Labour’s European Dilemmas From Bevin to Blair
Roger Broad
Contemporary History in Context Series General Editor: Peter Catterall, Lecturer, Department of History, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London What do they know of the contemporary, who only the contemporary know? How, without some historical context, can you tell whether what you are observing is genuinely novel, and how can you understand how it has developed? It was, not least, to guard against the unconscious and ahistorical Whiggery of much contemporary comment that this series was conceived. The series takes important events or historical debates from the post-war years and, by bringing new archival evidence and historical insights to bear, seeks to reexamine and reinterpret these matters. Most of the books will have a significant international dimension, dealing with diplomatic, economic or cultural relations across borders. in the process the object will be to challenge orthodoxies and to cast new light upon major aspects of post-war history. Titles include: Oliver Bange THE EEC CRISIS OF 1963 Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict Christopher Brady UNITED STATES FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS CAMBODIA, 1977–92 Roger Broad LABOUR’S EUROPEAN DILEMMAS From Bevin to Blair Peter Catterall and Sean McDougall (editors) THE NORTHERN IRELAND QUESTION IN BRITISH POLITICS Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure and Adrian Smith (editors) NORTHCLIFFE’S LEGACY Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896–1996 James Ellison THREATENING EUROPE Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–58 Helen Fawcett and Rodney Lowe (editors) WELFARE POLICY IN BRITAIN The Road from 1945 Jonathan Hollowell (editor) TWENTIETH-CENTURY ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS Simon James and Virginia Preston (editors) BRITISH POLITICS SINCE 1945 The Dynamics of Historical Change Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah (editors) THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS New Views on British History, 1945–64
Wolfram Kaiser USING EUROPE, ABUSING THE EUROPEANS Britain and European Integration, 1945–63 Keith Kyle THE POLITICS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF KENYA Adam Lent BRITISH SOCIAL MOVEMENTS SINCE 1945 Sex, Colour, Peace and Power Spencer Mawby CONTAINING GERMANY Britain and the Arming of the Federal Republic Jeffrey Pickering BRITAIN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM EAST OF SUEZ The Politics of Retrenchment Peter Rose HOW THE TROUBLES CAME TO NORTHERN IRELAND L. V. Scott MACMILLAN, KENNEDY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS Political, Military and Intelligence Aspects Paul Sharp THATCHER’S DIPLOMACY The Revival of British Foreign Policy Andrew J. Whitfield HONG KONG, EMPIRE AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE AT WAR, 1941–45
Contemporary History in Context Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71470–9 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Labour’s European Dilemmas From Bevin to Blair Roger Broad
© Roger Broad 2001 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0–333–80160–1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Broad, Roger. Labour’s European dilemmas : from Bevin to Blair / Roger Broad. p. cm. — (Contemporary history in context series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–80160–1 1. European Economic Community—Great Britain. 2. European Union—Great Britain. 3. Labour Party (Great Britain) 4. Great Britain—Politics and government—1945– I. Title. II. Series. HC241.25.G7 B697 2001 337.4104—dc21 2001021632 10 10
9 09
8 08
7 07
6 06
5 05
4 04
3 03
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
2 02
1 01
To Sarah
This page intentionally left blank
Contents General Editor’s Preface
viii
Acknowledgements
xi
List of Cartoons
xiii
List of Tables
xiv
List of Abbreviations
xv
Chronology
xviii
Note on Political Terms
xxvi
Introduction:
Socialism and European Unity
1 Bevin and the Three Circles
1 4
2 Into the Breach?
18
3 Gaitskell and de Gaulle
36
4 The Second Try
54
5 ‘No Entry on Tory Terms’
72
6 Staying or Going?
88
7 The Public’s Opinion
104
8 Not Taking Yes for an Answer
120
9 Withdrawal Pains
139
10 Osmosis
156
11 Making the Change
175
12 New Labour, New Europe?
194
Appendix: Biographical Notes
209
Notes and References
214
Bibliography
230
Index
236 vii
General Editor’s Preface The Labour Party cannot be accused of having followed a consistent line on Europe since 1945. But then, neither can the Conservative Party. Nor, indeed, despite the impression of ineluctability conveyed by references to ‘ever closer union’ did Europe itself present a constant and unchanging policy challenge. The very concept of Europe in the forties and fifties was only in the process of being defined: quite how it was defined, and how it was seen to interact with other policy issues shaped whether it attracted or repelled British socialists. For instance, leftwingers enthusiastic about broad socialist unity, for which Maurice Edelman appealed at the Council of Europe in May 1951, were less animated by the narrow reality which emerged, constrained territorially by the geopolitics of the Cold War and, initially at least, in terms of policy largely in the field of trade. And many of Edelman’s comrades on the British delegation to the Council meetings were unwilling to contemplate European limitations on the Labour government back home. With hindsight the late forties and early fifties might appear a lost opportunity for Labour to shape Europe’s destiny, but for most in the party shaping and rebuilding Britain was more important. The signature of the Rome Treaty changed the situation. By 1961 a complex of attitudes towards Europe had emerged within the party, depending on the criterion employed. While the neutralisation of Germany envisaged under the 1957 Gaitskell Plan was arguably incompatible with membership of the emerging European Community, economic arguments seemed to be more in favour. Not least as a factor was competitive party advantage. After all, when Macmillan’s negotiations ended in failure in 1963, Wilson could tease that the Conservatives had been prepared to sell out British and Commonwealth interests. Nevertheless, at a meeting of western European socialist parties the following year, the Dutch commissioner Sicco Mansholt suggested, with shrewd prescience, that within three years a Labour government would reopen negotiations for entry. This did not, however, indicate a conversion of the party to the European cause. In the 1983 election the party campaigned on a platform of withdrawal. Two years later the launch of the single market concept saw the high-water mark of Thatcherism and the viii
General Editor’s Preface ix
attempt to extend the purported virtues of market economics to Europe. This, however, was to sow the seeds of shift in Labour’s stance. Within the Single European Act that eventually passed in 1987, where elements of a Social Europe seen by others as a necessary complement to the single market and by Margaret Thatcher as a necessary evil to get the changes she wished to see pushed through. The attractions of a Social Europe, a declining belief in socialism in one country in the light of the apparent triumph of the market and a reaction against the experience of Thatcher-style capitalism in one country were all in the ensuing years to provoke a far-reaching assessment of the merits of European integration in the Labour Party. This process has not simply been a matter of judicious adjustment by Labour politicians to changing circumstances. Roger Broad argues here that it has also involved a shift in the self-image of the Labour Party, from Attleean socialism to European social democracy. This has not, perhaps, been primarily driven by the relationship to Europe, but by the economic travails of the seventies. And the shift in attitudes towards Europe may be more apparent than real. An aspiration to lead Europe, for instance, has been a constant from Bevin to Blair. What has changed is the nature of the Europe to lead and the difficulty of wresting control of the steering wheel. Similarly while, Broad argues, many on the left have vaulted over the party leadership in their enthusiasm for a federalist Europe which would be democratically accountable and socially interventionist, just as their forebears of Keep Left briefly were before the Cold War froze over the continent, the party elites have always been more beholden to perceived British interests, even if the means whereby these have to be pursued change over time. In other words, there has been more continuity in the conceptual lenses through which the Left and Centre in the party have viewed Europe than might always seem the case. This continuity has bred both repeated European dilemmas and intra-party conflict. In the shift that Broad detects towards Europe there is perhaps a sign that these difficulties can be overcome. Europe provides something to believe in for a Left no longer convinced of the possibility of socialism. It, together with globalisation, provides a cover for the party leadership for their failure to pursue a more radical social agenda, and thus avoid the infighting which characterised the seventies and early eighties. This, and his huge majority, has given Blair advantages in his dealings with Europe denied to many of his predecessors. Broad in this work provides a detailed explanation of how Labour
x General Editor’s Preface
became the predominantly pro-European party Blair now leads. As debate about Britain’s relationship with Schengen or with EMU continues, however, it is clear that perceptions of British interests remain a dilemma for even the most pro-European of Labour leaders. PETER CATTERALL London
Acknowledgements The major players in the Labour Party’s struggle to find an agreed attitude towards European unification in the past half-century have made speeches, written memoirs and autobiographies and published parts of their diaries; some have been the subject of biographies and other studies. I have talked further to some of them or drawn on their contributions to Institute of Contemporary British History seminars. Less prominent participants and observers of these events have made no less valuable contributions to my understanding. Some I have quoted directly. The absence of quotation does not signify a lack of gratitude for their frank observations and helpful insights. This study has its origin with a request by Colin Beever, shortly before his death in 1987, to sort out the documents he had accumulated while studying trade union attitudes and policies towards European integration and from his 20 years as secretary or a member of the Labour Common Market Committee and the successor Labour Committee for Europe. These records are now in the National Museum of Labour History, Manchester, or at Ruskin College, Oxford. I also thank Jennifer Beever. The study in its present form was undertaken at the suggestion of Peter Catterall, to whom I am grateful. I am indebted to the following for interviews, discussions, the gift or loan of documents, and other information: the late Austin Albu, the late Lord Ardwick, Richard Balfe MEP, Edward Barber, Michael Barnes, Baroness Boothroyd, the late John Bowyer, Baroness Castle, Jim Cattermole, Lord Clinton-Davis, Peter Coleman, Ken Collins, Richard Corbett MEP, the late Peggy Crane, Jim Daly, Tim Dalyell MP, the late Geoffrey Drain, Gwyneth Dunwoody MP, Roy Grantham, Lord Hattersley, Dianne Hayter, Bob Jarrett, Lord Lea, Martin Linton MP, Alf Lomas, the late Lord Mayhew, John Mills, Gwyn Morgan, Stan Newens, the late Arthur Palmer, Robert Pendville, Derek Prag, Roy Pryce, Joyce Quin MP, Giles Radice MP, Lord Richard, Renée Saran, Brian Sedgemore MP, Peter Stephenson, Lord Tomlinson, Carole Tongue, the late Henry Usborne, Ernest Wistrich and Sir Ian Wrigglesworth. I have drawn on ICBH witness seminars on the Labour Committee for Europe, the 1975 referendum, the European Parliament and the 1966–67 attempt to join the European Community, and on the conference on Britain and European integration since 1945, held in xi
xii Acknowledgements
March 1997 to mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaty.1 Peter Catterall, Michael Hatfield, Don Hatwell, Ken Munro, Helen Parr, Peter Rose and Peter Stephenson have made many helpful comments on draft texts. Helen Parr also made an invaluable contribution to research. Matt Lyus prepared the biographical and chronological notes. At Palgrave I thank Alison Howson and Peter Dent. For documentary sources I am grateful to Christine Coates at the Trades Union Congress Library Collections at the University of North London, Stephen Bird at the National Museum of Labour History, Manchester, Freddie Harrison at the Labour Party Resource Centre, Avis Furness at the European Parliament’s UK Office, Marguerite Brenchley at the European Commission’s UK Office, Simon Blundell, the Librarian of the Reform Club, staff at the London Library, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the British Library, the House of Commons Information Office, the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, the Public Record Office, the Archives Division of the British Library of Political and Economic Science, and Jane Newton at the Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricatures at the University of Kent at Canterbury. I thank Nicholas Garland for his kind permission to reproduce cartoons from the New Statesman and The Independent.
List of Cartoons Introduction Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 24 May 1966 Chapter 1 David Low, Evening Standard, 22 September 1948 Chapter 2 Vicky (Victor Weisz), Daily Mirror, 25 February 1954 Chapter 3 Vicky (Victor Weisz), Evening Standard, 11 September 1962 Chapter 4 Vicky (Victor Weisz), Evening Standard, 28 April 1965 Chapter 5 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 10 June 1971 Chapter 6 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 3 April 1974 Chapter 7 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, l2 March 1975 Chapter 8 Nicholas Garland, New Statesman, 10 June 1977 Chapter 9 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 19 February 1981 Chapter 10 Nicholas Garland, The Independent, 11 May 1988 Chapter 11 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, Spring 1992 Chapter 12 Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 11 December 1998
1 4 18 36 55 72 88 104 120 139 156 175 194
Copyrights as indicated with the cartoons: Low and Vicky cartoons, Evening Standard; Garland cartoons in the New Statesman and The Independent, Nicholas Garland; other Garland cartoons, The Telegraph Group. Photos: Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent, Canterbury.
xiii
List of Tables 7.1 7.2
Voting on Government Motion of 9 April 1975 Harris International Public Opinion Poll on Political and Union Figures
xiv
107 118
List of Abbreviations General AES bn EDM EMS EMU ERM HC LPCR MEP m MP OMOV PPS PQ QMV SEA TUCR
Alternative Economic Strategy billion (1000 million) Early Day Motion European Monetary System Economic and Monetary Union Exchange rate mechanism House of Common Debates Labour Party Conference Report Member of the European Parliament million Member of Parliament One member, one vote Parliamentary Private Secretary Political Quarterly Qualified majority voting Single European Act Trades Union Congress Report
Organisations and institutions (except trade unions) BIE Britain in Europe BLG British Labour Group CLP Constituency Labour Party CLPD Campaign for Labour Party Democracy CMC Common Market Campaign Confed Confederation of Socialist Parties in the European Community EC European Community ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EEC European Economic Community EFTA European Free Trade Association EP European Parliament EPLP European Parliamentary Labour Party ERP European Recovery Programme EU European Union Euratom European Atomic Energy Community xv
xvi List of Abbreviations
FBM GBO ICBH LCE LCMC LCMSC LCSCM LESC LME LSE MRC NEC NAFTA NATO NMLH OECD OEEC PES PLP PRO UNL WEU
Forward Britain Movement Get Britain Out Institute of Contemporary British History Labour Committee for Europe Labour Common Market Committee Labour Common Market Safeguards Committee Labour Committee for Safeguards on the Common Market Labour Euro Safeguards Committee Labour Movement in/for Europe London School of Economics and Political Science Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick National Executive Committee North Atlantic Free Trade Area or North American Free Trade Area North Atlantic Treaty Organisation National Museum of Labour History Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Organisation for European Economic Cooperation Party of European Socialists Parliamentary Labour Party Public Record Office University of North London Western European Union
Trade unions Many unions have changed their names over the years, often through mergers. In some cases the most recent names are shown. ACTT Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians AEEU Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (formerly AEU) APEX Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical and Computer Staff ASSET see ASTMS ASTMS Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs CAWU Clerical and Administrative Workers’ Union (later APEX) DATA Draughtsmen and Allied Technicians’ Association DBTW National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers EETP Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Trades Union ETU Electrical Trades Union
List of Abbreviations xvii
ETUC GMB
European Trades Union Congress National Union of General, Municipal and Boilerworkers’ Union GMWU National Union of General and Municipal Workers (later GMB) IRSF Inland Revenue Staff Federation ISTC Iron and Steel Trades Confederation MSF Management, Science and Finance NALGO National and Local Government Officers’ Association NATSOPA National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants NUM National Union of Mineworkers NUR National Union of Railwaymen POEU Post Office Engineering Union SOGAT Society of Graphical and Allied Trades TASS Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section TGWU Transport and General Workers’ Union TSSA Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association TUACM Trade Unions against the Common Market TUC Trades Union Congress TUCFE Trade Union Committee for Europe USDAW Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers
Chronology 1945 July 26 1946 September 19 1947 January 30 March 4 May 1948 March 17 May 7–10 May 17 1949 April 4 May 5 August 8 1950 February 23 May 9 June 2 1951 April 18 October 25 1952 August 10 1954 August 30 October 23 1955 May 6 June 10
Labour Government elected with a majority of 146 Churchill’s ‘United States of Europe’ speech in Zurich: Britain to be ‘with, but not in’, Europe Federalist motion signed by 72 Labour MPs UK and France sign Dunkirk Treaty Crossman, Foot and Mikardo publish Keep Left Brussels treaty: UK, France, Benelux countries The Hague Congress Labour conference: Dalton lauds ‘functional approach’ North Atlantic treaty signed Council of Europe established Council of Europe Assembly holds first meeting General election: Labour majority of 5 Schuman Plan announced Britain refuses to participate in talks Six agree to set up coal and steel pool General election: Conservative majority of 17 European Coal and Steel Community formed EDC (Pleven Plan) rejected by French parliament Britain proposes Western European Union to bring West Germany and Italy into Brussels Pact Western European Union inaugurated Messina conference begins economic community negotiations. UK sends a ‘representative’ xviii
Chronology xix
November 1956 May 29 July 17 1957 January 1 March 25 1958 November 1959 November 20 1960 May 3 1961 May 25 July 31 September 14 October 2–6 1962 January 14 April October 3
1963 January 14 January 18 February 14 1964 October 15
UK withdraws representative from Spaak Committee Six agree to set up economic and atomic communities Crossman–Jenkins motion for UK to take part in talks with Six Treaties come into effect Treaties of Rome establish the EEC and EURATOM End of abortive west European free trade area negotiations ‘Outer Seven’ sign Stockholm convention to create free trade area The European Free Trade Area of seven members established Common Market Campaign launched Harold Macmillan announces intention to open negotiations with the Six Formation of Labour Common Market Committee Labour Party Conference lays down four (later five) conditions for UK membership Six agree on basis of Common Agricultural Policy Gaitskell tells Monnet: ‘I don’t believe in faith. I believe in reason’ Gaitskell’s speech to conference ‘the end of 1000 years of history’. The ‘five conditions’ voted by large majority De Gaulle vetoes UK entry Gaitskell dies Harold Wilson elected leader of Labour Party General election: Labour government majority of 4
xx Chronology
1965 August 2 1966 March 31 November 10 1967 May 2 May 8–10 Spring October 5 October 24 November 19 November 27 1969 April 28 June 8 December 1 1970 April June 18 June 30 September 1971 January May 11 July 17 July 28 October 4–8
Foreign Office Minister Walter Padley says ‘five conditions are not the Ten Commandments’ General election: Labour increases majority to 96, George Thomson minister for European policy Harold Wilson announces probe into entry prospects Wilson announces intention to apply for membership Commons approves move by 488 to 62: 35 Labour MPs vote against, 51 abstain Labour Committee for the Five Safeguards on the Common Market set up Labour conference votes 2–1 to support application French have ‘no objection in principle’ to British membership Sterling devalued De Gaulle delivers second veto De Gaulle resigns, replaced by Georges Pompidou Six invite UK to apply for membership Hague summit agrees to negotiations for British entry Government renews EC application General election: Conservative majority of 30 Negotiations begin on basis of the Labour brief Party conference: anti-Market resolution from TGWU defeated by under 100 000 out of 6 million votes Motion by John Silkin against membership supported by 108 Labour MPs Pro statement in The Guardian has support of 100 Labour MPs Special party conference. Wilson’s speech interpreted as rejecting terms NEC statement: ‘No entry on Tory terms’ Party conference adopts NEC document by 5–1 majority
Chronology xxi
October 19 October 28
November 14 1972 January 22 February 17 March 15 March 22 March 29 April 16 July September
December 13 1973 January 1 1974 February 28 March 5
PLP rejects by 140–111 a free vote on government White Paper on EC entry Commons gives 112-vote majority to entry terms: 198 Labour MPs vote against motion, 69 for and 20 abstain Roy Jenkins re-elected deputy leader by PLP Rome and accession treaties signed: UK, Ireland and Denmark plus the Six Seven Labour MPs abstain on EC Bill second reading Shadow Cabinet rejects Benn’s referendum proposal NEC accepts Benn’s referendum proposal by 13–11 Shadow Cabinet accepts referendum by 8–6 Jenkins, Thomson, Lever resign from Shadow Cabinet EC Bill third reading vote majority of 17 Labour conference accepts by 3–1 call for stringent renegotiating terms, boycott of EP and ESC, and ‘assent of the British electorate’ to any terms agreed. NEC statement calls for renegotiations and referendum PLP votes 140–55 to boycott European Parliament Britain, Ireland and Denmark join the Community. George Thomson becomes Commissioner
General election: Lab. 301, Con. 297 seats Heath’s negotiations with Liberals fail; Labour forms minority government April 1 Government opens renegotiations of entry terms October 10 General election: Labour majority of 4 November 27–30 Labour conference; Helmut Schmidt speaks 1975 March 11 Renegotiation of membership terms concluded March–June EEC referendum campaign April 9 Parliament endorses ‘renegotiations’ by 396–170; 145 Labour MPs vote ‘no’, 137 ‘aye’, 33 abstain April 26 Labour special conference votes 2–1 against terms June 5 Referendum: 67.2 per cent vote ‘Yes’ July 18 Labour Party delegates take seats in the EP
xxii Chronology
1976 February 17 July 13 September 1977 January 6 March 22 April 1 July 7 December 13 1978 April 7 1979 March 10 May 3 June 7–10 1980 October 1 November 10 1981 January 1 January 25 March 26 October 1 1983 June 9
October 1 1984 February 14 June 14 June 25–26 1985 January 7 June 28–29
Government Green Paper on elections to the EP Summit agrees 410-seat EP to be elected in 1978 Sterling crisis: hard IMF loan terms imposed Roy Jenkins becomes Commission President Lib–Lab pact White Paper on European elections Commons gives second reading to Bill by 394–147 PR for European elections in Britain rejected Copenhagen summit puts back Euro-election to 1979 EMS established. UK refuses participation General election: first Thatcher majority of 43 First Euro-election. 32 per cent UK turnout. Con. 60 seats, Lab. 17, others 4 Labour Party Conference votes to withdraw from EC Michael Foot elected Leader of Labour Party Greece joins EC ‘Gang of Four’ issues Limehouse Declaration Launch of Social Democratic Party Labour conference votes to withdraw from EC without a further referendum General election: Conservative majority of 144 Labour manifesto offers withdrawal from EC as an option Neil Kinnock elected Labour leader EP adopts draft treaty establishing the European Union Second Euro-election: Con. 45, Lab. 32, others 4 Fontainebleau summit resolves British budget issue Jacques Delors becomes Commission President Milan summit decides on treaty reform, with UK against
Chronology xxiii
1986 January 1 February 17 1987 June 11 July 1 1988 June 27–28 September 8 September 20 October 6 1989 June 15–18 June 27 November 11 1990 July 1 October 8 November 22 November 28 1991 November 19 December 9–10 1992 February 7 April 2 April 9 April 13 May 21 June 2 July 18 September 16 September 27
Spain and Portugal join EC EC governments sign Single European Act General election: third Thatcher government has majority of 102. Labour fudges withdrawal policy Single European Act comes into effect Hanover summit establishes Delors Committee on EMU Delors addresses TUC Thatcher’s Bruges speech Labour conference formally abandons withdrawal policy Third Euro-election: Con. 32, Lab. 45, others 4 Madrid summit on EMU The fall of Berlin Wall First stage of EMU The UK joins ERM at DM2.95 Margaret Thatcher resigns John Major becomes Prime Minister Federalist motion by Sedgemore, Livingstone, etc. Maastricht Treaty agreed with British ‘opt-out’ on the Social Chapter and ‘opt-in’ on EMU Maastricht Treaty signed Tony Blair states a Labour government will accept the Social Chapter General Election: Major government majority of 21 Neil Kinnock announces resignation Commons gives Maastricht Bill 2nd Reading by 336–92 Danish referendum rejects the Maastricht treaty John Smith elected Labour leader; defeats Bryan Gould ‘Black Wednesday’: sterling is forced out of ERM Bryan Gould resigns from the Shadow Cabinet
xxiv Chronology
November 4 1993 January 1 January 6 March 8 May 2 June 1 July 22 July 23 October 1 November 1 1994 January 1 May 12 June 13 July 6 July 21 October 1995 January 1 March 26 April 1997 May 1 June 16–17 1998 November 8
Commons votes 319–316 to resume debate on Maastricht Single European Market comes into effect Third Delors Commission takes office; Neil Kinnock a member Government defeat in committee on Maastricht Bill Maastricht Bill third reading in Commons 292–112 Council adopt 48-hour week directive by QMV. UK granted ten-year renewable opt-out Commons ties on Labour amendment on Social Chapter Government confidence motion carried 339–299 Labour conference approves modernising moves, including OMOV Maastricht Treaty comes into force: EC becomes EU Stage two of EMU comes into effect John Smith dies Euro-election: Con. 18, Lab. 62, Lib. Dem. 2, SNP 2, others 3 Pauline Green elected leader of Socialist Group in EP Tony Blair elected Labour leader, John Prescott deputy Blair tells Labour conference of proposal to alter party constitution Austria, Sweden and Finland join the EU. Santer Commission takes office Seven EU states adopt Schengen agreement on open borders Labour Party deletes old Clause IV by OMOV General election: Labour majority of 179. All parties promise referendum before joining EMU Amsterdam summit. Britain accepts the Social Chapter Human Rights Convention incorporated into UK law
Chronology xxv
1999 January 1 January 14 January 15 March 15 June 10 2000 February 23 October 6
November 20 December 6–7
Eleven EU states adopt EMU, lock currencies to euro Santer Commission narrowly avoids EP censure motion European Elections Act introduces PR Santer Commission resigns Euro-election: Con. 36, Lab. 29, Lib. Dem. 10, others, 9 In Ghent Blair makes speech on European policies with little specific content In Warsaw Blair proposes closer intergovernmental cooperation and a second Euro-parliamentary chamber of national MPs. ‘A superpower, but not a superstate’ 14 EU states agree to provide armed forces for European rapid reaction force Nice summit agrees on reformed EU structure and sets stage for enlargement
Note on Political Terms Except where quoting sources that employ upper case, political philosophies, their proponents and related adjectives are in lower case; for example, ‘socialism’ and ‘socialist’. Exceptions are that upper case is used for the different trends of opinion within the Labour Party, conventionally described as ‘the Left’, ‘the Centre’ and ‘the Right’; ‘leftwing’, ‘centrist’ and ‘rightwing’ are the equivalent adjectives; ‘left’ distinguishes the party as a whole from liberals and conservatives. Lower case ‘social democrat’ and ‘social democracy’ describe the Centre-Right of the party and their philosophy; upper case ‘Social Democrat’ refers to a member of the Social Democratic Party in 1981–87. Followers or associates of an individual or a group are capitalised, e.g. Bevanites, Jenkinsites, Tribunites. Between 1960 and 1975, when British membership of the Community was potential or unconfirmed, the proponents and opponents are referred to as ‘proMarketeers’ and ‘anti-Marketeers’ (or ‘pros’ and ‘antis’). Subsequently, at the risk of distorting opinions, ‘pro-European’ and ‘anti-European’ are used. ‘European Community’, ‘Community’ or ‘EC’ are usually preferred to ‘EEC’ or ‘Common Market’, with ‘European Union’ or ‘EU’ after 1992.
