.
45 Kaiser, Using Europe, pp. 108­73.
46 Tratt, The Macmillan Government and Europe, pp. 188­9; see also Ellison, `Accepting
the Inevitable' .
47 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, p. 331.
48 Quoted in Horne, Macmillan 1957­1986, p. 447.
49 Kaiser, Using Europe, pp. 174­203.
50 Ludlow, Dealing with Britain.
51 Ibid., p. 245.
52 Milward, The United Kingdom and the European Community, pp. 463­83.
53 Ibid., p. 472.
54 Ibid., p. 483.
55 Ibid.
56 See e.g. Bouwman, `The British Dimension'; Huth, `British­German Relations'; Schaad,
Bullying Bonn; Ludlow, Dealing with Britain.
57 Ruane, The Rise and Fall; Dockrill, Britain's Policy; Mawby, Containing Germany.
58 e.g. May, ed., Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe; Ogawa, `Britain's Commonwealth
Dilemma'.
59 Milward and Brennan, Britain's Place in the World; Newton, `Britain, the Sterling Area,
and European Integration'; Schenk, Britain and the Sterling Area.
60 Broad, Labour's European Dilemma; Forster, Euroscepticism; Onslow, Backbench Debate.
On pressure groups, see for example Ted R. Bromund, `Whitehall, the National Farmers'
Union and Plan G'.
61 The exception is Wilkes, `British Attitudes to the European Economic Community'.
62 Jowell and Hoinville, eds, Britain into Europe; Lieber, British Politics; Moon, European
Integration.
63 Ludlow, Dealing with Britain.
64 Exceptions are Bossuat, L'Europe de français 1943­1959; Bloemen, `A Problem to Every
Solution'; and Lynch, `De Gaulle's First Veto'. See also chapters in Griffiths and Ward,
eds, Courting the Common Market, Wilkes, ed., Britain's Failure, and Loth, ed., Crises
and Compromises.
65 A notable exceptions is Wurm, `Two Paths to Europe'. For two other examples of the
benefits of a comparative approach, see Giauque, Grand Designs and Visions of Unity, and
Moravcsik, Choice for Europe.
66 Manderson-Jones, The Special Relationship, stands virtually alone. Ruane, Rise and Fall,
goes some way to rectify this, as does Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations.
67 See n. 66 above and Dockrill, Britain's Retreat from East of Suez; Krozewski, `Finance
and Empire'; and Schenk, `Decolonization'.
68 Recent research has already begun on some of these events; see, for example, Alisdair
Blair, Dealing with Europe.
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----ed., Britain's Failure to Enter the European Community 1961­63: The Enlargement
Negotiations and Crises in European, Atlantic And Commonwealth Relations (1997).
Wright interview, Churchill College Archive Centre, Cambridge, British Diplomatic Oral
History Project, 18 Sept. 1996.
Wurm, Clemens, `Two Paths to Europe: Great Britain and France from a Comparative Perspective',
in Clemens Wurm, ed., Western Europe and Germany: The Beginnings of European
Integration, 1945­1960 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 175­200.
----`Britain and European Integration, 1945­63' (review article), Contemporary European
History, 7, 2 (1998), pp. 249­61.
Young, Hugo, This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (1998).
Young, John W., Britain, France and the Unity of Europe, 1945­51 (Leicester, 1984).
----`Churchill's "No" to Europe, 1951­2', Historical Journal, 28 (1985), pp. 923­37.
----`"The Parting of the Ways"? Britain, the Messina Conference and the Spaak Committee,
June­December 1955', in M. Dockrill and J. W. Young, eds, British Foreign Policy 1945­56
(Basingstoke, 1989), pp. 197­224.
----Britain and European Unity, 1945­1992 (Basingstoke, 1993; 2nd edn 2000).
----`Towards a New View of British Policy and European Unity 1945­57', in R. Ahmann,
A. M. Birke and M. Howard, eds, The Quest for Stability: Problems of West European Security
1918­1957 (Oxford, 1993).
----`Britain and "Europe": The Shape of the Historiographical Debate', in Brian Brivati, Julia
Buxton and Anthony Seldon, eds, The Contemporary History Handbook (Manchester, 1996),
pp. 207­14.
FURTHER READING
The leading survey on Britain and Europe is John W. Young, Britain and European Unity,
1945­1999 (Basingstoke, 1993, 2nd edn 2000). See also Sean Greenwood, Britain and
European Cooperation since 1945 (Oxford, 1992), and Stephen George, An Awkward Partner:
britain and europe 537
Britain in the European Community (Oxford, 1990). For a critical, lively and provocative read,
see Hugo Young, This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (1998) and,
for the first volume of the official history, Alan S. Milward, The United Kingdom and the
European Community, vol. 1: The Rise and Fall of a National Strategy 1945­1963 (2003).
Brian Brivati and Harriet Jones, eds, From Reconstruction to Integration: Britain and Europe
since 1945 (Leicester, 1993), provides an informative collection of chapters, and Miriam
Camps, Britain and the European Community 1955­1963 (Oxford, 1964) remains useful.
For suggestions on specific topics, see the references in this chapter.
538 james ellison