Britain’s applications to join the EEC

Structure of the Lecture

• Reasons for EEC membership: debates inside

Whitehall & the British Cabinet

• CBI, NFU, TUC

• Macmillan & Britain’s 1st application, 1961-63
• Wilson & Britain’s 2nd application, 1967
• Heath & Britain’s third application, 1970-73
Introduction: Macmillan, Wilson, & Heath
 Potential reasons for membership

• reassessment of Britain’s world role after Suez

• Britain’s inability to shape the ‘special relationship’ with

the USA

• concerns about Britain’s security policy and reliance on

American nuclear technology

• need to find new ways of stimulating economic growth

at home

• success of EEC compared to potential of EFTA

 Macmillan’s Future Policy Study, 1959

• ‘What is the future of Anglo-American interdependence?’

• ‘What differing degrees of emphasis may we have to set on

maintaining our relations with the USA, with Europe, and
with the Commonwealth?’

• If the USA and the Soviet Union acquire overwhelming

nuclear capacity, ‘should we still need to make an
independent contribution to the Western deterrent?’

• ‘Alternatively, should we need a greater degree of

interdependence in this field – with the USA, or with the
Commonwealth or with Europe?’
Dilemma: bomb or welfare state?

Bevan inspecting an NHS nursing

school in 1948

British testing of a thermonuclear

bomb off Christmas Island in 1958
‘The European Economic Community is of
immense potential importance. Their aggregate
industrial power is probably greater than that of
the USSR and if they continue to grow at their
recent pace they will approach and perhaps
reach the present United States level by 1970. If,
therefore, the “Six” achieve a real measure of
integration a new world power will have come
on the scene’.
 Hola detention crisis in Kenya & the
‘winds of change’
Suspected Mau Mau
sympathisers arrested in the
1950s

Macmillan delivering
‘winds of change’ speech in
Cape Town, 1960
 The Six & the Seven: The long-term objective

‘They [the Six] may become a bloc

comparable in influence with the
United States and the USSR, and if that
happens and we remain outside, our
relative position in the world is bound
to decline…’.
‘Between now and 1970 there would be some
progressive loss of sovereignty in a number of
matters affecting domestic policy, of which
agriculture is likely to be an important example.
It is difficult to say how much would be involved
in any single field. The terms of application of
the generally imprecise provisions of the Rome
Treaty affecting the issues other than tariffs
have still to be agreed between the Six in many
cases. If we were to join the EEC at an early date
we could take part in the formulation of these
provisions, and influence the extent to which
they affected freedom in domestic policy.’
The effects of any eventual loss of sovereignty would
be mitigated:

• by our participation in majority voting in the Council

of Ministers and by our being able to influence the
Commission’s preparatory work

• if resistance to Federalism on the part of some of the

Governments continues, which our membership
might be expected to encourage.
‘whether we join the Six or not, we shall have to
reduce the proportion of our output devoted to
consumption [at home], and increase the
proportion which is invested or exported [abroad].
If we join the Six and seek to secure the benefits of
association with the community, we shall have to
be fully competitive with them and this may involve
changes in our industrial structure which may be
both more rapid and of a different character than
would be the case if we stayed outside. While these
changes were taking place, there would be greater
need for mobility of labour in the United Kingdom,
and some social hardship might be involved.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkxBpybicUw
CBI, NFU, TUC
Mac & Britain’s first application, 1961-63

Macmillan & De Gaulle (& their wives)

 Macmillan diaries
‘The tragedy of it all is that we agree with de Gaulle on almost
everything. We like the political Europe that de Gaulle likes. We
are anti-federalists; so is he. We are pragmatists in our economic
planning; so is he. We fear a German revival and have no desire
to see a reunited Germany. These are de Gaulle’s thoughts too.
We agree; but his pride, his inherited hatred of England, (since
Joan of Arc) his bitter memories of the last war; above all, his
intense “vanity” for France – she must dominate – make him half
welcome, half repel us, with a strange “love-hate” complex.
Sometimes, when I am with him, I feel I have overcome it. But he
goes back to his distrust and dislike, like a dog to his vomit.’

November 1961
De Gaulle says ‘non’! But why?
 Wilson & Britain’s second application, 1967

Wilson is forced to devalue the Pound

in November 1967 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
IHVQU9BSks
Unsurprisingly, De Gaulle says ‘non’! Again...
 The 1970 General Election

Heath skating his way to victory against Wilson in 1970

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwAhWeb3-RY
Heath & Britain’s third application, 1970-
73

‘Great Britain has lost

an empire and not yet
found a role’, Dean
Acheson, 1962

EEC membership,
1973:

Too little too late or

just in time?
 Conclusions

•Britain joined the EEC just when the European economic boom was coming
to an end and during a world oil crisis

•But was it all Britain’s fault?

•Should the Six, especially France, share the blame for refusing British entry
since 1961, or were they right to do so?

•Would Britain’s late entry to the EEC result in future problems and define the
nature of Britain’s reputation as an ‘awkward partner’?