xxvi
Introduction: Socialism and European Unity
‘Ummm . . . where are we?’ Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 24 May 1966 Personalities: Harold Wilson, George Brown, Michael Stewart
‘Europe must federate or perish’ – Clement Attlee1 The unification of Europe is a theme with a long history in leftwing thought. On the eve of the First World War, Keir Hardie addressed the German socialist congress, saying, ‘In these days of international commerce, finance, art, literature and the increasing solidarity of the working-class movement of the world, the rulers and statesmen could, had they the will . . . have the United States of Europe in one generation.’2 A year later, when war had begun, Leon Trotsky saw selfdetermination for the nations of Europe as only achievable through the removal of the existing state boundaries and the formation of an economic and political union embracing all of capitalist Europe. Such unity offered ‘enormous advantages for the producer as well as the consumer’, and was ‘the revolutionary task of the European proletariat’ against protectionist imperialism and militarism. For 1
2 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Trotsky, the difficulty would be to persuade bourgeois politicians to dismantle trade barriers.3 In 1930 Britain’s Labour government was dismissive of French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand’s proposals for unity in Europe.4 After a second war and with experience of both Hitler’s ‘national socialism’ and Stalin’s ‘socialism in one country’, R.H. Tawney saw the obstacles to unity as more profound and more widespread. ‘An integration of Europe, whatever its precise form . . . would unquestionably be followed by a general increase in economic prosperity and political strength. . . . Reason is on its side; but the natural human egotisms of interest and emotion; of loyalty, class and occupation; of regional loyalties and national pride, will rally to resist it.’5 Twenty years later Isaac Deutscher expected that by the end of the twentieth century ‘something like a United States of Socialist Europe will exist . . . even conservative, bourgeois politicians are beginning to sense that the nation state, at least in Europe . . . has become an anachronism’.6 The strength of the human egotisms that Tawney perceived had in Britain been pointed to before the Second World War by Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party. In 1937 he wrote of the ‘consciousness of insularity’ which was the most prominent feature of the background of the average Labour Party member. ‘The age-long immunity from attack of this country has created a habit of mind in the people that is deeply seated. . . . This insularity has always made it difficult for British Socialists to understand completely their Continental comrades. Continental Socialists are often puzzled by the attitudes of British Labour representatives.’7 This observation provides a leitmotiv for this study, and also a yardstick to demonstrate how Attlee himself, the two governments that he led and the leaders of the Labour Party who succeeded him, were wracked by that conflict of attitudes. Two years later, in the early weeks of the war, Attlee addressed Labour MPs and candidates on the six principles set out in Labour’s Peace Aims, the fifth of which was that ‘. . . there must be recognition of an international authority superior to the individual States and endowed not only with rights over them, but with power to make them effective, operating not only in the political but also the economic sphere. Europe must federate or perish.’ In 1941 G.D.H. Cole urged both British and continental socialists to plan for a post-war united Europe. We should ‘cut asunder in our own minds the notions of nationality and of independent statehood’, he wrote.
Introduction: Socialism and European Unity 3
‘We socialists are, broadly speaking, the only internationalists: we alone have a clear vision of a system transcending national frontiers. . . . It may be that the government of continental Europe will be divided after the war between two or three great States – an enlarged Soviet Union in the east and the south, and a new West European State, embracing the countries which have a more deeply rooted liberal tradition – and possibly a new Central European State somewhere in between.’ With prescience he added: ‘It is quite on the cards that Great Britain, with the British Dominions, instead of entering into a supra-national state system based on Western Europe, will become an economical and political satellite of the United States, and that Europe will make its plans without the participation of the British Empire.’8 When peace came, Britain was separated from continental Europe not only by 20 miles of water and two centuries of imperial history, but by differing wartime experiences. The few neutrals apart, the continental countries, whether Allied or Axis, had one experience in common: military defeat and foreign occupation. Their political and judicial institutions had been destroyed by the occupier, their civil societies undermined, and their nation states subjected to his will. On the continent the nation state had failed in its primary function of protecting its citizens from external threat. In Germany the anguish was the greater for the barbarism had erupted within the nation. Patriotism had not been enough, and the German people had hurtled down the slope through unbridled nationalism to Rassentheorie and the extermination camp. When peace came continental western Europe was ready to reassess the whole basis of its political structures (eastern Europe did not have that opportunity for another 40 years). The British experience was quite different. Those 20 miles of water had enabled the British to avoid conquest and to create a sense of unity that spurred them to fight on until Hitler’s errors brought more powerful allies decisively into the war. The reward was a seat as one of the Big Three at Yalta and Potsdam. The reality was that there were only two centres of power in the post-war world. The British were understandably proud of the role they played in the war, but the self-congratulation was beguilingly and dangerously exaggerated. On the continent between 1940 and 1945 it was recognised that the nation state had contained the seeds of its own destruction; in Britain it had achieved its apotheosis.
1 Bevin and the Three Circles
David Low, Evening Standard, 22 September 1948 Personalities: Ernest Bevin, Winston Churchill, Averill Harriman, Paul Hoffman
‘We are thinking of Western Europe as a unit’ – Ernest Bevin1 When the first-ever majority Labour government took office on 3 August 1945 it faced major domestic and international problems. The war had cost £7.3bn – one-quarter of Britain’s pre-war wealth – and the country had incurred external debts of £3.3bn.2 The country bore costly international burdens with overseas garrisons to maintain. To make things worse, Lend Lease supplies from the United States, which had enabled Britain to fight on after 1941, were abruptly terminated a week after Japan surrendered. The government borrowed £1.1bn from the USA under onerous conditions: it was forced to agree to a fixed exchange rate of $4.03 to the pound, the full convertibility of sterling in 1947 and major inroads into Commonwealth preference. Parliament reluctantly 4
Bevin and the Three Circles 5
accepted these terms by 347 to 100 votes, which included those of 20 Labour MPs, with others abstaining. To the Left this hard-nosed American attitude demonstrated the brutal selfishness of the capitalist system; it was also humiliating to depend on such a source for help. At home, the government began to implement its manifesto Let Us Face the Future. Plans were made to take coal, electricity and gas production and the railways, canals and some road haulage into public ownership, to clear slums and build New Towns, and to reform national insurance and establish the National Health Service. Abroad, what should the government’s policy be? Before the war Attlee had denied that an inherent national interest transcended political differences: ‘There is a deep difference of opinion between the Labour Party and the capitalist parties on foreign as well as home policy, because the two cannot be separated.’3 After the war many in the party asked: if we are introducing socialism at home, what about a socialist foreign policy? Among those who asked this at the April 1945 party conference was Denis Healey, in battledress fresh from war. There was a long leftwing tradition of a popular basis for foreign policy and suspicion of ‘power politics’. Some – and not just the few fellow travellers on the government benches – wanted close ties with the Soviet Union. The enormous suffering by the Soviet Union from the war impressed many. More intimate relations with ‘our American cousins’ had produced ambivalent feelings. Should Labour steer to port or to starboard? Or should it follow a third course, and, if so, what should the bearing be? Whatever he had thought in the thirties, Attlee had been hardened to the realities of power during five years in the War Cabinet. In June 1943 he told his colleagues (in terms not dissimilar from those of Churchill) that he had no intention of presiding over the dissolution of the British Commonwealth, and intended that Britain would ‘continue to carry our full weight in the post-war world with the US and the USSR’.4 Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary was no less determined that Britain remain a world power, despite the economic constraints. When the USA cut off nuclear weapon cooperation Attlee and a few in the Cabinet decided to prove Britain’s potency by starting a nuclear programme known only to limited civil service, defence and research circles. Churchill was to characterise Britain’s position as comprising ‘Three Circles’: first, the relationship with the United States – based on the wartime alliance and future security; second, the Commonwealth – based on history and, as far as the ‘White Dominions’ were concerned, blood; and third, western Europe – based on the facts of geography.
6 Labour’s European Dilemmas
None of the circles was exclusive, but Britain alone stood where the three overlapped, and was represented in North Atlantic, Commonwealth and European meetings. That the First and Second Circles had been decisive in keeping Britain free when the Third Circle was at best unreliable or at worst a danger, was a factor in determining that this last circle was considered the least important. Attlee was content to leave foreign policy to Bevin: ‘ “If you have a good dog, don’t bark yourself” is a good proverb, and in Mr Bevin I had a very good dog indeed.’5 No later Labour prime minister or party leader was to withdraw so much from foreign affairs. Bevin’s first speech as Foreign Secretary on 20 August 1945 was considered ‘sober and cautious’ by the New Statesman. The weekly also contended that if Britain was to avoid becoming a mere appendage of American capitalism ‘we must form with the peoples of Europe a common market big enough to enable us to stand up together to the export drive that American business is already planning in the near future’. Significantly, it referred to the European Trade Commission as ‘the first of those functional pan-European organisations on which alone a United Europe can be built’.6 The word ‘functional’ would obtain major resonance.
It later became a common view on the Left that Bevin was a prisoner of reactionary officials at the Foreign Office.7 On the other hand, it is argued that (apart from Eden, disastrously, over Suez) no Foreign Secretary since 1945 has been less in fee to his officials than Bevin. The Labour government’s foreign policy was the product of Bevin’s ‘probing, but disorganized mind . . . far from being the conventional wisdom of diplomatic orthodoxy’.8 Bevin needed no prompting to be wary of communists; his transport union days had seen to that. In May 1946 he told the Cabinet that ‘the danger of Russia has become certainly as great as, and possibly even greater than, a revived Germany’.9 But he was at great pains for two years after the war to ensure that British policy appeared even-handed between the two superpowers. Foreign Office official Gladwyn Jebb noted how care was taken ‘to prevent even the smallest whisper getting round that we favoured the Americans rather than the Russians’.10 It took until the end of 1946 for backbench discontent over foreign policy to boil over. The debate on the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament provided the occasion. The address on the speech was moved by Henry Usborne, who called for international federalism and, in particular, for a united states of Europe.11 This earned him praise
Bevin and the Three Circles 7
from Churchill, who a few weeks earlier had made his Zurich speech calling for ‘a kind of united states of Europe’. What became known as the ‘third force’ concept appeared in an amendment by Richard Crossman and 57 other Labour members for ‘a democratic and constructive Socialist alternative to the otherwise inevitable conflict between American capitalism and Soviet Communism’. The ‘third force’ idea, which G.D.H. Cole had floated earlier in 1946, had parallel support among the democratic left on the continent and in France wider support still. Once the Conservatives decided that they would support the King’s Speech as a whole, the rebels withdrew the amendment. Nonetheless, despite a three-line whip some 120 Labour members abstained on the speech. The following January Usborne put down an Early Day Motion (a means of gauging backbench opinion) affirming Britain’s readiness to ‘federate with any other nations willing to do so on the basis of a federal constitution to be agreed by a representative constituent assembly’. Among the 72 signatories from both Right and Left were Crossman, Michael Foot, Ian Mikardo, Woodrow Wyatt and R.W.G. (Kim) Mackay.12 In April 1947 Crossman, Foot and Mikardo wrote a New Statesman pamphlet Keep Left to provide a rallying call to the Left, who felt their views on both domestic and foreign policy were disregarded by the government. It also provided arguments for European unification that others, not confined to the Labour Party, adopted in later years. ‘It depends on France and Britain . . . whether Europe will be divided into two parts, one controlled by Russia and one controlled by America, or whether, united through an Anglo-French alliance, it can form the keystone of the arch of world peace’, stated the section headed ‘We Are Europeans Now’. ‘The goal we should work for is a federation which binds together the nations now under Eastern domination with the peoples of Western Europe. This goal is a long way off. For the present it would be wise to concentrate on less spectacular forms of European collaboration designed gradually to remove the Iron Curtain’, the text realistically if rather lamely continued. Besides the three authors the booklet bore the names of twelve MPs, including Mackay. Barbara Castle explained in 1982 that ‘The left wanted a federation binding the peoples of East and West Europe together in a European third force, independent of either bloc and building its own defence through a European security pact. We wanted the federation to pioneer a middle way between American capitalism and Soviet communism. By the time the Treaty of Rome was signed Europe had been frozen into rigid divisions by the cold war. . . . The announcement of the proposed
8 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Marshall Plan in June 1947 relieved some of the Götterdämmerung atmosphere in which Keep Left had been produced.’13 Once the Czech coup and the Berlin blockade had shown that East–West relations would not be easily or soon relaxed, Crossman, Foot and most others had fallen in line with the formation of NATO, sheltering within the western defence perimeter. In 1952 Crossman was to underline the change in attitude: ‘the USA is a better form of society than the USSR. . . . To reject America as a capitalist country and to treat the USSR as an example of socialist planning is to make nonsense of every one of our ideals’.14 The Left might not trust the Americans, but they were frightened of the Russians. Among the leading Keep Left figures only Mikardo held out for a third force through European unity. In May 1949 he denounced a strongly anti-Soviet leader in Tribune, which Foot edited, and resigned from the weekly’s board.15 Early in the following year he issued an enthusiastic statement entitled ‘The European Revolution’, in which he expressed hopes that the forthcoming Council of Europe report would provide ‘a real hope of creating over the next ten years, a coherent Western European federation which will provide all the advantages of international organisation without impairing the benefits of national sovereignty’.16 This was his last fling at European unity. Enthusiasm for a European solution waned. In February 1949 a less federalist EDM won support from under 60 Labour MPs, all but nine of whom had signed the April 1948 motion. The mainstream Left’s interest in European federalism was thus ephemeral. After 1950 it disappeared from the leftwing agenda, even as an aspiration. The federalist Mackay was out of Parliament after 1951. Only the old Independent Labour Party tradition was still there, but weakening. During the fifties Walton, Liverpool CLP – later the constituency of Eric Heffer – year after year put down a lonely party conference resolution urging a ‘socialist United States of Europe’. Bob Edwards of the chemical workers’ union did not come into the Commons until 1956. Co-author in 1944 of a pamphlet on the theme and founder of the Campaign for a United Socialist States of Europe his enthusiasm predated and outlasted (and, arguably, out-lefted) the Keep Left group. Meetings in Paris and London in 1946 and 1947 brought together the ILP, the Revolutionary Communist Party and other anti-Soviet leftwing groups. Fenner Brockway attended, but he too was to be firmly anti-Market in the sixties.17 That marginal sentiment apart, leftwing interest in European unity, even as a long-term objective, effectively vanished, although appearing briefly among a few Tribunites into the sixties.
Bevin and the Three Circles 9
Was Keep Left’s European phase then no more than a flirtation with internationalism, summed up by Christopher Mayhew, Parliamentary Under-Secretary to Bevin, as ‘a typical Crossman opportunistic concept’?18 One more sympathetic commentator saw the Keep Lefters as having roots in ‘the non-conformist conscience and the idealistic strain that permeated the origins of the party’.19
The Keep Left group was neither novel nor alone in wanting close relations with France: they had been a prime element of British policy since the Liberation. A step to restore mutual confidence was the Dunkirk treaty signed in March 1947, offering joint security against a revival of German power. By this time de Gaulle had left the government and the communists were also leaving west European coalition governments; in eastern Europe the lines were hardening in more brutal ways. Stalin vetoed east European participation in the Marshall Plan. The United States took over from Britain the security of Greece and Turkey, but was not yet fully committed to Europe’s defence. The need still to pay lip-service to the German danger was obvious to Healey: it was a ‘very, very traumatic period for the Labour Party, for it was difficult for many members to accept that less than two years after the Russians had been our allies, America should become the main support for western Europe against the Soviet Union’.20 In September 1947 a meeting between Bevin and French Prime Minister Paul Ramadier prompted Paris ambassador Duff Cooper to record in his diary: ‘Bevin said to me, “We’ve made the union of England and France this morning.” He would certainly like to think so, and I believe that if it were not for other government departments he might bring it off.’21 The departments in mind were the Treasury, defender of the sterling area, and the Board of Trade, defender of home industry. Bevin was himself very unclear as to what ‘union’ meant. Bullock contends that Bevin could not define it because he could not see where the idea might lead.22 Inspired by a Foreign Office paper prepared by Gladwyn Jebb on the ‘spiritual unity of the west’, Bevin saw that unity as a means of holding off the Red Army until such time as the economic buoyancy of Britain and the Commonwealth could restore the country to equality with the United States and the Soviet Union. ‘This vision was as crazy as it was noble as it was deluded’, wrote Peter Hennessy.23 The Australian-born Mackay was the most persistent advocate of European unity in any party in the late forties: ‘a man of boundless energy with a mind of unlimited fecundity’.24 His ideas, together with
10 Labour’s European Dilemmas
those of Healey and Crossman, illustrate the respective foreign policy options: the American alliance, the third force, and European federation (which did not exclude the second, nor indeed, the first). In September 1947 he sent to all his Labour colleagues a copy of his 1941 book Peace Aims and the New Order (a revision of his 1940 Federal Europe), criticising Churchill’s attitude to European unity as merely wanting to establish an anti-communist bloc.25 The following December he was the founding chairman of the Eurogroup of backbench Labour MPs, with John Hynd from the Right as vice-chairman, and Christopher Shawcross from the Left as secretary. Up to 34 backbench MPs attended, including Foot, Crossman and Mikardo. In February 1948 Mackay claimed the support of 80 members. The group straddled from Right to Left, and members had very varied views on how a united Europe should look. Mackay, Hynd, Shawcross and Leslie Hale went to Paris to meet French socialists on 28 February and concluded that ‘the urgency of the problems is so great that it is essential . . . immediately to consider the setting up of a federal political organisation in Europe’.26
The urgency for action of some sort was evident. Three days earlier the Czech coup had put an end to political pluralism in eastern Europe. Instability in western European countries was a constant anxiety: France was to have eight governments between 1947 and 1951. But to Bevin and the Cabinet grandiose talk about Europe (and no one came more grandiose than Churchill) was irresponsible self-indulgence when immediate danger threatened. Bevin did not believe that Stalin would risk outright war, but communists might secure power in one way or another.27 That France and Italy were next in line was a common fear. On 22 January Bevin had called for a ‘Western Union’ of European states together with their overseas territories, with the aim of ‘uniting by trade, social, cultural and all other contacts those nations of Europe and the world who are ready and able to cooperate’.28 The words ‘and the world’ should have warned the enthusiasts. Few in Britain imagined that he was calling for a European federation; indeed, he specifically denied that he proposed a political union. However, the words, ‘I believe that the time is ripe for a consolidation of Western Europe. . . . We are thinking of Western Europe as a unit’, were interpreted across the Channel in a quite different way from that intended. ‘For one moment in her political history’, wrote Belgian socialist PaulHenri Spaak in his memoirs, ‘Britain was enthusiastic and, may I say it,
Bevin and the Three Circles 11
lucid about Europe’.29 He added: ‘His words allowed of no doubt’.30 But they did. Some of the misunderstanding between Britain and its neighbours in the past half century has arisen from differing national interests, some from different intellectual conceptions, and some linguistic. ‘Union’ is an example of the last. When, a year later, the preamble to the articles of the Council of Europe were drawn up, the English text referred to ‘closer unity’, the French, ‘une union plus étroite’. In the Englishspeaking world, a ‘union’ is a tight, formal political structure, such as the United Kingdom or the United States. ‘Unity’ is altogether vaguer. Despite Bevin’s use of the term ‘Western Union’, the British did not really want ‘union’, which sounded too committing (to many it does still); they did not mind ‘unity’, which can be accommodated to changing circumstances. Spaak credits Bevin with giving the movement towards European unity/union its initial impulse: the immediate practical outcome was the Brussels treaty between Britain, France and the Benelux countries, signed the following March. Ostensibly an extension of the Dunkirk treaty in providing mutual support against a resurgent Germany, its real objective was to bolster those countries against the new threat. The same month Mackay, Shawcross and Hale put down an EDM calling on the government ‘in consultation with other members of the British Commonwealth, to create in Western Europe a political union strong enough to save European democracy and the values of Western civilisation, with its colonial territories, to enable its component parts to achieve economic recovery and stability’.31 The motion gained 69 signatures at once, and finally nearly 100 Labour signatures and a total of 190 from all parties. But the government and the party leadership were hard headed. Hugh Dalton, chairman of the party’s international subcommittee, and Healey produced a pamphlet Cards on the Table, the text of which had been approved by Foreign Office Ministers.32 ‘Until International Relations can be conducted entirely under a guaranteed rule of law, the effectiveness of Britain’s part depends on her power, whether her policy is capitalist, socialist, communist or fascist’, ran a key passage. This wording sums up the chicken and egg issue that was to bedevil the European argument for decades: it appears to rule out any cession of sovereignty until an international rule of law is guaranteed, but such a rule of law cannot be established without the progressive and prior cession of sovereignty. Healey also prepared a memorandum for a European socialist meeting on 21–22 March 1948, to discuss how the
12 Labour’s European Dilemmas
European Recovery Programme – Marshall Aid – should be organised. Section 35 read: ‘a Customs Union comprising all Western Europe would enormously extend the prospect of improving and increasing production. Western Europe will always be at a disadvantage compared with Russia or the USA so long as her economy is split up into a dozen separate trading units.’ Section 53 read in part: The economic integration of Western Europe is a revolutionary aim; it must be recognised and exploited as such. The necessary redirection of national thinking cannot be maintained unless European unity is presented as a dynamic new ideal . . . a public declaration of faith in European unity would act as a challenge to the latent idealism of the masses so long nourished on disillusion and despair, and as a continuing spur to international action for the politicians and public servants, whose enthusiasm would otherwise founder under the accumulation of administrative details.33 The political content lay in the final section entitled ‘The Role of the Socialists’. There were some fine words here too: ‘the survival of democratic Socialism . . . is closely bound up with the survival of Western Europe as a spiritual union’. Then a sharper note: . . . the danger [is] that the concept of European unity may be corrupted in the hands of reaction. Socialists everywhere must guard against the prostitution of this great constructive ideal into the vulgar instrument of anti-Soviet propaganda, by discredited politicians who hope to rebuild their shattered fortunes under the protection of its popular appeal. One such discredited politician in Labour eyes was Churchill, who was making up for loss of office at home by maintaining popularity abroad. The Churchill of the suppression of striking miners at Tonypandy and of the General Strike was remembered in the labour movement quite as much as the Churchill of Dunkirk. Nor was it only the British left which was concerned that the ranks of the growing European Movement included some very rightwing east European exiles, or at the welcome being offered by some conservatives to representatives from Franco Spain. These factors explain the frantic antagonism shown by the leadership to Labour MPs attending the forthcoming Hague Congress of the
Bevin and the Three Circles 13
European Movement. On 21 April the party’s General Secretary Morgan Phillips wrote to MPs stating that the NEC ‘is unconditionally opposed to any action that might appear to associate the governing majority party in Great Britain, however indirectly, with an organisation calculated to serve the interests of the British Conservative Party’.34 The party asked other socialist parties not to send delegations to The Hague. They reluctantly agreed, although in the event only the German and Belgian parties were not represented officially. Nor was pressure on Labour MPs wholly successful. Of 40 Labour members initially planning to attend, 27 finally did so. They included Mackay, Shawcross and Hugh Delargy; Crossman was among those who dropped out. The congress was enthusiastic but marked by the famous differences between ‘functionalists’ and ‘federalists’, depending on their willingness to cede national sovereignty, in what ways, and how quickly. Federalist resolutions were comfortably carried. In reality, the difference was blurred. Dutch politician Dirk Stikker saw the distinction as often only a matter of championing a slower or a quicker pace of integration.35 The Manchester Guardian commented of Churchill that ‘it is hard to believe that he would give up for all time any part of British sovereignty’, an interpretation that was to prove wholly correct.36
How Marshall Aid was to be distributed was a major concern for the government, which strongly resisted American and continental attempts to give the programme a supranational character, based on a customs union. The government saw that as a threat to Commonwealth preference and the sterling area, and it managed to sink that precondition, and ensured that the aid would be distributed nationally and administered by the chairman of Studebaker cars, the American Paul Hoffman, a less assertive and less political figure than Spaak, despite his being a socialist. US pressure for a united Europe combined the practical considerations of beefing up the continent economically and politically, and soon militarily, with, to British eyes, an over-simple view of history. The United States had been based on 13 colonies populated mainly of British stock, predominantly English speaking, mostly Protestant, and subject to English common law. Their rebellion had been inspired by the English parliamentarians and the writings of Locke, Hume and Paine. In contrast, Europe had undergone centuries of conflict based on dynasty, religion, language, nationality, economic and other differing interests and attitudes that
14 Labour’s European Dilemmas
had shaped the lives of its inhabitants. The most destructive of those conflicts was only three years past. Some in Britain thought that America’s European policy was animated in part by a wish to break up the Commonwealth, and to open it up to US trade; traditional antagonism to British imperialism lived on in the United States. On the other hand the Truman Administration had come to realise how valuable to it were Britain’s overseas defence commitments. An important consideration for the US authorities was that the stronger western Europe became, the fewer armed forces they would need to station there. But propaganda in favour of democracy was also a weapon. US intelligence funds for many years backed political parties in several countries, the monthly Encounter and other language equivalents, and the European Movement. ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, former head of the Office of Strategic Services, then re-emerging as the Central Intelligence Agency, chaired an unofficial body, the American Committee on United Europe, which served as a channel to the Movement. Another ACUE member was Allen Dulles, later to head the CIA. Aldrich states that US funding for European federalism between 1949 and 1960 amounted to some $3–4m.37
A week after The Hague congress Labour held its annual conference in Scarborough. The NEC was even more critical than a year before of cross-party cooperation on Europe. Harry Hynd, who had gone to the congress, said: The 14 Socialist Parties of Europe, when they met in London, adopted a resolution saying that the ideal of European unity can be saved from corruption by reactionary politicians only if the Socialist movement place themselves at the head of the movement for its realisation. Why did they not do this when they had this opportunity last week at the Hague . . . Our Continental Socialist comrades were quite bewildered. He continued, we all believe in the Socialist United States of Europe . . . but is anyone going to tell me that the Socialist United States of Europe is an immediately practicable proposition? Of course it is not . . . the sooner we get on with this job the better for Europe and ourselves.38
Bevin and the Three Circles 15
Brockway moved that the government promote closer integration of the countries of Europe ‘and of the liberated peoples of Asia and Africa’, and expressed alarm at the ‘powerful East and West blocs which were emerging’. Our concept, he continued, was to provide a bridge to peace between East and West. Mackay argued that members of this Labour Party did not make it a condition to their entry into the House of Commons . . . that the British Constitution should be based on public ownership. This is much the same as saying that we are prepared to go into a federated Europe, provided that we can be certain of the fact that it is going to be socialist. . . . We have to get the federation first.39 For the NEC Dalton stressed the practical steps the government had taken through the OEEC and, under the UN, the Brussels pact. ‘I am wholly for the practical British functional approach rather than a theoretical federation. Let us keep our feet on the ground . . . you should begin, not with conclaves of chatterboxes, but with functional advances.’ Finally, when the sense of gratitude to and comradeship with the Commonwealth was a potent force in public sentiment, he observed: that ‘Australia and New Zealand are populated by our kinsmen. . . . If moving closer to Europe means moving further away from Australia and New Zealand and the rest, I do not move.’ A reference to both countries having Labour governments warmed conference further. After Cards on the Table, the party produced another pamphlet Feet on the Ground. It argued that Europe’s history of separate national existence has produced clearly defined interest groups. When such groups do exist no written constitution can by itself compel them to act against their perceived interests. More than most federal governments, a European federation would require forcible sanctions against secession. The prolonged and bloody American Civil War is not an encouraging precedent.40 Denunciation of the Conservatives over Europe was in part a smokescreen to cover the accord between government and opposition about both the nation state and the American alliance. Labour needed to distance itself from the Tories: praise for Bevin’s foreign policy from the Opposition and the rightwing press was embarassing. Moreover, the government had got its way over the Marshall Plan; it would soon get
16 Labour’s European Dilemmas
its way over the west European political structure under discussion, which, the following year, would result in the Council of Europe. From an ideological viewpoint, as Sassoon notes, with the possible exception of the French, Dutch and Belgian parties, the socialist parties in Europe – in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia above all – adopted the national road to socialism. The upshot was that it was Roman Catholic conservatives who were to be the founding fathers of European integration.41
The government in 1948–49 faced a battle over both NATO and the proposed Council of Europe. Over 70 Labour MPs abstained over the former. Should the assembly of MPs delegated from the national parliaments have constituent powers, as many continentals wanted? A constituent assembly was a concept familiar in France since the Revolution. It claimed that sovereignty resided in the people, so a European people’s assembly could lay the basis for a federal constitution. The British had not faced such an issue since the Civil War, and arguably not even then, for the Cromwellian parliament claimed its legitimacy from its predecessor, as did that of 1688. Does British sovereignty reside in the nation at all, or in the sovereign? In September Bevin told French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman that Britain would not accept an assembly that was not responsible to anyone, though a ministerial council would be. But neither he nor anyone else in the government (and few enough in the Opposition) would have agreed to an assembly that would have been responsible to an electorate. Mayhew recalled Bevin’s words: ‘Well, Chris, we’ll have to give them something; we’ll give them a talking shop.’42 Bevin famously put it more colourfully: ‘If you open that Pandora’s Box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out.’43 Herbert Morrison when Foreign Secretary was to be even more hostile, arguing that Britain should leave the Council entirely. He saw it as either a threat to British sovereignty or a time-wasting talking shop.44 Initially all countries sent some political heavyweights to Strasbourg, a city chosen to symbolise French–German reconciliation. But British ministers were soon withdrawn. Other early, and backbench, Labour delegates were George Brown, James Callaghan, Anthony Crosland, Geoffrey de Freitas and Margaret Herbison; and, later, Healey, Roy Jenkins and George Thomson. Attlee – who dismissed European unity as a ‘time wasting detour’ on the road to world government45 – explained sending a team of young MPs by saying: ‘I don’t understand
Bevin and the Three Circles 17
Europe, but in twenty years’ time the party ought to have people who do’.46 Before ending its opening session the Assembly unanimously agreed (with most of the British abstaining) that the aim of the Council of Ministers should be ‘the establishment of a European authority, endowed with limited functions but with real powers’.47 Led by the British the Committee of Ministers gave this short shrift, but saved the Assembly’s face by asking it to have a fresh look at the issue. Crossman’s always challenging if gadfly intellect summed up the issue: The only way to solve the German problem is to create a political union of Western Europe of which Germany is a part, and to impose permanently on the Germans only those sacrifices of sovereignty that we are willing to impose on ourselves. . . . Belgian and French statesmen are pressing for a European assembly as the first stage in the advance to federal union. British statesmen are arguing for a functional approach which avoids directly tackling the fundamental political problems.48 One observer, John Beavan, who covered the Council of Europe’s session for the Manchester Guardian, recalled the arrogance of some Labour members towards the continental delegates.49 They felt they represented a party that was building socialism – at least in the terms that Morrison was later to define as ‘socialism is what a Labour government does’.50 So to ‘British exceptionalism’, the belief that history (or divine providence) had bestowed particular qualities of liberty and justice on the British nation, was now added ‘British socialist exceptionalism’: that Labour Britain alone had set out to define a new, more just society, and that only the lines it followed were worthwhile. This belief was to permeate Labour attitudes right through to the eighties. In the forties and fifties the idea that Jean Monnet’s Commissariat du Plan could claim to be as socialist as anything done under the 1945–51 governments – and perhaps in some respects more effectively socialist – was ignored.
2 Into the Breach?
1Vicky (Victor Weisz), Daily Mirror, 25 February 1954 Personalities: Sir Anthony Eden, John Foster Dulles, Konrad Adenauer, Herbert Morrison, Clement Attlee
‘National sovereignty is a phrase that history is emptying of meaning’ – Aneurin Bevan1 After the first meeting of the Council of Europe Assembly in August–September 1949, the Labour government decided to counterattack the federalists. Denis Healey at the party’s international department was put to work on a statement on European policy. An October draft described the Commonwealth as ‘a natural spiritual community’, and commented: so long as Britain is a world power and a member of the Commonwealth she can make – and indeed has made – a major 18
Into the Breach? 19
contribution to strengthening Europe. Stripped of her special overseas associations Britain would not be a comparable asset to the European community. A pointer to problems ahead was the phrase, ‘a country in Britain’s situation cannot afford to sign blank cheques; she must know precisely what practical commitments any agreement may impose before ratifying it’.2 In a pamphlet published the following January, Healey wrote that the aim of the steps taken in Europe since 1945 ‘has been unity, not union’. He confidently asserted that ‘not a single European government or parliament . . . would at the present time give up the right to control its own affairs to a supranational body’. In conclusion he wrote: The movement towards European unity will continue to be pursued by the same methods as have been used already. The aim should be harmony of national policies rather than the fusion of sovereignties. Federation and economic union, whatever their theoretical benefits in the abstract, would bring no practical advantages at the present time. . . . Above all, European unity has meaning only within the context of unity throughout the non-communist world. Since the Commonwealth already provides the nucleus and model for that wider unity, Britain’s relations with Europe must always be compatible with her Commonwealth associations. Though aimed at a Canadian readership, this text summed up the government’s – and the party’s – position as accurately as any minis terial statement or Whitehall position paper.3 Discussions about freeing some aspects of trade between Britain and France, and eventually other countries in Europe, had been pursued in a leisurely manner during 1949. Coal and steel featured in the talks: Britain produced half west Europe’s coal and a third of its steel. Jean Monnet led for France; Sir Edward Plowden, the government’s chief planning officer, for Britain. The two sides were pursuing incompatible aims. The French wanted a serious commitment to a joint future, including a customs union; the British did not. As Plowden put it 25 years later: ‘We were still thinking in terms of Britain . . . standing between the United States and Western Europe, and Russia and so on, as being an independent great power’.4
20 Labour’s European Dilemmas
The French had had enough of the intergovernmental approach. Monnet concluded that the British would not go on a ‘mutual journey to an unknown destination’.5 So on 9 May Foreign Minister Robert Schuman announced a proposal – conceived by Monnet – to integrate the coal and steel industries of France and Germany, with an invitation to other countries to take part. The Germans knew in advance, and approved. So did the Americans, for Dean Acheson, in Paris en route for London, was told in confidence the day before the declaration. This circumstance did not help Bevin’s temper when he learnt of the proposal virtually in parallel with its public announcement. The details of events in the weeks that followed are well analysed elsewhere.6 The combination of an initiative by France after years in which that country had followed not led, the decision not to consult Britain in advance, the unhappy coincidence of the Acheson visit, the insistence by the French on the principle of a supranational authority being accepted before negotiations could begin, the declining health of Bevin, and a less than coherent handling of the matter by the British ensured the outcome was messy. During four weeks of inconclusive and tetchy contacts, the British and French held to their positions. With the main prize, West Germany, on board, Monnet decided to settle the British problem. ‘They don’t want us’, Bevin told the young James Callaghan.7 On 2 June Paris asked the six governments now involved to decide within 24 hours whether they would take part on the terms proposed. By now Bevin was in hospital and Attlee was on holiday. Cripps, who was more positive about the proposal, was also absent, sick. It fell to Bevin’s deputy Kenneth Younger to find acting Prime Minister Herbert Morrison in a restaurant with the news of the ultimatum. The latter’s reaction: ‘It’s no good. We cannot do it. The Durham miners won’t wear it’, has passed into folklore.8 On 3 June the government issued a tight-lipped statement which concluded that, ‘an unhappy situation would arise if, having bound themselves to certain principles without knowing how they would work out in practice, they [the governments] were to find themselves, as a result of the discussion, compelled to withdraw from their undertakings’. In other words, the French were not abiding by standard diplomatic practice; that had been exactly their intention. The weight of evidence suggests that the French, and certainly not Monnet, did not want the British involved at that stage. Guy Mollet later confirmed that Schuman’s ultimatum was deliberate, in order to exclude Britain.9 However, the Dutch government found no difficulty in accepting the principle of supranationality, subject to a proviso that it could
Into the Breach? 21
withdraw if the talks proved unsatisfactory. The British had not learnt the value of the French practice, agreeing to a proposal ‘en principe, mais . . .’. Was pride dominant in the British refusal to adopt a similarly pragmatic approach? Was it also in part that cultural/linguistic gulf between the French and the British? Healey suggested that ‘the difference may be not so much a difference of principle as of national procedure. The French often prefer to begin a discussion by making an unequivocal statement of principle which they do not regard as binding them in any way as to its execution in practice.’ This was his view in a paper for a long-planned International Socialist Conference on Control of Europe’s Heavy Industries, which took place in May. Although the meeting did lessen the continental reaction to the British attitude, it also underlined the British-Scandinavian attitude on the one hand and the mainland continental on the other. Anyway, by then Schuman was in the ascendant.
So, within four months of Healey’s Canadian article, six governments and, in time six parliaments, demonstrated that they were prepared to submit the control of their affairs (in two limited but key sectors) to a supranational body. In his memoirs Monnet quotes his colleague Paul Reuter’s phrase, ‘to make a breach in the ramparts of national sovereignty which will be narrow enough to secure consent, but deep enough to open the way towards the unity that is essential to peace’.10 The French had a political motive – the containment of Germany – while the British were still thinking of trade. Britain, after five years of determining the pace and nature of west European developments, was losing control of events. The coincidental appearance of Healey’s pamphlet for the party on European policy, in preparation for seven months, complicated relations. His memoirs state that Dalton had persuaded the NEC ‘to insert a number of passages which overemphasised the obstacles which the supra-national approach would present to the economic programmes of a Labour Government’.11 The text reiterated the issues that both government and party spokesman had already made clear. It asked: ‘Should the . . . European states surrender to a supranational authority some part, or all, of the constitutional powers which they exercise at present? Or should unity continue, as now, to be pursued through cooperation between responsible governments by mutual consent?’ It was not a government document drawn up in the measured tones of
22 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Whitehall mandarins. It was a party document aimed first at party members and only second at other readers. ‘Social justice, full employment and economic stability . . . cannot be maintained in a free market economy unless the state deliberately intervenes to correct the harmful tendencies and stimulate the beneficial.’ These were the themes to enthuse the former. The chances of achieving Labour’s social, economic and political policies on a wider scale were dismissed because any representative body on a west European scale would be ‘antiSocialist or non-Socialist in character’. For the wider readership, especially on the continent, there was a bleak if familiar message: ‘the Labour Party cannot see European unity as an over-riding end in itself. Britain is not just a small crowded island off the Western coast of continental Europe. She is the nerve centre of a world-wide Commonwealth which extends into every continent.’12 So on both ideological and constitutional grounds, as well as those of national and, it was claimed, international interest, Britain could have nothing to do with the Schuman proposals. Both Attlee and Bevin were present when the NEC finalised the text of European Unity, but clearly forgot their approval. Had the statement appeared a month or two earlier, it would have passed largely unnoticed. As it was, through lack of coordination between party and government, the document was released on 12 June, so that the following day the press reported its contents only a few hours before Attlee was due to present the White Paper on the Schuman Plan. The two texts were inevitably compared, and often confused. Dalton had managed to make the situation worse by his ‘aggressively sectarian’ responses to questions by foreign journalists, in Healey’s words; others saw it as his xenophobia.13 Most opinion in the Labour Party agreed with the government position. In the Commons even John Hynd and Maurice Edelman were cautious. Kim Mackay was a lone voice, in the Commons and in a booklet Heads in the Sand. At party conference in October it was asked why the government had not put forward its own alternative. Dalton’s response hit the right note: ‘We have nationalised coal, we are in the process of nationalising steel, and these great industries will remain in the safe hands of the British people, and of no other.’14 It was too much to ask the party, after two generations campaigning for nationalisation, suddenly to accept that such a socialist achievement be abandoned for an uncertain internationalisation. A month earlier the TUC had rejected a call from Bob Edwards, of the chemical workers, for participation in the plan. Replying for the
Into the Breach? 23
General Council Arthur Deakin argued that ‘in view of the political background of some of the governments concerned, it would be most unwise for this country to surrender its freedom of action’. He also questioned whether unity should be on a west European or an Atlantic basis. To this Edwards responded by arguing that ‘we are going willynilly into an Atlantic community. . . . The balanced force that we can put with America’s power is Europe . . .’.15 Whether avowedly Alanticist or not, Labour opponents of European integration over the coming decades were in effect to accept that position; indeed they made Britain more subject to American influence. Keeping Left, published in June, was a shadow of its predecessor both in content and impact. Internationally it was more concerned with the wider world, developing countries and East–West relations. Does this mean that we should turn our backs on Europe? Certainly not. Militarily, we are bound more closely to the Continent than ever before, by the fact that we cannot defend these islands, under modern conditions, against an enemy in possession of the Channel ports. Politically, we are linked by common tradition, by the Russian threat, and by our status as Colonial Powers. Economically, we all confront a chronic dollar shortage. . . . If Socialist Britain were to adopt an isolationist attitude towards Europe, and try to build her future exclusively on the Commonwealth and the American connection, the result, within a few years, would be a Franco–German alliance, dominated by the Ruhr magnates and the Comité des Forges, and determined to drive us out of every market. The case for Western Union is still as strong as when the Foreign Secretary proclaimed it as Labour policy in January 1948.16 Many continental socialists, the pamphlet went on, complain bitterly that Labour Britain shares the responsibility for the decline of the democratic left in Europe in recent years, so that they are now mainly subordinate members of rightwing coalitions. This is partly unfair, the authors thought, but not entirely so, for some Labour ministers had given the impression that ‘Labour Britain today is at heart isolationist, and seeks to obtain special advantages for itself by exploiting the Anglo–American connection’. In his memoirs Healey observed that, after the war: ‘Among socialists on the Continent, the British Labour Party . . . had a prestige and influence it never enjoyed before or since’.17 He did not examine the reasons for the decline in that prestige and influence, nor whether he played a part in bringing it about.
24 Labour’s European Dilemmas
One of the influences on Labour’s attitude to the ECSC was suspicion of continental Roman Catholics. Bevin shared it. Even the levelheaded Younger was wary: ‘the Catholic “black reaction”, which I always thought to be a big driving force in the Council of Europe’.18 Although the New Statesman questioned whether Attlee was prepared to see the idea of European Union monopolised by an unholy alliance of the Vatican, the Comité des Forges and the Ruhr, it was not absolutely opposed to government policy. However, it averred, since Briand’s 1930 proposal the strategic, political and economic arguments for unity had become stronger, but the obstacles had become greater. Among them was ‘the divergence between the British Welfare State and the “free enterprise” Governments of France, Belgium, Italy and West Germany’.19 British socialist exceptionalism was alive. A week later the same journal asked: ‘Do our internationalists really want to add a third Leviathan to the two already in conflict?’ So the third force was out. The New Statesman sought an OEEC-type organisation for Europe’s coal and steel problems; nothing more. For once, it fully reflected the Labour government’s attitude.20 So unification in western Europe was either a stepping stone to wider unity or a hindrance, according to one’s point of view. This division was to dog the Labour Party through the following four decades. Many in France and some in West Germany had doubts about the Schuman proposals: the former from fear of a revived Germany, the latter because of the role the Ruhr steelmasters had played in promoting the Nazis. The German SPD boycotted the ECSC institutions for some years. But, unlike the British and Scandinavians, they were not against supranationality as a principle. This left the field to the Roman Catholics, who already held to an ideology that transcended and had long preceded national boundaries. Some on the continent saw a united Europe as a revival of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire. Three Catholic leaders, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Alcide de Gasperi were all from those borderlands where Germanic and Latin cultures meet and had long clashed. The first, born in Luxembourg, where his parents had sought refuge during the Franco–Prussian war, as a Lorrainer subsequently served in the imperial German army. The second was from the Frenchinfluenced Rhineland. The last, from the German–Italian South Tyrol/Alto Adige, sat in the German-speaking imperial Austrian parliament before the First World War. These frontaliers had backgrounds far from those of Bevin the Bristol docker, Morrison the cocky Cockney and Attlee, whose Haileybury public school had prepared so many young men to rule over pine and palm.
Into the Breach? 25
The Six – as they were becoming known – went on. At the end of July they reached broad agreement on the Schuman proposals and on 18 April 1951 signed the Paris treaty: the European Coal and Steel Community came into being on 10 August 1952. Its High Authority had Monnet as president. Now he could put his ideas into effect, although within more constraints than he had wished. Nonetheless, the preamble to the Treaty saw the ECSC as ‘the first step to the federation of Europe’. (The Rome treaty, of six years later, was to refer only to ‘an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’.)
To most British eyes, that dangerous federalism in the Council of Europe loomed in another field: human rights. The United Nations had issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and a universal convention to back it up was under discussion. The first session of the Council of Europe Assembly had recommended the framing of a convention for Europe, where, it was felt, the recent history of fascism and the current subjection of eastern Europe to Soviet power underlined the need for more specific and earlier action than UNO could provide. London was cautious: why was purely European action needed? By the summer of 1950 interested Whitehall departments, according to Younger, had agreed that mutual consultation had resulted in a draft convention which met their views. Between the lines of the Cabinet minutes, however, it is clear either the Treasury or the Foreign Office had failed to keep in enough contact with the Chancellor. Cripps thought the draft would only be acceptable to those who believed in a free economy and a minimum amount of state intervention in economic affairs. Would the draft provisions on property rights jeopardise further public ownership? There was concern also that Article 25 would give individual citizens the right of direct appeal to the proposed court of human rights. ‘It was intolerable that the code of common law and statute law which had been built up in this country over many years should be made subject to review by an International Court administering no defined system of law’, the minutes record.21 Lord Chancellor Jowitt put it more colloquially: ‘We are not prepared to encourage our European friends to jeopardise our whole system of law, which has been laboriously built up over the centuries, in favour of some half-baked scheme to be administered by some unknown court.’22 By October the government ruefully decided that it was politically necessary to go ahead with a convention, subject to reservation. Article 46 on the jurisdiction of the proposed court was worrying: it ‘would
26 Labour’s European Dilemmas
seriously compromise the sovereignty of Parliament’ by making the British legislative process subject to review by the European court. On the right of individual citizens of direct petition, Bevin gave his answer to the Commons: ‘We think that in this country, with our obligations not only at home but also overseas, our procedure for appeals stands very high, and we are not prepared, without further thought, to hand over those appeal rights to another body.’23 Finally, still with misgivings, Britain accepted the convention, taking advantage of the provision to opt out from Articles 25 and 46.
In the meantime there were more immediate concerns. On 25 June 1950 communist forces from North Korea attacked South Korea, distracting attention from a Schuman Plan debate in the Commons the following day. What did this mean for Europe? Would Stalin also march? The summer of 1950 was fraught. The government sent an army brigade and sea and air units to Korea to fight under the UN flag, and under American command. This major contribution, like the British nuclear bomb, was to demonstrate that the country was still a world power. Compulsory military service was raised to two years. The armed forces totalled 688 000 men and women. Defence spending at 7.4 per cent of GNP already took proportionately more than in any other western country; the government proposed to raise this to over 9 per cent over three years. Aneurin Bevan, Harold Wilson and John Freeman resigned from the government in protest at the charges on NHS spectacles imposed as part of civil budget cuts to help finance the military programme. The question whether West Germany should contribute to western defence became pressing. The previous autumn Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the newly formed German Federal Republic, had raised the issue of a western response to the Bereitschaften, the armed militia in the Russian zone, emerging as the German Democratic Republic. Western generals wanted more divisions; few politicians were enthusiastic, except in Washington; the general public even less, including the West Germans. In March 1950 Bevin had said, ‘we are all against it . . . we want to bring France and Germany together, talking about rearming Germany in any form is going to set the clock back’.24 Recruiting an armed police force rather than an army in the Federal Republic did not alter the fact that, only five years after the war, distrust of Germans under arms was deep and widespread. Adenauer’s suggestion of a federal European army was initially dismissed in Paris.
Into the Breach? 27
While generals and politicians wrestled with how to match military needs to political sensitivities, Monnet feared his still embryonic coal and steel plan might vanish. The result was another of his proposals known to history under a politician’s name, the Pleven Plan for ‘a European army’. As with Schuman, the British Cabinet decided that it would neither join in nor oppose the idea, about which scepticism was widespread. The plan was aimed at French public opinion not at military effectiveness. Like the Schuman Plan it ostensibly offered Germany equality, but did not in fact. Neutralism revived in both France and Germany. Even when dressed up with a proposal for a European Political Community it satisfied no one. Most opinion in the Labour Party held that armed Germans, whether dressed in European uniforms or not, were quite undesirable. From left to right views were similar, even if motives varied. What the debate did bring out was the depth of hatred of Germans among much of the British public, in many ways to prove stronger and more and long-lasting than in countries which had suffered direct Nazi occupation and terror.25 But, as Barbara Castle was to comment, Dalton’s ‘xenophobic slogan “No guns for the Huns” was not to anyone else’s taste’.26 As the arguments dragged on the uncertain future of the EDC increased the likelihood of a wholly West German army being formed. The Labour conference in September 1954 had 63 resolutions on German rearmament before it, overwhelmingly hostile. But by then the EDC was dead: in August 1954 the French National Assembly had rejected it. But the main objective was achieved: West Germany was rearmed and joined both NATO and Western European Union, the enlarged defence grouping with Italy and the five signatories of the Brussels treaty of 1948. Issues of peace and war resonated through the Labour Party in the opposition years of the fifties, with – Suez apart – sharp divisions of opinion, culminating in the sharpest of all over unilateral disarmament.
Labour in government in 1945–51 had five opportunities to accept continental proposals that would have formally limited Britain’s national sovereignty. In two cases, the Marshall Plan and the Council of Europe, the first Attlee government ensured that decision-making would be on an intergovernmental basis; in two other cases, ECSC and EDC, as British power waned, the second Attlee government responded with blank refusals; in the fifth case, the European Convention on Human Rights, Labour accepted the framework, subject to opt-outs. The Marshall Plan was transient. The defence community was aborted.
28 Labour’s European Dilemmas
The Council of Europe was – thanks largely to the British – marginalised for 40 years until the collapse of communism provided it with the new task of teaching ex-communist states democracy and the rule of law. Only the Coal and Steel Community survived much as its originators intended. In each case Britain had had the power to mould the nascent organisation to – or at least towards – its own desires and needs, while satisfying continental demands for formal commitment. In each case it refused. The ramparts of its national sovereignty were not to be breached. As diplomat Nicholas Henderson commented: ‘We had every Western European Government eating out of our hands in the immediate aftermath of the war. . . . We could have stamped Europe as we wished.’27 This course was refused for various reasons: the belief that Britain was still a great power, that transatlantic and Commonwealth ties were more important than European, that the British and continental economies were competitive not complementary, that the continentals were too weak and unreliable to stand up to the international dangers of the day, and that formal institutions would restrict Britain’s freedom of action. The Conservative Party shared these objections. The Labour Party had another of its own: that the democratic socialism which it was building in one country would be sullied by too close an association with governments that did not share this ideology. The party was understandably proud of its achievements. Unemployment was lower in 1950 than probably ever before. Much war damage had been repaired. The National Health Service had brought a quality – and an equality – of treatment for more people than ever before. This contrasted graphically with conditions in most continental countries (the Netherlands and Scandinavia were exceptions) where unemployment was high and differences in wealth stark, and governments were often unstable and incompetent. The fruit of French planning, German currency reform and Italian commercial and technical ingenuity were in the future. By 1950 Britain’s external payments were in balance. On the other hand the 1949 American recession showed how vulnerable the economy was to external winds. Socialism was built on uncertain foundations.
In Heads in the Sand, Kim Mackay argued that all the European treaties that Britain had signed since the war were ‘new constitutional forms’. But while (questionably) claiming their constitutional novelty, he simultane-
Into the Breach? 29
ously complained that they are all intergovernmental, and so surely not fundamentally novel. The greatest change in British constitutional practice in the late forties – and one which would have strengthened his argument – he ignored. The North Atlantic treaty was far more of a commitment than any initiative limited to Europe. In Article IV the signatory states agreed that armed attack on one ‘shall be considered an attack against all of them’. So, in the event of aggression against a swathe of the northern hemisphere from Alaska to Thrace (and to Kurdistan after Turkey joined in 1951), NATO took the decision for war or peace out of the hands of the British parliament and government. It also put British forces in an integrated command under foreign generals, hitherto only known in wartime. If the ultimate expression of national sovereignty is self-defence, the NATO treaty derogated far more from British sovereignty than the ECSC would have done. But what is sovereignty? ‘Formal sovereignty concerns legal rights. Effective sovereignty [or independence] concerns the practical power to exercise those rights. Autonomy concerns the results achieved by their exercise’, is one concise definition.28 The Labour governments between 1945 and 1951 were so eager to maintain their formal sovereignty that they did not understand (or were not prepared publicly to acknowledge) how both effective sovereignty and autonomy were slipping from their grasp. The failure to understand the distinction between formal and effective sovereignty was crucial in the British dispute over European policy which lasted for the rest of the twentieth century. In New Fabian Essays, published in 1952, the editor Richard Crossman wrote: ‘If, deluding ourselves that the Commonwealth is an independent power bloc, we stand aloof from Europe, we forfeit the leadership of Europe, which could be ours.’29 Healey’s essay was unrepentant: It is no accident that in their approach to European unity since 1945 the socialist parties of Britain and Scandinavia have been the most conservative – for they have the most to preserve. Economic factors reinforce the trend towards nationalism in a governing socialist party: in a world predominantly capitalist, national economic planning may often be inconsistent with forms of international cooperation a laisser-faire government would be willing to accept.30 However, Healey did concede that, ‘As Germany revives Britain may be compelled to integrate herself more deeply with Europe than is
30 Labour’s European Dilemmas
compatible with her economic and political interests’.31 In retrospect in 1989 he revised his view of the ECSC: I now believe that Paris was worth a mass. Britain might have done better to pay the same lip-service as others to the idea of European federation. Certainly, if we had gone to Messina in 1955, the Rome Treaty would have emerged in a form far more favourable to British interests than it had assumed when we finally signed it in 1973. The French are right to say: ‘Les absents ont toujours tort’.32
A sixth invitation to Britain to join in European integration came in 1955 when Labour was out of office. As many had predicted, the Conservative government’s European policy after 1951 was similar to Labour’s; and it lacked the ideological crutch on which Labour had leant so heavily. The Conservatives own crutch was less specific: they were more in favour of German rearmament and the EDC (though just as opposed to British membership). When the EDC collapsed they recast the Brussels treaty structure as Western European Union including West Germany and Italy. Morale was low among the Six. They hesitantly agreed to consider a common market. Britain was invited to take part without any prior condition about supranationality. Conservative Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden and Foreign Secretary R.A. Butler thought the matter a bore. Sir Anthony Nutting, Foreign Office Minister of State, was refused permission to attend the meeting the Six had arranged at Messina. The government considered the matter primarily as about trade, and not of great moment. The Board of Trade sent an under-secretary, Russell Bretherton. At that stage a free trade area was not ruled out by the Six.33 The ECSC was looking backwards, not just to generations of Franco–German conflict, but also to when coal and steel were the sources of economic and military power. The Second World War had seen new weapons – electronics, jet propulsion and the atom – in which Britain had a head start over the continent. France initially saw a joint European initiative in atomic energy as more promising than a common market. For that it needed Britain. At Messina there would have been a welcome from France. Labour sentiment was suspicious of the atomic proposal, seeing it as a means whereby France and – more fancifully – West Germany would acquire nuclear weaponry. The Gaitskell Plan for neutralising central Europe – including the whole of Germany – was one response. The
Into the Breach? 31
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was another. Leftwing critics of the Rome treaty were justified in considering it based on capitalism and on free trade. It was certainly more laissez-faire than the Spaak Report prepared after Messina and which provided the basis of the treaty. As Holland noted, ‘negative’ policies, such as removing trade barriers, are easier to implement than ‘positive’ ones, such as regional development programmes.34 Whether Labour or the Conservatives bear the greater responsibility for the inept handling of Britain’s relations with the continent in the forties and fifties is a matter of debate.35 In Labour’s favour it can be said that it was interested in a coal and steel plan, but not on Monnet’s terms. Its arrogance prevented accepting the invitation and turning it to its advantage. Labour’s persistent refusal to take part in supranational schemes (or, in the case of Schuman, even to talk about it) was a historic mistake, its attitude coloured by prejudice although not wholly irrational in the perspective of the time. ‘It wasn’t obvious until the mid-Fifties that the bolt-from-the-parisian-blue in May 1950 effectively terminated British leadership in Europe’, Hennessy noted.36 The Conservatives have less excuse. They were even more arrogant over the Messina invitation, when no precondition about supranationality was attached. It was potentially much more than the ECSC had been. But as the subsequently much-maligned Bretherton recorded at the time: If we are prepared to take a firm line, that we want to come in and will be a part of this, we can make this body into whatever we like. But if we don’t say that, something will probably happen and we shan’t exercise any influence over it.37 Perhaps they hoped that like the EDC Messina would fail, leaving Britain in a strong position in the aftermath. But it did not, while Suez further shook British complacency. That adventure demonstrated the hollowness of the belief that being head of the Commonwealth gave Britain great power status, and it showed in humiliating fashion that Britain could not pursue a forward policy overseas against American wishes.38
A new voice was heard in the Labour ranks on Europe. In July 1956 Crossman, Roy Jenkins and four other Labour members put down an EDM calling on the government to participate in the negotiations
32 Labour’s European Dilemmas
between the Six, while recognising both the advantages and disadvantages and seeking ‘appropriate compensating concessions for the risks and sacrifices involved’. It eventually won the support of 82 Labour members from Right, Centre and Left, including Emmanuel Shinwell.39 The TUC was less enthusiastic. The General Council argued that joining the common market would mean ‘a central organisation . . . able by collective decision to overrule the wishes of any particular government. Such a surrender of economic sovereignty would not be acceptable . . .’.40 But it concluded: ‘when in doubt it will probably be better to . . . be associated with something which might inevitably touch our interests and ideals at so many different points’.41 Jenkins, on 26 November, told the Commons that it was an affair of men as much as it was of packages: we are at least as concerned with the political consequences and political implications as with striking a very narrow balance between a particular degree of economic advantage or disadvantage. . . . I agree with the Chancellor that it is impossible for us to contemplate going into a full customs union. . . . But a free-trade area, with our own control over external tariffs, is a different matter. He was almost alone in looking beyond the trade issue: ‘I believe that even on economic considerations the balance of advantage . . . lies clearly in our participation in the plan . . . the political considerations point wholly in favour of participation.’42 The British discovered that, once the Rome treaty had been signed four months later, in March 1957, a free trade area was no longer on offer. The French, having got their own interests satisfied (including the farmers and colonies) in the negotiations between the Six, did not want to see the bundle untied again and repackaged in another, looser form. Not only in France did it appear that Britain wanted it all ways: preference for Commonwealth imports and protection for British farmers, but access to the Six for its manufactures. The upshot was ‘Europe at Sixes and Sevens’ (in the favourite cliché of the time). The Six went on to a customs union with political institutions. The Seven just dropped the tariffs on their mutual trade while maintaining their own tariffs on imports from other sources, and protecting their farmers largely at will. In 1956 Aneurin Bevan became shadow Foreign Secretary, marking a truce at least, political and personal, in his war with party leader Hugh Gaitskell. Many of Bevan’s supporters were shocked by an apparent
Into the Breach? 33
volte face over nuclear disarmament when he appealed to the 1957 conference not to send a future Labour foreign secretary ‘naked into the conference chamber’ in advance of any international disarmament negotiations. After his resignation in 1952, describing his political philosophy, he had written: It is clearer to me than it was then [in his youth] that the nation is too small an arena in which to hope to bring the struggle [for democratic socialism] to a final conclusion. It is true whether the nation is large or small. Thus the attainment of political power in the modern state still leaves many problems outside its scope. National sovereignty is a phrase which history is emptying of meaning. . . . Many seeing this are inclined to turn away from the difficult task of establishing Socialism in their own country. They say, ‘What is the use of doing so? We shall find ourselves possessed of only a partial victory. Only world victory will suffice, so let us concentrate on that.’ This is an engaging view and many have succumbed to it. . . . If you are going to plan the world you must first of all control the part of it that you want to fit into the whole.43 Yet when faced with the opportunity to try to control the European part of the world through the Common Market Bevan’s view was less farsighted. In Tribune on 30 August 1957 he wrote: The conception of the Common Market . . . is the result of a political malaise following upon the failure of Socialists to use the sovereign power of their parliaments to plan their economic life . . . It is an escapist conception in which the play of market forces will take the place of political responsibility. Continental socialists, he believed, had the ‘appearance of being permanently empirical’; the Common Market was ‘a gimmick’. He wanted socialism in one country before trying to extend it to a continental or world level. But that brought back the dilemma of a socialist Britain being called on to collaborate – or even integrate – with non-socialist states.
In the late fifties some in the Labour Party began to consider other options for Britain than the spatchcocked EFTA. A few outside parlia-
34 Labour’s European Dilemmas
ment were eager federalists: Norman Hart, John Bowyer, Colin Beever, Maurice Foley and Bob Jarrett, then on the staff of Federal Union. This group outpaced in its enthusiasm the more staid European Movement. The monthly Socialist Commentary, influenced by its origins among continental exiles of the Socialist Vanguard group during the war, in September 1957 published a lengthy section on Europe. The reluctance of the labour movement to embrace Europe, it argued, was because, Industrialists know by reason of their daily business that they cannot live isolated in this island – the majority of them have, after all, to buy and sell abroad in order to live. But the ordinary worker has no such feelings. For him Italians and Belgians are ‘foreigners’ representing a threat to his carefully cultivated world. It would require a truly great man to become his elected leader on a ticket which appeared to favour free movement of workers and the free entry of products produced by ‘foreign’ labour. The British worker has still to be educated in the advantages – and to be convinced. By 1959 some union leaders were active in the pressure group Britain in Europe: among them were some from the miners and the steelworkers who had regular links with their continental equivalents under the association agreement signed by Britain and the ECSC in 1954. AEU research officer Beever edited European Labour Bulletin for the Federal Union. Durham miners’ leader Sam Watson (pace Herbert Morrison in 1950) wrote an introduction to Hart’s 1958 pamphlet Britain in Europe: Viewpoint for the Labour Movement. ‘To advocate high ideals is one thing, to establish machinery to curb the impulsive nationalism of the 20th century is another.’ This evokes Attlee’s comment on his own 1939 remarks about the need for federation in Europe: ‘to bring such ideas into the region of the practical is a very difficult proposition’.44 Attlee’s own position was still ambiguous. In 1959 he led a British delegation (which included Jenkins) to a federalist conference in Wiesbaden. He was ‘a profound believer in world federalism’, he told the participants, and though the British ‘are of Europe’, some ‘would say we are . . . partly in Europe and partly outside’.45 Both in 1962 and in 1967 he was to oppose British membership of the Community. Kenneth Harris comments that he was ‘positive about Europe in principle . . . but dilatory in practice’.46 Patrick Gordon Walker is less kind,
Into the Breach? 35
saying that Attlee had a ‘Douglas Jay-like contempt for foreigners’.47 So there is something of a parallel between Attlee and Crossman – though neither would have appreciated the comparison. The former advocated European federation in the face of the fascist threat in the late thirties, but forgot it when the danger passed; the latter was eager for unification on a third force basis ten years later, but lost interest as the Cold War emerged. The fifties closed with Harold Macmillan’s ‘you’ve never had it so good’ election and the Conservatives’ third win in a row. Before the election Penguin Books asked Lord Hailsham, Roger Fulford and Jenkins to write books on their parties’ policies. On Europe Hailsham expressed some passing platitudes about European civilisation and Fulford was an enthusiastically federalist Liberal. Jenkins was positioned between them, regretting the failure of the wider free trade area negotiations but reticent about advocating precise further action. He feared that Britain’s poor technological progress, low investment and low growth would worsen in isolation: ‘There is a real danger that the United Kingdom may become a stagnant economic backwater, cut off from the swift-flowing mainstream of European economic growth’, a concern that was to be the primary theme of the pro-Marketeers (of all parties) in later years. Denouncing the nostalgia for greatness, Jenkins wrote: There is no point in proclaiming our role as an imperial power and a unique world influence, or even of boasting of the strength and importance of sterling, if it is all done on the hollow foundation of a decaying economy. . . . Our neighbours in Europe are roughly our economic and military equals. We would do better to live gracefully with them than to waste our substance by trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the power giants of the modern world.48
3 Gaitskell and de Gaulle
Vicky (Victor Weisz), Evening Standard, 11 September 1962 Personality: High Gaitskell
‘The end of a thousand years of history’ – Hugh Gaitskell1 In 1960 Castro was imposing communist rule in Cuba and the Soviets consolidated their power in eastern Europe by blocking off East from West Berlin. In western Europe President de Gaulle was replacing the political uncertainties of the Fourth Republic with the Fifth, tailored to his requirements, and easing his country out of Algeria. Though opposed to the Common Market at its inception, he now accepted it, using it when it served his purposes. Keeping Konrad Adenauer in close support, de Gaulle gained the uneasy acquiescence to his policies of the other four Community states. The European empires in Asia were largely gone; America’s embroilment in Vietnam was to come. 36
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 37
Independence for Ghana in 1957 began a scramble out of Africa. In the Middle East the Cold War protagonists vied for influence. At Commonwealth conferences the growing number of heads of state who lined up to be photographed with the Queen was gratifying to Britain. In truth, the numbers grew in reverse ratio of Britain’s power in the world. Having rejected leadership in Europe in between 1945 and 1950 and partnership in 1955, Britain would for the next 40 years be a demandeur – translated brutally, ‘a supplicant’. The Macmillan government began to sideline the European Free Trade Association even before it came into operation. The first cuts in the tariffs on the seven member countries’ mutual trade were made on 1 July 1960. Earlier that year the Cabinet had set up a committee of senior civil servants under Sir Frank Lee to make a fundamental reappraisal of external policy. It was now accepted that Britain’s European policy in the late fifties had aggravated rather than improved relations with the Six. The committee’s conclusions, in a confidential memorandum The Six and the Seven: the Long-term Objectives, went to the Cabinet on 13 July. It concluded: If the Six ‘succeed’, we should be greatly damaged if we are outside, and our influence in world affairs would be bound to wane; if we were inside, the influence we would wield in the world would be enhanced. . . . If, on the other hand, the Six ‘fail’, there would be great damage to Western interests, and the weakening of Europe which would follow would be a serious matter for the United Kingdom; it would be too late for us to prevent failure when a breakdown is seen to be coming, but if we were already in, we could probably strengthen the European bloc and prevent its disintegration.2 The first public pointer to a change in British policy came on 25 July. The Commons debated an anodyne resolution ‘welcoming a suitable arrangement’ to achieve political and economic unity in Europe, which was accepted with one Liberal and one Labour MP dissenting. The potential for change in the British attitude was exemplified by the recognition by Harold Wilson, as spokesman on trade, that the Community was ‘a reality going from strength to strength, which in political and economic terms had gained coherence, strength and selfconfidence to an extent which perhaps few people – certainly few people in this country – would have thought possible when the Rome Treaty was signed’. But British membership, he said, would ‘destroy the whole
38 Labour’s European Dilemmas
balance’ of the Rome treaty, which would require ‘very substantial redrafting’. He suggested an arrangement between EFTA and the EC as a unit, and came curiously close to implying that the commitment of Austria, Switzerland and Sweden to neutrality should determine British policy.3 Wilson also, in passing, started to undermine the fervent Labour belief in British exceptionalism by noting that, ‘A number of countries in the Six are now outstripping us in the provisions they make for social services’, but he blamed the Conservatives for that.4 It was a backbencher, Austen Albu, who marked out the parameters of the debate that was to develop in the Labour Party. Wilson, he said, seems to me to have become an extreme liberal free trader who appeared to want to encourage the development of free trade without any of the safeguards that the Common Market has against dislocations caused by the abolition of tariffs between countries. I do not want that sort of free trade area. The Commission members were not liberal free traders, he contended: ‘. . . in the eyes of Dr Erhard [the German economics minister] they are very dangerous dirigistes’. He was impressed by the Community’s pragmatism. It is not the high-falutin Continental constitution-mongering of which we have accused Europeans in the past. Each step is laid down in the Treaty, but each step is taken only after the fullest examination of existing conditions and after agreement among the Council of Ministers, which is a confederal not federal institution.5 How Britain should respond was a matter of limited interest during the next twelve months. The Labour Party itself was consumed by other passions. That autumn, the conference at Scarborough saw bitter warfare over nuclear disarmament, with Hugh Gaitskell’s avowal to ‘fight, and fight, and fight again’ against unilateralism. Although the policy was reversed the following year, Gaitskell was deeply scarred. At this stage, the party leader was thought to be on balance in favour of joining the Community.
Much of the argument about British entry to the Community depended on the interpretation of trade statistics and forecasts of trends. Before the First World War, when Britain appeared at the
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 39
height of its imperial power, it had nonetheless done nearly 40 per cent of its trade with other European countries, compared with under one-third with its own overseas possessions. In the thirties, thanks to revolutions, world slump and autarkic policies – of which Imperial Preference was one example – the proportion of Britain’s trade with Europe was much the same, but the Commonwealth proportion had risen to 43 per cent by 1938. After 1945 the devastation of war, the division of Europe and payments problems hampered recovery to inter-war levels. In 1951 half of British exports went to the Commonwealth and only one-quarter to western Europe. But during the fifties the difference steadily narrowed. Moreover, from the midfifties onwards trade between the industrialised countries was growing faster than trade between the industrialised countries and the less developed economies. As part of this, Britain’s trade increasingly focused on western Europe as the dynamism of the Six, initially engendered by post-war reconstruction and then extended in anticipation of the mutual removal of tariff barriers, made itself felt. Between 1954 and 1960 total world exports rose by 46 per cent, but total exports by Commonwealth countries went up by only 32 per cent. Intra-Commonwealth exports showed an even more modest rise of 17 per cent. As a trading area the Commonwealth was offering to its members only limited scope for expansion. In particular, Britain offered little export opportunity for other Commonwealth countries. There was only a limited amount of primary produce or the manufactures or semi-manufactures that Commonwealth countries produced that the country could absorb. The argument that Britain’s commercial future lay primarily with Europe and other high-growth areas was to be a key argument in the case for Britain joining the Community. Furthermore, on gaining their independence, Commonwealth countries were more and more diverging from the trade patterns imposed by the imperial connection. The Old Dominions of Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand had long protected their infant industries from British competition. India and other New Commonwealth countries also wanted to industrialise more and had no inhibitions about raising protective tariffs on imports from the former imperial master. Besides, after 1957, the developing Commonwealth’s trade with the Six was itself rising sharply: Ghana, Uganda and Pakistan already traded more with the Six than with Britain. As Tom Soper wrote in a Fabian pamphlet: ‘The simple fact is that British interest in the Common Market is in part a consequence not a cause of the centrifugal forces operating within the Commonwealth itself.’6 The obliga-
40 Labour’s European Dilemmas
tions of membership of the Commonwealth appeared to be increasingly one-sided. Nor was that favourite of the Left, increased trade with the Soviet bloc, very promising. The Soviet Union could offer oil, timber and other raw materials, but little else. Suez notwithstanding, Britain had access to more politically reliable oil supplies. In return, Soviet needs were for heavy industrial goods – and long-term credits. Eastern bloc trade amounted to only 2.5 per cent of Britain’s total commerce in 1960. Nor were other western countries much more successful. These factors, along with those more political considerations cited in the Lee committee’s report, persuaded the Macmillan government to announce on 31 July 1961 that it would seek agreement to enter the Community. The major economic change demanded by membership of the Community would be the application of the common external tariff on British imports from the Commonwealth, the step that had inhibited British policy-makers in 1955–57. Whatever derogations might be obtained for particular products from particular countries, or however low the Community’s average tariff might prove to be (international negotiations to cut tariffs were a feature of the period), this meant the abandonment of the imperial autarky embodied in Commonwealth preference. Above all, the decision had major implications for agriculture, both domestic and Commonwealth; in the free trade area negotiations in 1957–58, and in EFTA, Britain had essentially ruled out any consideration of agricultural trade. Secondly, membership of the Community would demand some degree of political reorientation for Britain, giving greater priority to the third of its three circles, hitherto the least regarded.
In November 1960 the Labour Party’s finance and economic policy sub-committee was asked to consider the whole question of Britain’s relations with the Community. It called in the international sub-committee and some coopted members, including economists Thomas Balogh, Nicholas Kaldor and Robert Neild. The members could not agree on a memorandum by the international department. The upshot was two dissenting notes, one by Kaldor, the other by Neild and Roy Jenkins. The former, rebutting the idea that British industry could ‘be jolted into a new dynamic mould’ (to be known as the ‘cold shower’ theory), argued that tariff removal without devaluation would risk a profit recession and a fall in investment. Politically, Kaldor agreed that
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 41
Britain would bring stability to the Community, but entry might diminish British influence in other parts of the world. Kaldor’s arguments, Newman notes, were close to the line of Labour Left and Communist opponents of British membership and were often cited in the course of 1962.7 Neild and Jenkins contended that internationally Britain’s influence inside the Community would help the Commonwealth, which could not benefit from a weak Britain, that the Atlantic alliance would be strengthened, and that entry would stimulate the economy. They also criticised the ‘blimpish and nationalistic approach to the surrender of national sovereignty’. The NEC’s failure to agree on either a policy or a report by the following June portended an emerging divide. In the ‘yes’ corner were most of the Gaitskellites who supported the leader over unilateralism and over Clause IV. A few of them took an anti position, notably Douglas Jay. In the ‘yes’ camp at this stage were also some on the Left, notably those, like Bob Edwards, Eric Heffer and Walter Padley, with a background in the ILP. In the ‘no’ corner were most of the Left, plus a few centrists and rightwingers. It was only in the later sixties and the seventies that being anti-Market was a touchstone of the Left. An early salvo was the Fabian pamphlet of January 1961 by Evan Luard.8 Britain would have to consider whether the ties of geography or those of history were the more important, he argued. Objectors to the EC, he wrote, were always vague about the Commonwealth (which he considered compatible with EC membership, and vice versa). They ‘have rarely quoted specific objections or misgivings about closer British association with Europe on the part of other members of the Commonwealth’. He was right, for although Commonwealth countries had particular interests to protect, the general view of their governments was that it was for Britain to decide. ‘The Commonwealth argument’ was very much a construct of the anti-Marketeers (of both major parties). Luard’s dispassion not only reflected his career as a diplomat and Oxford don but was also typical of the pro-Marketeers’ approach. Passion, whether for the Commonwealth or socialism, and against continentals or bureaucracy, was the hallmark of the anti-Marketeers. Luard’s text contained little to rouse the party activist. Passion was the greater in the anti camp not because they were arguing against change. They wanted change, but not that on offer. As Robins points out, it was difficult for the Labour pro-Marketeers to put forward arguments for British entry to the Community that differed fundamentally from those of the Conservatives.9 For the Left there was
42 Labour’s European Dilemmas
no need for Britain to try to solve its economic problems by entry into Europe: socialist planning was the answer. Although the extreme forms of state direction of the economy, which had characterised the wartime and early post-war years, were past, there was a belief throughout the party that indicative planning should have a major role in a mixed economy. This was a time also when the Conservatives too were far from the abandoning the ‘post-war consensus’. Advocates of British entry in the party started to act on a multi-party basis. In May 1961 the Common Market Campaign was launched, under the chairmanship of Lord Gladwyn, recently retired from the Foreign Office and now a Liberal peer. Jenkins was a vice-chairman. The founders were in the European Movement, founded in 1948; some in the more outspoken Federal Union, founded in 1939.10 The Campaign’s Statement on Europe was endorsed at the launch by 140 prominent people. Some 30 of them were members or supporters of the Labour Party, including 15 MPs, senior NUM figures Ernest Jones and Sir Will Lawther, and Shirley Williams, General Secretary of the Fabian Society. Another Labour supporter, Bob Jarrett, who had been working for Federal Union, became the campaign’s executive secretary. In July William Rodgers, a previous Fabian General Secretary, began to edit Common Market Broadsheet, which was closely modelled on the Campaign which he was already producing for the Campaign for Democratic Socialism. The latter was the first occasion on which the Centre-Right had felt it necessary to undertake an active campaigning role: the aim was to back up Gaitskell, propagate among party members the ideas he represented and combat the influence of the Left in the CLPs. Above all its aim was to reverse the 1960 conference triumph of nuclear unilateralism. In its manifesto of October 1960 CDS had stated that ‘we are convinced Europeans, certain that Britain’s destinies are bound up with those of a resurgent and united Europe’.11 Rodgers later agreed that some supporters were surprised by this stand on Europe. However, for many CDS supporters the fight to delete Clause IV from the party constitution (which demanded ‘public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’), to resist unilateral disarmament and to join the European Community were all part of the aim of achieving an effective and modern party.12 Polarisation intensified. Emmanuel Shinwell, although a signatory of the Jenkins-Crossman motion of 1956, now questioned the principle of entering a common market or accepting an economic union, much less political integration, in Europe. Sydney Silverman, eager federalist in the Keep Left days and best known for his passionate campaigning
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 43
against the death penalty, moved a motion on the adjournment on 28 June 1961. It expressed concern at the pressures to join the Community, with the ‘consequent threat to [Britain’s] independence and membership of the Commonwealth and its right and power to plan its economy in its own way’.13 Socialist Commentary complained in July: ‘On Europe, Labour has been as close as an oyster, without a pearl inside – no official pronouncements from on high, no bottom level discussion, no resolutions at union or Party conferences . . .’ There was ‘total unpreparedness of the rank and file’. Labour pro-Marketeers decided to form a body to campaign within the party. The proposed Labour European Committee, Colin Beever wrote in a memorandum for Jenkins on 13 August 1961, should be ‘formed by invitation, directly, to a select number of members of the Labour Party who have a sympathetic interest in European integration trends and Britain’s close association with the process’. The initial membership, he added, should include some well-known names from various sections of the movement and represent a wide spread of political opinion. The recruitment of individuals with specialised knowledge and from outside London was also advised. He stressed the need to counter the views of Tribune, Victory for Socialism (the current leftwing ginger group) and some union leaders.14 One volunteer to come forward was a young Sheffield City councillor named Roy Hattersley. Present at an inaugural meeting on 14 September were Jenkins, Albu, Jack Diamond and four other MPs, two peers, Williams, Jock Millar of the National Council of Labour Colleges (one of the few Marxists to stay the European course), Beever, Jarrett and Norman Hart. The last three, with John Bowyer, were a core of federalists. Federalism was ill defined, but it was not yet a general term of abuse. Jenkins became chairman of the Labour Common Market Committee, Diamond treasurer (as he was already for both CDS and CMC) and Beever secretary. At a press conference Jenkins claimed that 80 MPs supported the committee’s views. Far fewer put down their names at the time. Activities at party conference two weeks later were limited to personal proselytising and a tea meeting. At conference the first salvoes of a near three-decade conflict opened. Resolutions respectively opposing entry (by Clive Jenkins) and favouring entry (by Roy Jenkins) were rejected. The former, a pugnacious and vituperative Welsh official of the management union ASSET, contrasted sharply with his Anglicised compatriot namesake more given to the eloquent phrase and the historical allusion. Clive contended that the US wanted Britain in the EEC so that it could take over
44 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Commonwealth markets. ‘The supporters [of entry] . . . would like to see us join a Europe, or portion of Europe dominated by those we do not like and who do not like us’.15 Roy argued that British membership would in the long run benefit the Commonwealth, which had no wish for a customs union with Britain. He denied that membership of the Community would hamper social progress.16 Composite resolution 4, which was accepted with NEC approval, read: Conference does not approve Britain’s entry into the Common Market, unless guarantees protecting the position of British agriculture and horticulture, the EFTA countries and the Commonwealth are obtained, and Britain retains the power of using public economic ownership and planning as measures to ensure social progress in the United Kingdom.17 These four conditions (a year later to become five with the addition of control over foreign policy) were to provide the text for arguments of a theological intensity and complexity. Despite the initially negative wording of the resolution, they were terms, at least at this stage, which all could accept, on whichever side of the fence they were later to fall. The following January the LCMC claimed the support of 21 MPs (plus three future MPs), five peers, five leading trade union figures (including Sam Watson, leader of the Durham miners) and eight others. By March the total was 54, including 32 MPs and senior NALGO officer Geoffrey Drain. Twelve of these MPs were outright supporters of CDS and another four could be classed as revisionists in the party, thus making up half the LCMC’s parliamentary ranks. There were others among the Marketeers who by the conventional measures were on the left (or what was later known as the soft left). At this stage, Bob Edwards and Hugh Delargy are the easiest to place in this category, though others certainly claimed the title. Conversely, the proMarketeers did not have the support of all the Gaitskellites. In its initial statement the pro-Marketeers cited five aims: to cooperate with socialists, trade unionists and cooperators in Europe; to act as an information centre concerning the Common Market; to rally European-minded party, union and cooperative members; to ensure that the labour movement was as widely and well informed on Common Market questions; and to counteract biased anti-European propaganda.18 These terms were characteristically low key. The
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 45
committee decided that to discuss the issue in ‘a dispassionate way, by the objective presentation of facts and by the avoidance of emotional overtones’, they could the better influence opinion in the party and also better avoid charges of factionalism.19 The committee began to issue a monthly Newsbrief edited by Roger Broad,20 which reached a circulation of 5000. It had a plain, formal appearance in the style of most trade union periodicals of the time. Early issues gave membership figures for socialist parties, trade unions and cooperative societies in the Six in order to counter the widespread belief in the party that the continentals were unremittingly reactionary. Comparative levels of personal taxation and social benefits were also publicised, and also a description of the extent of state ownership of industry in the Six. The latter was much more extensive in the supposedly unprogressive France, Germany and Italy than in the Scandinavia whose social democracy won such high praise in the party. In the sixties public ownership of major industries, utilities and services was an unchallenged tenet in the party: the Clause IV issue was about its limits and whether state ownership was a necessary precondition to introducing socialist values. In April 1962 Oxford don Uwe Kitzinger wrote in The Guardian on a more sophisticated level to counter the arguments of LSE lecturer William Pickles, who brought brisk intellectual fisticuffs to the antiMarket cause. In contrast with Luard’s pamphlet, Pickles’ Not with Europe: the Political Case for Staying Out was a polemic. It was also the most articulate of all the writing and speeches on the anti side.21 His argument that the Community was a deal between federalists and proponents of laissez-faire was telling at a time when the belief remained strong that national planning could solve many of Britain’s economic difficulties. Pickles made much of bureaucracy in the Common Market, and of the secrecy in which decisions in the Council were reached. Where the treaty was vague, he attacked it on those grounds; where Common Market provisions appeared to be firm and fixed, he was also dissatisfied. Not least, he called in the differences between British and continental political and constitutional traditions, and identified a threat to Dicey’s dictum that one British parliament cannot bind its successors. Pickles was a convinced Gaitskellite, but his arguments on this issue had a powerful influence on the Left. Both camps were coalitions. On the pro-Marketeers’ side were federalists, few in number but persistent; then the socialist visionaries who called for a united socialist Europe as a first step towards a world government; there were social democrats who wished to see a mixed
46 Labour’s European Dilemmas
economy made more efficient by involvement in a larger market; there were those who saw the need for a European structure that would reconcile France and Germany; there were others who wished Europe to be a third force between the USA and the USSR; others saw the Six as a growing power bloc with which Britain would have to be associated if it was to retain a positive role in the world; there were some who saw western European solidarity, in military as well as political and economic terms, as essential insurance in the event of US withdrawal from the continent; others saw it as means of reinforcing the North Atlantic community. There were doubtless other, more private motives, and many partisans combined several of these views. In the anti camp there were two main strands. There were those on the left who saw EC membership as a constraint on socialism and on the freedom of a Labour government to plan the economy. These were the ideologues. British sovereignty was the main factor for others, notably Jay, Michael Foot and Peter Shore, who revered the constitution. These were the instinctuals. The two sides mingled, and whether motivated more strongly by one strand or the other used both arguments as needs be. There were other factors: there were anti-NATOists and plain pro-Soviets; those who believed that a modern economy could be planned in detail; there were anti-German, anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiments in play; some were suspicious of an organisation dominated by de Gaulle and Adenauer; some were Commonwealth idealists who welcomed the emergence from Empire of a free association of many races and saw Britain’s future in that grouping; some feared that British social services, industrial and regional planning and other aspects of Labour policy, actual or hoped for, would be threatened; some were ideologues who combined a seemingly impressive watertight analysis with a millennialist vision. Here too many individuals comprised a mixture of views and motives, at times self-contradictory. The main themes for and against were set early on, as indeed were most individual attitudes, and there were few variations over the years, except as events gave added ammunition to one side or the other. The antis were always able to bring more passion to bear, for it was always easier to argue that change – for the housewife, the farmer, the factory worker, the undeveloped countries – would be for the worse. The pro arguments were of their nature more tentative, being posited on expectations of the future in an evolving world. The antis’ concept was inherently static, implying that Britain’s global status was basically satisfactory (subject only to the benefit of having a Labour government –
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 47
or, better still, the establishment of socialism, however envisaged) and that the existing pattern of trade could continue indefinitely. It was this assumption that the pro-Marketeers questioned. In the calm of an Oxford senior common room, or in the carefully weighed phrases of a Whitehall position paper, the balance of probabilities could be assessed. But that was of little help in persuading an inner city or industrial constituency or union branch that jobs might or might not be lost, or that prices might or might not rise. The optimism of the sixties and seventies was yet to animate the British working class, for whom insecurity and the proximity of poverty remained very real. But in the last analysis the intellectual arguments took second place to how any one individual viewed the world. The grassroots appeal of the anti-Marketeers was clear early on. Some pro-Marketeers felt that this arose in part from Roy Jenkins, who provided both the main political and intellectual drive for their cause, but whose career in the party was always dogged by the accusation that he led a small metropolitan clique remote from the cares of ordinary party members. The recruiting of supporters in the provinces and the robust working-class character of some pro-Marketeers only partly offset this perception. They were generally far from being cosmopolitan (or even metropolitan) sophisticates. A few had a continental background or were accomplished linguists.22 Delargy was quite untypical: a fluent French speaker partly educated in a Gregorian college. The majority were unequivocally British. There could hardly be found a more English figure, for example, than Beever. He had left his Yorkshire school at 16 to take up an engineering apprenticeship, in his twenties winning a scholarship to Ruskin, the trade union college at Oxford, and by 1960 was assistant research officer for the AEU and later for NALGO.
The spring conference season of 1962 in the Labour movement gave the contenders the chance to make their case on a wider scene. The hope of many antis that the bulk of the unions could be swung firmly into their camp was disappointed. Only three union conferences, the railwaymen, draughtsmen and the woodworkers, voted clearly against entry, while only the municipal workers and the clerical workers were in favour, reflecting their general rightwing stance. Other unions preferred to wait until the terms being negotiated by the Tory government were clear. The TUC took a similar line, though the Scottish TUC came out strongly against membership. As with many other issues unions mostly followed the views of their leaders, though this varied according to their individual
48 Labour’s European Dilemmas
personalities and the powers granted them under their union’s constitution. In May Beever produced a pamphlet for Political and Economic Planning, an independent research body (soon to come under the direction of John Pinder, a pioneer federalist). Trade Unions and the Common Market reviewed the role of unions in the Six, noted the increasing levels of social benefits and the social provisions of the Rome treaty and argued that bringing in the full weight of the British unions would have a considerable impact on Community policies. The pro-Marketeers believed that their low-key approach accorded with the traditional pragmatism of the unions. In June 1962 the TUC General Council sent a memorandum on the measures that it believed an enlarged Community should adopt to Edward Heath, the government’s head negotiator. Drawing on the views of the ICFTU and the experience of unions in the Six, the memorandum was satisfied with the Community policy on controls on monopolies and restrictive practices, development councils and other organisations for promoting industry, nationalisation and direct and indirect taxes that did not discriminate against other member countries, would not hamper a Labour government. But it found the Rome treaty unclear on state aid to nationalised industries, capital issue controls and the use of variable interest rates to influence the distribution of industry. More positively, it called for a European reserve union that would, among other things, ease the risks to Britain of its Sterling Area liabilities. Failing this, some degree of national control over capital movements would be necessary, it stated. The TUC wanted a firmer commitment to full employment in Community policy-making, and also more specific content to the treaty provisions for upward harmonisation of living and working conditions. An increase in the Social Fund’s resources and its establishment as a permanent instrument was also sought. Finally, the TUC called for the maintenance of outlets for Commonwealth agriculture and for acceptable arrangements for the EFTA countries. Beyond this concentration on issues of practical interest to trade unions, the General Council expressed no views on the wider political or constitutional issues that were exercising so many on the political wing of the Labour movement.
Gaitskell’s attitude was of increasing importance, and of concern, to most of his political and, in many cases, personal friends. His economist’s training led him to conclude that the economic arguments for
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 49
going in were about evenly balanced. Consulting a range of other economists gave him no more certain an answer on one side or the other. A meeting with Jean Monnet in April 1962 proved a disaster. The Frenchman’s insistence that he should have faith provoked the response: ‘I don’t believe in faith. I believe in reason and you have not shown me any.’23 Gaitskell tried to keep reason dominant. However, as with many who seek to be motivated by unsullied intellect, his emotions were finally to become dominant with explosive force. On 8 May he made a broadcast that the pros felt was marginally in their favour; ‘. . . he is obviously determined not to let [Labour] be branded the antiCommon Market party’, the Daily Telegraph wrote.24 Throughout the summer he sought to maintain what he considered to be a dispassionate position: antis and pros alternately found comfort in his words. By mid-summer Jenkins concluded that Gaitskell was moving against membership on principle. But even in July the leader had hopes of bringing round the Left to accept entry if the terms were right. Apart from principles and beliefs there was also calculation. First, the negotiations were going through both good and bad phases; second, during the former it was believed that the Macmillan government might seize on a successful negotiation to call a general election, and win it on the back of an international triumph. Conversely, to many in the party an anti-market campaign appeared more promising. At the end of June National Opinion Polls showed that only 28 per cent of the electorate favoured entry, compared with 53 per cent at the end of 1961. That poll level was to prove particularly low for the pro view. There was a recovery later in the year, though never again to reach the 50 per cent mark. In such circumstances there was much argument, from one side or another, and from one party or another, on the advantages of fighting an election on the European issue. For Labour pro-Marketeers the idea of the party fighting an election on an anti ticket was fearful; some were so committed to joining that they would have been reluctant even to oppose extremely hard terms. In July Newsbrief argued, under the heading ‘The Electoral Mandate Myth’: Just suppose that Labour were unwise enough to declare itself dogmatically against entry, as the electoral mandate advocates desire, and that a general election was fought, with the Tories favouring entry. If the Tories won, again, nothing would have been changed. . . . There is no such thing as holding a general election on a single specific issue in this country, because the parties disagree
50 Labour’s European Dilemmas
over scores of issues, any one of which might be the deciding factor in which way people vote. This argument was to have renewed currency at intervals in the years that followed. The article continued: ‘Only a referendum could decide an issue such as Common Market entry, and this is something which has never yet found its way into British political or constitutional practice.’ In the same month Pickles, Barbara Castle (a 1947 Keep Left supporter), SOGAT officials Richard Briginshaw and Ron Leighton, and academic Michael Barratt Brown were Labour speakers at a conference of the Forward Britain Movement, run by Briginshaw. Leighton, later secretary of the Labour Common Market Safeguards Campaign, argued, that the government have no mandate to take this step [entry]; they never mentioned it at the last general election and they have no right to take this irrevocable decision without consulting the British people . . . there is no suggestion of consulting us either by a general election, a referendum, or, be it noted, even by a free vote in the House of Commons. Public consultation became a major issue in the Labour Party in the years that followed. Along with the Newsbrief reference, this was probably the first time that the idea of a referendum was raised, though on both sides the assumption was that it would not be employed to decide British membership of the Community.
Gaitskell had faced two major conflicts in the party: over Clause IV, he had lost; over unilateralism, he had won. Over Europe he could more easily risk alienating his political friends than risk a third, and probably unlucky, battle with his political enemies, unless the entry terms negotiated turned out to be exceptionally favourable. Labour was subject to lobbying from both the continent and the Commonwealth. EC socialists wanted Britain inside in order to tilt the balance against the conservative dominance. A meeting between Gaitskell and Paul-Henri Spaak proved as unprofitable as the earlier one with Monnet, and a great deal more acrimonious. By temperament and family background Gaitskell had a strong Commonwealth feeling. This was reinforced when Commonwealth Labour leaders
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 51
met on 8–9 September and issued an outspoken communiqué: ‘If Britain were to enter the Common Market on the basis of what has so far been agreed great damage would inevitably be done in the Commonwealth and therefore to the unity of the Commonwealth itself.’ Britain should not enter the Community ‘until the present vague promises and assurances have been converted into satisfactory agreements’.25 Despite its apparently categorical nature, the statement was in part aimed at strengthening the hand of British and Commonwealth negotiators. Labour pro-Marketeers issued a statement confirming their view that it was in the European, British and Commonwealth interest that Britain join the EC and noted that ‘within the Commonwealth Conference there was no general opposition to this course’. It would, the committee added, be short sighted to regard our bargaining position as exhausted once we have joined. On the contrary, it is likely to be stronger . . . we are more concerned, as Socialists and trade unionists, to express the immense dangers, as we see them, of British failure to secure admission. The result would be a loss both of influence and of prosperity for this country and the Commonwealth, coupled with a real possibility of Europe developing in the way we least want to see.26 On television on 21 September, Gaitskell replied to Harold Macmillan’s broadcast of the night before. Britain was being asked to abandon its existing trading arrangements but offered only ‘promises, vague assurances and nothing more’. The terms on offer confronted Britain with a choice between Europe and the Commonwealth, which he did not believe to be inevitable. ‘I don’t think the British people . . . will in a moment of folly, throw away the tremendous heritage of history.’ Gaitskell may have believed in reason but where his faith lay was becoming very clear. Rodgers wrote to key CDS supporters on 25 September expressing anxiety about the leader’s stance and that it was necessary to bring the party line back to a balanced position.27 LCMC members in the Commons on 27 September tried to soften his attitude but to little effect, although they concluded that he would not commit a Labour government to leaving the Community.28 At party conference in Brighton on 3 October Gaitskell spoke to the NEC’s statement on Europe. The document – which had been subject to some dispute in draft – opened encouragingly enough for the proMarketeers: ‘The Labour Party regards the European Community as a
52 Labour’s European Dilemmas
great and imaginative conception’, and gave a balanced presentation of the main pros and cons. The four conditions laid down the previous year – planning the economy, the Commonwealth, EFTA and agriculture – became five with the addition of ‘freedom as at present to pursue our own foreign policy’. But as his speech unfolded it became more and more clear why Gaitskell had been so careful to prevent deputy leader George Brown from seeing the final text. He spent ten minutes itemising the economic disadvantages but passed briefly and scathingly over the positive arguments. Nonetheless he claimed the economic arguments were no more than evenly balanced. Politically, he postulated a European federation, and repeated that it would mean ‘the end of Britain as an independent state . . . the end of a thousand years of history’. As he proceeded his passion increased, his antagonism towards the Community sharpened. The quality of this dislike is clearest from his sarcasm about a relatively minor matter which had been easily negotiated, the continuance of duty-free imports of tea into Britain: ‘We are allowed to drink our national beverage as we like. Very handsome!’ Yet for all this and much more, he imagined that he was still leaving the issue open: ‘We do not close the door. Our conditions can still be met; they are not impossible; they are not unreasonable.’29 No one else present believed anything but that he was leading the party against Europe, not least those who applauded and cheered him now but who had vilified him over both Clause IV and unilateralism. ‘All the wrong people are cheering’, Dora Gaitskell said to Charlie Pannell.30 ‘Tear-jerking patriotism and invocation of the imperial relics’, was how one leftwing commentator was to describe the speech.31 ‘The Empire was simply part of him’, believes Brivati.32 The Daily Herald Conference Report described how Sam Watson, the miners’ leader and Gaitskell’s most selfless ally over the years, sat through the speech with his head in his hands. Right at the end, his unbreakable loyalty overcame his dislike of the speech, and he stood with the rest, giving a token clap. Sam Watson’s whole bearing summed up at a glance the shock that he and some other union leaders were suffering. They felt let down. . . . They are also suspicious because Mr Gaitskell has accepted support from those who have opposed him on everything else for so long. Brown gave token applause. Jenkins stood; Rodgers and Diamond could not manage even that as the cheers echoed round them. Brown,
Gaitskell and de Gaulle 53
in winding up the debate, did what he could to save the day and the face of the pro-Marketeers. He stuck firmly to the letter of the NEC statement, trying to sustain a belief that the party was not irrevocably committed against the Community. The Daily Herald thought otherwise. There was minor consolation for the pros in that a motion by Clive Jenkins calling for an election before entry, was convincingly rejected. The next issue of Newsbrief desperately argued that ‘while it is undoubtedly true that Hugh Gaitskell’s speech encouraged antiCommon Market attitudes, it must be repeated that it has not altered the official Party position’. Privately, the pro-Marketeers were less confident. In November Socialist Commentary feared that the party was in danger of becoming the spokesman for all the chauvinists and xenophobes in the country. More immediately, it argued that if Labour tried to fight an election on the issue it would divert attention from the Tories’ failures. The whole issue lost its importance for reasons quite external to the party. The negotiations were dragging on, turning more and more on minor points of commercial detail. In December former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson caused fury and hurt in Britain by saying that Britain had ‘lost an empire and not yet found a role’.33 In the same month Harold Macmillan confirmed de Gaulle’s belief that Britain preferred the open sea to Europe by agreeing to buy the American Polaris nuclear missile to replace Britain’s abandoned Blue Streak.34 On 14 January 1963 the President gave a press conference, as stagemanaged as ever, and in his usual elliptical style effectively put an end to the matter. (So unclear was his style that his officials continued to negotiate for another fortnight.) Four days later Hugh Gaitskell, struck down before Christmas by an obscure sickness, died.
4 The Second Try
Vicky (Victor Weisz), Evening Standard, 28 April 1965 Personality: Wilson
‘We mean business’ – Harold Wilson1 De Gaulle’s veto removed Europe as an immediate issue. After successive traumata over nuclear disarmament, Clause IV and Europe, the Labour Party, under a new leader, Harold Wilson, could concentrate on the more rewarding task of uniting around policies on which to fight the next general election, which would have to be by October 1964 at the latest. As the pro-Marketeers agreed, entry to the EC would be no 54
The Second Try 55
panacea, and major changes in domestic economic policy would be necessary in any event. For the anti-Marketeers and for those with no strong views on entry, the hope of office provided a means to avoid the European issue: the National Plan would be enough. Over the leadership election the pros were divided between favouring George Brown and James Callaghan. The first was considered reliable politically but personally unstable, the other inconstant and politically agile though basically on the Right, but one for whom Europe was not (and never would be) an issue of principle. For the antis the choice was easier: Harold Wilson, overwhelmingly. For them, de Gaulle’s veto was entirely welcome. The abandonment of an immediate campaigning role by the proMarketeers was signalled by a change of name from Labour Common Market Committee to Labour Committee for Europe. The monthly Newsbrief was replaced by a quarterly review, entitled (with unconscious ambiguity), Europe Left, dedicated to ‘a Europe united, democratic, socialist, open, and aware of its responsibilities to the Third World’. The first editorial read: ‘To try to build socialism in one continent (as in one country) is not only a betrayal of our principles; in practice it would mean certain disaster’.2 The LCE in the following two years arranged a number of meetings jointly with Gauche Européenne, which provided an informal link between like-minded continental socialists and social democrats. The first such meeting, held at Oxford in July 1963, in conjunction with Socialist Commentary, brought together two dozen MPs and others from ten EC and EFTA countries; later meetings were in Brussels and Amsterdam. The pro-Marketeers thought the party’s mood was profoundly insular in assuming that Britain’s problems could be solved in a national setting alone. Outside parliament the Young European Left was set up by Colin Beever, Roger Broad,3 John Bowyer, Norman Hart, Bob Jarrett, Giles Radice, party staffers Jane Morton and John Clark, and two Oxford research students, Stanley Henig and Robert Skidelsky.
The German Social Democrats in 1959 had adopted the Bad Godesberg programme, which threw out their Marxist inheritance. The Labour Party, the only mass working-class movement in Europe to have evolved largely outside Marxist influence, was slower to reshape its own ideological heritage, as the Clause IV battle showed. Traditional British resistance to ideological fashions and extremes has many positive qualities; but lack of intellectual rigour fosters
56 Labour’s European Dilemmas
reluctance to abandon attitudes. Marx himself had died five years before Jean Monnet was born. For most Marxists the Common Market issue was simple: it was part of a desperate struggle of monopoly capitalism to postpone its unavoidable demise. Even many Labour Party members who consciously disavowed Marxist interpretations believed nonetheless that capitalism could be replaced wholesale. Accusations that Labour governments had merely tried to administer capitalism more efficiently and more justly were common coinage. In Europe Left, Socialist Commentary or other writing by pro-Marketeers, there was little that could be seen by the Left as serious social or political analysis. There was no encouragement for those who looked forward with visionary eye to the socialist transformation of society. This is one reason why the pro-Marketeers remained a minority in the extra-parliamentary party both in the short and the longer term. Both publications carried sober and critical material about contemporary affairs, but within social-democratic, ameliorative and Fabian parameters. Nor did the pro-Marketeers have a common or a clear view of how they wished to see the European Community evolve, how far, or how fast. There were some who wished to see the constitution for a federal union of European states, but most pro-Marketeers at this time argued for accepting the Rome treaty and then seeing how the Community developed in a pragmatic fashion. They eschewed the constitutional blueprinting dear to some continentals. At some future time, for example, there would be direct elections to the European Parliament, but there was little discussion of what powers the Parliament should have, or over how long a period and in which fields greater powers might be acquired. There were slow incremental increases in the Parliament’s powers under successive treaty changes. Direct elections did not take place until 1979. Other expected developments have taken even longer: in the January 1963 issue of Encounter, Roy Jenkins wrote how, on international express trains on the continent, a ‘few uniformed customs and passport officials wander ineffectually down the corridors’. He added: ‘Much busier and more useful are the money-changers who follow them – but they are likely to become almost equally quickly redundant’.4 The 30th anniversary of the article’s appearance saw the Community’s internal market effectively in place, and frontier controls on individuals abolished between most member states (Britain was an exception). But it would be almost the 40th anniversary before the single currency’s notes and coins came into everyday use.
The Second Try 57
Labour returned to government in October 1964 with a majority of four. With Patrick Gordon Walker, Denis Healey, Douglas Jay and Frank Cousins (of the TGWU) in leading positions, it was not an evidently proMarket Cabinet. Within 18 months, the conversion of the first, the ambivalent softening by the second, the sidelining and then replacement of the third and the resignation of the fourth would affect the balance. Wilson gave office to 20 LCE members – half its parliamentary membership. Jenkins (at Aviation, outside the Cabinet) was replaced as LCE chairman by Austen Albu; when he too became a minister, by Shirley Williams, now an MP. By the winter of 1964–65 the LCE’s recorded parliamentary supporters had risen to 56. New recruits included Roy Hattersley, Brian Walden, Ivor Richard, Maurice Foley, Edmund Dell, Tom Bradley and Eric Heffer. The last for some years filled a valuable role as proof that the pro-Marketeers had an outspoken and persuasive leftwinger in their ranks. He periodically reminded the anti-Marketeers that socialism required international action as well as words. The March 1966 election brought in Alan Lee Williams, Dick Leonard and Evan Luard. The anti-Marketeers were reinforced in 1964 and 1966 by Gwyneth Dunwoody, Christopher Price, Eric Varley and others. The government inherited a major foreign payments deficit. Shortterm liabilities were four times short-term assets, and sterling retained the questionably advantageous status of a reserve currency. The government panicked, fearing that a parity change would mean Labour being labelled as the party of devaluation. Even before the Cabinet first met a decision was taken by the Prime Minister and a few core ministers to defend the exchange rate parity and to impose a 15 per cent surcharge on top of normal import duties. The latter contravened international agreements, including the EFTA treaty. Obligations to the Outer Seven, paraded so ostentatiously as one of the ‘five conditions’, were abandoned overnight. Behind an appropriate smokescreen, the surcharge was reduced, then revoked. The government faced a forced devaluation three years later, with the National Plan destroyed and much damage to the economy and to its political confidence and reputation. The day-to-day problems of keeping in office on a narrow majority and the economic situation dominated the government’s actions. Yet the same longer-term considerations that had prompted the Macmillan government to make its 1961 entry bid remained. Wilson said in the Commons on 16 February 1965 that there was ‘no reason to suppose that the circumstances that led to the breakdown of the Brussels negotiations have changed’. Britain would be ready to negotiate membership if conditions relating to ‘essential British and Commonwealth interests could be
58 Labour’s European Dilemmas
fulfilled’.5 Prime ministerial visits to Paris and Bonn kept Britain in touch with the Community. The Six themselves experienced a crisis in mid1965, when President de Gaulle withdrew French representatives from all but minor routine meetings because of what he considered to be the excessive pretensions of the European Commission. Any temptation in London to exploit this opportunity was resisted, though a parliamentary question on 2 August gave a chance for the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Walter Padley (an LCE supporter), to observe that the ‘five conditions are not the ten commandments’. Reminded by Emmanuel Shinwell that the five conditions had been laid down by party conference, Padley observed that ‘facts can change even if the Conference resolutions remain’. The question of Britain’s relations with Europe, Padley added, ‘was not one of theology but a matter of practice’.6 The Community crisis was resolved in January 1966 by what is usually described as the ‘Luxembourg compromise’, in reality an agreement to differ between France on the one hand and the other five on the other. By recognising that no Community policy could be pursued against the firm opposition of a member state, it created the concept of the ‘veto’ on which both Labour and Conservative governments were to place great reliance in later years. The Community had demonstrated its pragmatism. In Britain, the barbed criticisms of the Community which characterised Wilson’s attitude in Opposition, were being replaced by more measured terms. The day after Padley spoke the Prime Minister told the Commons that the government was ‘prepared, willing and ready to join the Common Market if – but only if essential British interests’ were satisfied. So long as the common agricultural policy remained unchanged entry appeared impossible ‘without serious and damaging effects on Commonwealth imports into this country or the balance of payments’.7 Michael Stewart, now Foreign Secretary (not previously known as a pro-Marketeer and probably much influenced by his officials), and Brown at the fated Department of Economic Affairs were having a gradual effect on the government’s attitude. Cousins’ resignation in July and Jenkins’ entry to the Cabinet in December 1965 also shifted the balance. A rearguard action by Jay, at the Board of Trade, through a study of an alternative trade policy based on the Commonwealth, failed to convince his colleagues.8 By early 1966 events and circumstances, as well as the attitude of a growing number of his Cabinet colleagues, were causing Wilson to reflect. The pro-Marketeers called in aid such statistics as the 3.9 per cent growth in real GNP per head in the Six in 1960–65, against 2.6 per cent
The Second Try 59
in Britain; the growth in real wages between 1958 and 1967 of between 32 and 60 per cent in the Six, and 15 per cent in Britain; and from 53 to 125 per cent (Italy from a low base) growth in industrial production, against 33 per cent, over the same years. They could not promise similar results for Britain in the EC, but they claimed it likely. Their opponents queried the relevance of these statistics. Later they could point to the 1967 White Paper estimate, as a result of entry, of an extra 10–14 per cent on food costs and an overall 2.5 to 3.5 per cent increase in living costs, over a transitional period. Though the Prime Minister was to maintain a close relationship with President Johnson throughout 1964–70 (excessively close, many felt) the government’s initially almost exclusive orientation towards the Atlantic and the Commonwealth was changing. As America drifted into the Vietnam quagmire, Asia was becoming more immediate to it than Europe. The limitations, and the complications, of the Commonwealth were becoming clearer. In 1961–62 the Commonwealth issues in relation to Britain’s entry bid had mainly concerned trade. By 1967 Commonwealth issues were more diverse – Rhodesia, defence east of Suez, world poverty, race relations and the rise of China. Gwyn Morgan, Assistant General Secretary of the Labour Party in 1969–72, believes that a factor in Wilson’s conversion to a European role for Britain was disillusionment with the mediocrity and parochialism of many leaders he met at Commonwealth conferences.9 Sir Oliver Wright, then an official at No. 10, believes the outraged reaction in Scandinavia to the import surcharge was also an influence on Wilson.10 Journalist John Dickie asserted (without giving a source) that Wilson had privately come to the conclusion before the 1964 election that Britain’s future lay inevitably with the Community.11 Wilson was not alone in this shift. Tony Benn, in a diary comment on 14 January 1965, concluded that an English-speaking federation was ‘a pipedream and in reality the real choice lies between Britain as an island and a US protectorate, or Britain as a full member of the Six, followed by a wider European federation. I was always against the Common Market but the reality of our isolation is being borne in on me all the time.’12 Yet four months later he was discussing with Shore the formation of a new group to counter those who were working for Britain to join the Common Market; ‘Peter Shore and I are both really Gaullists these days’.13
Almost unnoticed, the 1964–66 Labour government took a radical step towards Europe, combined with the abandonment of a long-standing
60 Labour’s European Dilemmas
constitutional principle. Publicly, this was initiated by a Conservative MP, Terence Higgins who, on four occasions in 1964 and 1965, asked the Prime Minister whether the government would adopt Articles 25 and 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights, from which the previous Labour government had opted out. If adopted, these articles would respectively give UK citizens the individual right to petition the European Commission for Human Rights and require the UK to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.14 Even earlier, Lord McNair, the first President of the Court, had raised the matter with Lord Chancellor Gerald Gardiner.15 At this time 14 of the 17 member countries of the Council of Europe had ratified the Convention on Human Rights. In ten countries citizens had the right of individual petition and eight accepted the jurisdiction of the Court. On 22 December 1964 Higgins was told that the government was ‘looking into the whole matter’. Stewart and Gardiner early in 1965 agreed that they should accept the optional clauses. The latter wrote: ‘I do think that this would cost us nothing and would show that a Labour government is not anti-Europe as such’.16 But a stronger consideration was that the government could take a more positive approach to human rights in the United Nations. Central to the matter was that acceptance of the article would provide an authority other than the House of Lords as the supreme authority in British law, and incidentally provide the basis of a written constitution.17 The principle accepted, discussion centred on whether disputes should be settled by the Committee of Ministers, which would decide by a two-thirds majority and would perhaps be more sensitive to political considerations, or by judicial means through the Court. These doubts were overcome in favour of the Court, and on 7 December 1965 Wilson announced that Britain would accept the two articles for a renewable three-year period. ‘In 1965 it was perhaps understandable that the ministers and their advisers should have regarded it of little practical importance’, Antony Lester commented, ‘there was little in the Strasbourg case law to sound the alarm along the corridors of Whitehall.’ But as the two institutions can only rule ‘when all domestic remedies are exhausted, attention was bound to turn to the effectiveness of British domestic remedies’.18 It was this almost casual acceptance of Articles 25 and 46 that brought about a fundamental change in British constitutional principle and practice. By providing an external yardstick by which the spirit and the detail of British legislation and the administration of British justice could be measured, the 1966 decision contributed very much to the recognition
The Second Try 61
(especially during the eighties) of the inability of traditional British procedures to protect civil liberties. Furthermore, it gave British subjects a right of appeal against the absolute sovereignty of Parliament, itself a secular prolongation after 1689 of the Divine Right of kings.19 Entry to the European Community in 1973 confirmed and extended this revolution, for its own treaties and consequent legislation give entrenched rights to citizens in respect of the matters they cover, such as equal pay and pension rights for men and women. Because of the absence of comparable measures and institutions in the British legal system the Court had, by the end of 1999, found wholly or in part against the UK authorities in 50 cases. Although certainly irritated by some of the Commission’s and the Court’s decisions, no post-1966 government failed to renew the agreement every three years. But successor governments and the Commons (though not the Lords) did reject the next step, the incorporation of the Human Rights Convention as a whole into British law. Only when another Labour government was in office 34 years later was this done. Now, British courts can directly apply the provisions of the Convention, and draw on the Commission and Court’s jurisprudence as precedent. British citizens who believe their rights to have been infringed should not, to anything like the same extent, need to make costly and lengthy appeals directly to the two institutions. So the first Wilson government did breach those ‘ramparts of national sovereignty’ that its predecessor had defended so strongly in 1951. It did it partly at the instigation of a backbench Tory; it did it before the other civil liberties reforms when Jenkins was Home Secretary; it did it through the largely disregarded Council of Europe; it did it without either ministers or Whitehall mandarins grasping the implications; and it did it without discussing it in Cabinet or even in a Cabinet committee; it did it as an executive decision under the Royal Prerogative, so it was never debated and voted on in parliament.20 Among ministers involved was the Scottish Secretary, William Ross, who was a convinced anti-Marketeer but no more aware than his officials of the significance of the step. Other ministers who proclaimed themselves stout defenders of national sovereignty, such as Jay, Fred Peart and Barbara Castle, and Peter Shore outside the Cabinet, did not even know what was happening.
After 18 months of tenuous hold on office, the Prime Minister went to the country. During the election campaign Europe featured little.
62 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Speaking in Bristol on 18 March 1966, Wilson combined a vague statement of attitude – ‘Given a fair wind, we will negotiate our way into the Common Market, head held high, not crawl in’ – with a scornful attack on Edward Heath, the chief negotiator in 1961–63 and newly appointed leader of the Conservative Party. ‘One encouraging gesture from the French government, which I welcome, and the Conservative leader rolls on his back like a spaniel.’ However, Wilson did say that the conditions for British entry would ‘require that we must be free to go on buying food, and raw materials, in the cheapest markets’.21 Jay was to declare himself ‘frankly overjoyed’ by these words, but furious at their abandonment within little more than a year.22 Now with a majority of 96, Wilson, politically and personally, was on firmer ground. The Queen’s Speech stated that the government would be ready to enter the EC ‘provided essential British and Commonwealth interests were safeguarded’. The changing attitude towards the Community was evident too in the appointment of a policy team under Brown (still at the DEA), with George Thomson as his lieutenant, after the July sterling crisis. Brown’s move to the Foreign Office the following month reinforced the trend. Among the factors which appear to have moved the Prime Minister were the evident failure of Britain trying to sustain a world role; the still disappointing economic performance, with the uncertainty of the National Plan; the belief that new science and technology based industries were hampered by a small, national or even EFTA-sized market; that the Commonwealth alone could not give Britain the market it needed; and that the Community was far more pragmatic than he had earlier believed. There were also the political concerns about a unified grouping on the continent which had influenced the Macmillan government.23 ‘Wilson’s bid to enter the European Community was a tacit acknowledgement that there were no national solutions to Britain’s problems’, concluded Sassoon.24 But the Wilson bid still bears the mark of a move towards Europe for lack of any more attractive alternative. Edmund Dell (at the time a newly-elected backbencher) was later to comment in a way that applies as much to this second bid to join the Community as to the first: ‘Britain’s enthusiasm for international cooperation seems motivated as much by fear of being left out as by any expectation of benefit, and its declining influence means that it cannot get its way even when it is represented.’25 But Wilson had other, more personal objectives: to assuage public opinion over the failing economy, to outflank Heath, to find a diversion from Rhodesia, and to head off a possible leadership challenge
The Second Try 63
from Brown. Shore contended that there is good reason to believe that Wilson’s motives were to outflank both Heath and the Labour proMarketeers by showing that an entry bid would not succeed. ‘The General’s “No” should have proved him right. But it did not.’26 Jay attributed Wilson’s change between March and October 1966 to fear of a hostile campaign by the Mirror newspapers.27 Wilson’s memoirs tell us little, being long on description but short on insight.28 The Castle Diaries describe how determinedly the Prime Minister pushed the issue through the Cabinet. One current, and not uncommon, assumption was that, inside the Community, Britain would lead it, a self-delusion that failed to grasp how circumstances had moved on from the forties. Brown was singular in admitting to this belief 14 years later.29 To Willy Brandt, the ‘British were not especially adroit’; Brown said to him: ‘Willy, you must get us in, so that we can take the lead’.30 Was the technology issue mere rhetoric, either during the 1964 election, when Wilson had called for a Britain ‘in the white heat of the technological revolution’, or later? The mid-sixties were the time of Le Défi Américain, to take the title of Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber’s book that had such an impact, especially in France. Was Europe condemned to ‘industrial helotry under which we in Europe produce only the conventional apparatus of an industrial economy, while becoming increasingly dependent on American business for the sophisticated apparatus which calls the industrial tune in the Seventies and Eighties?’, Wilson asked.31 The issue came to a dramatic point in France when the computer company Machines Bull ran into a financial and technological crisis. De Gaulle proclaimed that ‘la solution la plus française’ would be found. This, it turned out, meant a takeover of Bull by the American company Honeywell. The hollowness of Gaullist pretentions to French independence was exposed, and also the nature of ‘the American challenge’ to Europe more widely. But when the British raised the need for a ‘technological community’, the French could point out that Concorde, the Jaguar fighter programme, ELDO space projects and the Channel tunnel agreement showed that bilateral cooperation worked very successfully. The technological community was a bargaining chip and a rhetorical device.32 In Britain, central to the argument between the pro-Marketeers and the anti-Marketeers, or, as it increasingly became, between Right and Left, was the extent to which the Community was devoted to free competition. The historical reality is that continental capitalism, developing later than in Britain and often promoted under state aegis, never
64 Labour’s European Dilemmas
had the enthusiasm for free trade and free competition which characterised (when to its advantage) the English-speaking world. In 1955 the Spaak Report prepared after the Messina conference suggested that a common market would need resources to offset the adverse effects in some regions and sectors of the removal of tariffs. Apart from the establishment of the European Investment Bank, little was done; the Social Fund was a limited and passive instrument. It was only after Britain joined the Community in 1973 that a regional policy commissioner was appointed, and only with the arrival of the ‘Club Med’ – Greece, Spain and Portugal – in the eighties, that substantial resources were devoted to redressing disparities of living standards between northern and southern Europe. The CAP guidance fund was small compared with the rapacity of the price guarantee section. The ECSC, limited to two fairly concentrated sectors, made significant provision for housing, retraining and relocating workers when coalmines and ore quarries ran out, and when old steelworks closed. In 1967 William Pickles quoted from Pierre Mendès-France on how the planning methods adopted since 1945 in France had had to be watered down in a common market where member states were pursuing uncoordinated policies.33 This was the main new argument Pickles put forward five years after his first assault on the Market. In the early sixties, Robert Marjolin, the European Commissioner responsible for economic affairs and former Secretary-General of OEEC, began coordinating forecasts of economic trends in the Six. In March 1966 he produced the Community’s first medium-term economic policy draft to try at least to eliminate contradictions between the member states’ own forecasts and policy plans. Pickles was not impressed. Stuart Holland, then a junior Downing Street researcher, claimed that this draft programme, and the Luxembourg compromise demonstrating the Community’s flexibility, were significant factors in persuading Wilson that membership was compatible with Labour’s aims.34
On 22 October 1966 the Cabinet, together with advisers and officials, met at Chequers for a weekend meeting on overall policy. Crossman suggested that devaluation of sterling was a precondition to economic recovery, inside or outside the EC.35 A row resulted, as the Prime Minister held it a taboo subject since the previous July’s sterling crisis. Brown favoured a change in the parity as a necessary preliminary to an EC entry bid; Wilson and the Chancellor Callaghan were opposed.
The Second Try 65
Other ministers also differed but not along anti- and pro-Market lines.36 The issue was not to be wished away.37 Less acrimoniously the Cabinet agreed that Wilson and Brown should conduct a probe of the possibility of opening negotiations by personally consulting the governments of the Six. ‘We mean business’, he told the House of Commons on 10 November. This provoked the response from EC Commission President Walter Hallstein: ‘We are not in business; we are in politics.’ On 15 January 1967 he and Brown started their round of the capitals.38 A week later, in Strasbourg, Wilson addressed the Council of Europe Assembly to reach out to both the Community and EFTA. He took Hallstein’s hint, and said he meant ‘business in a political sense because over the next year, the next 20 years, the unity of Europe is going to be forged, and geography and history, and interest and sentiment alike demand that we play our part in forging it and in working it’. Meanwhile, on 18 January, Emmanuel Shinwell wrote a letter to The Times: ‘The mask is off; no more equivocation; the objective is European unity based on the creation of a Supranational Government and European Parliament with Westminster in a minor role . . . we are to be divested of decision in foreign affairs, defence and economic development.’ More temperately, on 21 February, 107 Labour MPs signed an EDM recalling the five conditions and demanding the protection of essential British and Commonwealth interests. In reality, the ‘five conditions’ had been quietly abandoned: any negotiations that did take place would be essentially limited to an acceptable arrangement for Britain’s financial contribution to the Community budget, reassurance about controlling capital movements and arrangements for UK imports of New Zealand dairy produce and lamb and of tropical sugar. The divide in the party was far from being simply Left–Right as it was mainly to become in later years. Eric Heffer, in Socialist Commentary, declared that he was in favour of British entry because of ‘the historical inevitability of European integration, which has been started by capitalist politicians, but which can only be taken to its logical conclusion by socialists with an international outlook’. With an echo of Keep Left in 1947, he continued, ‘we should be working for Europe to be the great third force in international politics . . . this can only be done in stages’. On the Left this was not the only voice. Stan Newens recorded in his diary for 10 April that ‘it is essential to offset the charge that the Left will be carried away in the opposite direction that will give it a chauvinist, anti-internationalist and anti-modernising stamp’.39 He was
66 Labour’s European Dilemmas
among 25 members from the Left and Centre-Left who signed a statement initiated by Heffer, and issued on 19 April, arguing that a socialist Europe ‘will not come about by pious hopes, nor by refusing to become involved in Western Europe’. Europe ‘offers an exciting challenge. As Socialists we must accept that challenge’, the statement concluded. Signatories included Bob Edwards, Joel Barnett, Robert Sheldon, Tam Dalyell, Kevin McNamara, Hugh Delargy, Sidney Bidwell and Paul Rose. This was the last bid by a significant section of the Left to accept entry to the Community.40 Shortly afterwards, on 5 May in Tribune appeared the names of 74 other MPs – from Left, Right and Centre – who, ‘as international Socialists, not British nationalists’, supported six political and ten economic objections to entry.41 They proposed that the UN Economic Commission for Europe provide a link between EFTA, the EC and the communist states, ‘to promote economic, financial and technical cooperation’. But, as Michael Newman observed, they offered ‘no coherent alternative for the British economy should this aspiration prove unobtainable’.42 Again, like the Keep Left proposal for European unity 20 years earlier, this was a brief, reactive gesture with no follow-through. Most of the Left were not really interested in European unification: if they could not get a world cake, they preferred not to eat at all. Nor were the Right and Centre-Right united. Many retained their doubts at this stage. But, unlike 1961–62, it was now the antiMarketeers who were the minority, or at least the underdogs. L. J. Robins offered a broad tabular indication of how between 1960 and 1975 the Right/Left and pro/anti factions evolved. Initially acknowledged pro and anti partisans were few but grew in numbers over the years. The Centre split but was mainly anti by 1975. Wherever some pros had been located when young, in their political maturity by the late seventies few in the pro-Market camp were active in the ranks of the Left. But the anti camp retained some rightwingers to the last.43 Wilson’s steady manipulation of events is clear from the frustrations expressed in Barbara Castle’s diaries: 3 November 1966 – ‘Harold is edging his way towards his goal’; 27 April 1967 – ‘The whole longdrawn-out nonsense has been ruthlessly stage-managed, under cover of the soothing phrase: “It is of course for the Cabinet to decide”.’44 Healey ‘saw the whole issue as a futile distraction, since it was certain that de Gaulle would veto Britain’s entry’.45 Estimates differ on how views were divided in the Cabinet that spring. Several members compiled their own lists, illustrating the difficulties of interpreting others’ attitudes, the pitfalls of memory and perhaps the unreliability of pub-
The Second Try 67
lished memoirs and diaries. Reading Ian Aitken in The Guardian on 1 May, Crossman found himself placed with Jenkins, Brown, Lord Longford, Cledwyn Hughes and Ray Gunter in the ‘yes’ camp; Wilson, Tony Benn, Patrick Gordon Walker, Michael Stewart were in a ‘yes, if’ camp; Callaghan was a sole ‘maybe’. All other ministers were ‘no, unless’ or ‘no’. Crossman considered Aitken’s list ‘a characteristically inaccurate piece of mixed leak and guesswork’ and gave his own list: Wilson, Benn, Brown, Jenkins, Crosland and five others in a ‘yes, without qualification’ category; himself, Callaghan and four more in a ‘maybe’ group; and Jay, Peart, Healey, Castle, Marsh and two others under ‘no, without qualification’.46 Apart from Wilson, only Benn, Crossman thought, had really changed his mind on the issue, ‘converted for technological reasons into an ardent Common Marketeer’.47 Another diarist, Gordon Walker (a ‘yes, if’ for Aitken and a ‘maybe’ for Crossman), put himself among a pro-entry 13, with six others favouring a declaration of principle but putting off an application, and two against applying at all. Like Crossman, Gordon Walker at this time puts Benn in the pro camp.48 Benn does not disagree, referring to ‘Those of us who favoured the application . . .’ 49 Jay records ten pro and eight anti, with Callaghan, Crossman and Benn uncertain, but the last two tending towards a pro position. 50 Despite his ‘maybe’ position, Crossman records having persuaded Wilson to stiffen up his planned statement so that it ‘will have the best possible effect in Europe, not to make a Statement in order to placate any of your colleagues’.51, 52 On 10 May the Commons voted by 488 votes to 62 to make a formal application to join the European Community – a far more committing act than the opening of negotiations with a view to making a possible application by Macmillan in 1961. Comparing the text of the Macmillan approach with that in 1967, John Cole observed that Wilson’s text ‘was a model of precision, and left no doubt that this was not a probing operation, but that the Labour government was applying to join, no more, no less. These two texts, read together, effectively cut off his own escape route.’53 But John Silkin, the Chief Whip (and in the seventies a firm anti-Marketeer), claimed later that he persuaded ‘a number of members’ to vote aye ‘on the express basis that they would be free to judge for themselves if and when the question of entry actually arose’.54 Even so 35 Labour MPs voted against the move; another 51 abstained. In recent months, over Vietnam, prices and incomes policy and defence, backbench dissent had been growing and the government tightened discipline. For abstaining over Europe seven PPSs
68 Labour’s European Dilemmas
were sacked. They included Rose, later a leftwing convert to Europe and a rebel in the opposite direction who voted for membership in 1971.55 But the pro, neutral and anti camps could all relax. De Gaulle’s press conference on 16 May showed that the passage to Brussels would not be easy, a conclusion that Wilson’s visit to Paris a month later did not contradict. This was ‘the velvet veto’. Nonetheless the government did not slacken pressure through the summer and autumn, when talks began. Still irritated themselves by de Gaulle’s boycott of the Community’s institutions in 1965–66, the socalled ‘Friendly Five’ and the Commission were helpful, but only up to the point of emphasising France’s isolated position. That was not a matter to inhibit the General. There were hints from Paris that devaluation of sterling would be a precondition, and periodically through the summer the government itself discussed it. Callaghan as Chancellor resisted as long as possible until on 19 November Wilson announced a move to a parity of $2.40 and restrictive budgetary measures.56 Three years’ struggle to avoid the accusation of being the party of devaluation had been for nothing. It did not help the entry bid. On 27 November de Gaulle at a press conference said that negotiations with Britain ‘would destroy the partnership’ of the Commmunity – but his five partners openly disagreed. The failure of the entry bid produced ‘an overwhelming sigh of relief from a section of the Cabinet that de Gaulle had saved the Labour Party from having to go ahead on Europe’, Thomson recalled.57 A Cabinet decision – at Brown’s insistence – ‘to leave the application on the table’ – and a comparable act by the Six – had the convenient consequence that when de Gaulle’s successor proved more amenable, the Prime Minister in April 1970 did not need to risk open Cabinet or parliamentary dissent by asking for approval for a new approach.
In the spring of 1967 the antis had decided in their turn that extraparliamentary organisation was necessary. Ron Leighton, now an MP who had been secretary of the Forward Britain Movement, formed the Labour Committee for the Five Safeguards on the Common Market. He argued, as he had in 1962, that ordinary voters were disenfranchised on the issue because the leadership of the main parties were in broad agreement. Jay became chairman after his dismissal from the government later in the year and Leighton secretary. (‘Five’ was dropped from the title.) Two years later, with renewed negotiations about to begin, Jay and Leighton became chairman and director respectively of the
The Second Try 69
cross-party Common Market Safeguards Campaign. Other members included Shore, Castle, Jack Jones (TGWU), Clive Jenkins (ASTMS) and Dan McGarvey (boilermakers), as well as business figures and a few Conservative MPs. Labour MPs numbered 38, including one who straddled the fence with his name also on the LCE list.58 Why were the antis – especially those in the Cabinet – so compliant, apart from sharing the general scepticism that de Gaulle had altered his position since 1963? The fast pace set by the government in fact reflected this scepticism, in order to get a quick ‘yes’ or a quick ‘no’. That would have the result of showing, abroad, to both the French and the ‘Friendly Five’, that Britain still wanted to be in; and, at home, to both the pros and the antis, that the process of joining had been started but was out of court for the foreseeable future. The problem for the antis was that they did not agree on what they wanted. Jay was pursuing his alternative proposal: EFTA + EC (already rejected by the French) and NAFTA – the North Atlantic Free Trade Area suggested by Senator Jacob Javits, but in which the US government had shown no interest. There was also GITA – ‘go it alone’. John Young observed: ‘The Javits Plan meant US domination; GITA meant continuing British decline.’59 Crossman was at least logical in wanting an offshore, socialist Britain, cutting its overseas commitments and trying to attain an economic position as favourable as Japan’s in the Far East.60 Logical, but fanciful, if only because Japan’s position was based on highly disciplined and cheap labour. Moreover, its Far Eastern markets were akin to what the Empire had been to Britain in supplying raw materials against manufactures. Outside the Cabinet, the Britain and the Common Market group in the Commons put their stress on ‘safeguards’. This sustained the claim that the antis were not undermining the government – indeed they were strengthening its arm – and it may have brought in some middle-of-the-roaders. But it implicitly conceded that there was a case for British entry and that the only differences of opinion were over the terms. This enabled them to claim a measure of support on the middle ground but it weakened the case for a principled stand against entry. Jay and Shore provided the intellectual impetus to the anti-Market cause, arguing the case for freer European and world trade. On leaving office the former wrote a Penguin Special, After the Common Market. He was able to quote some signs of interest in the USA and Canada for Britain and EFTA joining NAFTA, but mainly from commercial, not authoritative political quarters. Under Eisenhower, Kennedy and
70 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Johnson alike US government policy had been to encourage Britain to join the EC, seeing it as both a political bulwark in Europe (and a counter to French waywardness) and a force for liberalism in trade policy. Breaking Britain away from the continent risked weakening NATO. Washington tacitly agreed with de Gaulle that if Britain had to choose between Europe and the open sea, it would choose the open sea.61 Jay envisaged Australia and New Zealand as later adherents to NAFTA, with some developing Commonwealth countries in association. ‘By sticking to our proven friends and true intellectual traditions, and by building our economic strength, we have it in our power to achieve a future which, though less commanding, will be no less distinguished than the past’, he wrote.62 How far the first Wilson government had moved from its initial Commonwealth orientation was shown by the 1966–67 merger of the Colonial Office into the Commonwealth Relations Office and by the further merger of the latter with the Foreign Office a year later. These changes were personified in George Thomson, the CRO’s last Secretary of State, who, when transferred to the FCO was at once given the EC negotiations brief, and in 1973 became one of the first two British members of the European Commission. In order to maintain ties with friendly elements on the continent the Labour Party in October 1968 joined the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. This gesture itself illustrated the party’s ambivalence for the Treasurer Callaghan refused to authorise the payment of the subscription. Early in 1969 the ‘Soames affair’ gave Jay hope that his objective of freer trade without unpleasant political complications could be achieved. Sir Christopher Soames, Churchill’s son-in-law, francophile and former Conservative cabinet minister (and in 1973–76 also to be a European Commissioner), had been appointed ambassador in Paris by Brown in the belief that his sentiments and links would ease relations with France. After no contact with de Gaulle in the 15 months following the second veto, he was invited to lunch on 4 February 1969. The President spoke in characteristically elliptical fashion about how he saw the Common Market becoming a looser free trade arrangement, with provision for agricultural trade, and with a political association led by Britain, France, Germany and Italy. On hearing of this there was confusion in London, for the following week Wilson was due to meet German Chancellor Kiesinger. Should he respect de Gaulle’s wish to regard his talk with Soames as confidential? That risked being wrongfooted by a deliberate leak from Paris. If this did not occur at once, he
The Second Try 71
would risk accusations of lack of frankness, should the Germans learn of the matter later. Wilson chose to tell Kiesinger, provoking synthetic indignation in Paris.63 Jay took de Gaulle’s offer at its face value – ‘a new and wonderfully far-sighted offer’.64 Few others did. De Gaulle had tamed the European Commission (and other EC governments) of any immediate supranational inclinations, so why should he offer free trade when the whole of French history, ideology and interest were against it? Jay had no explanation for that. Much would have depended on the nature of the arrangements for farm trade, for it was inconceivable that France, or other member countries with food-exporting interests (notably the Netherlands), would have consented to any agreement which did not give major access to the British market at (to them) favourable prices. Mutual distrust punctured this ballon. Two months later de Gaulle resigned. By the time the Labour conference met in Brighton at the end of September de Gaulle’s successor Georges Pompidou was showing signs of flexibility. As 1969 closed the European issue was coming back into play. The NEC’s statement to conference welcomed the government’s reassurance that the results of negotiations and any decision on them would be ‘subjected to the ultimate will of the British people’. Conference accepted the transport workers’ composite resolution requiring safeguards on the balance of payments, the cost of living, the National Health Service, economic planning and foreign policy. The ‘anxieties of the ordinary people’ were the main thrust of TGWU leader Jack Jones’ speech.65 Shinwell declared himself ready to renounce sovereignty to UNO and NATO, and that he had ‘no quarrel with the European Community. I just want nothing to do with it.’66 And there were signs that Wilson was beginning to hedge his bets.
5 ‘No Entry on Tory terms’
“Right, we agree not to agree exactly when we meet to discuss whether or not we favour the common market!”
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 10 June 1971 Personalities: Roy Jenkins, Harold Wilson, Ian Mikardo, James Callaghan
‘No basis for a rational conclusion based on ascertained fact’ – Richard Crossman1 In 1962, 1967 and especially in 1971 a major problem for the respective governments seeking EC entry was that a larger proportion of Britain’s imports were from outside western Europe than those of any of the Six. The problem was greater by the third attempt because the Six had in 1969 confirmed that the primary source of the Community’s revenue should be charges on imports: variable levies on agricultural produce and mainly ad valorem tariffs on manufactures and semi-manufactures. It was clear that, should Britain join, its gross contribution to the budget would be both absolutely and proportionately greater than that of any other member. Conversely, because of its small 72
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 73
though efficient agricultural sector, its share of EC expenditure (which was then about 85 per cent on farm support) would be much less. A large net contribution thus appeared inevitable. This was strikingly clear from the government’s second White Paper published in February 1970, produced to meet a promise to the previous party conference.2 It estimated that, in a five-year transitional entry period ending in 1978, revenue paid by the Six into the central EC budget from food import levies, customs duties and VAT would be an estimated $2.89bn, while that from Britain alone would be $1.38bn – almost half as much again. Depending on how Britain’s pattern of food production and imports altered over the five years, the net adverse payment could range between £100m and £1.1bn a year. Putting this in perspective, British exports to the Six in 1968 were £1.29bn and imports from them £1.55bn. If there were a substantial trade and payments surplus elsewhere this would not be of importance. The lower figure in the White Paper would be significant but bearable. But if the higher figure were reached Britain’s payments deficit with the Six could at least quadruple, depending on the balance of payments on invisible earnings. These calculations showed a serious deterioration compared with the White Paper of 1967, which had estimated a £100m annual deterioration in the payments for five years, settling at a £500m level thereafter. The 1970 calculation was that domestic food prices would rise by between 18 and 26 per cent cumulatively over the transition period, compared with 10 to 14 per cent in the 1967 estimate. So the likely consequences of entry had become much more adverse. The antis were jubilant; the pros downcast. For Vic Feather, the proMarket General Secretary of the TUC, a cost at the top of the range meant that ‘few would argue on economic grounds that we should or could join’.3 Crossman wondered if Wilson was not backtracking on Europe by producing such a document, but concluded that he and Stewart ‘are still fanatically convinced of the need to go in’.4 According to David Owen, when Wilson asked Roy Jenkins if he would take the Foreign Office after the forthcoming election, the latter said he needed reassurance that the Prime Minister was committed to British entry. ‘Not just committed, dedicated’, Wilson replied.5 Nevertheless (and with its anti element acquiescent) the Labour government opened talks with the Six in April 1970. The Prime Minister called an election for 18 June – nine months earlier than necessary but when opinion polls appeared favourable. Labour lost. Edward Heath became Prime Minister. The negotiating briefs prepared for George Thomson to take to Brussels the following
74 Labour’s European Dilemmas
week were adopted unchanged by his Conservative successor Geoffrey Rippon, together with the same civil service negotiating team. This can be interpreted in more than one way. One is that, contradicting what Clement Attlee wrote in 1937, there is an inherent national interest that transcends party political differences. Another is that the reality of Britain’s position in the world in 1970 was seen in similar terms by both Harold Wilson and Edward Heath, and by most of their colleagues, when faced with governmental responsibilities. A third is that both were in thrall to the wily mandarins of the Foreign Office and to the pressures of big business.
After the election Jenkins easily carried the deputy leadership of the PLP against Fred Peart (George Brown had lost his seat and gone to the Lords) and anti-Marketeers did badly in the Shadow Cabinet elections. But this was not a measure of pro-Market sentiment in the PLP. Anti sentiment, pent-up when the party was in office, started to emerge. Freed of the constraints of office and now editor of the New Statesman, Richard Crossman wrote that ‘The campaign for a referendum is in fact a campaign against joining the Common Market . . . The antiMarketeers’ first job is to convert – or possibly reconvert – Mr Wilson.’ Better than a referendum, he argued, would be an antiMarket policy: ‘a conference decision by a two-thirds majority becomes a binding mandate on a future Labour government’.6 Douglas Jay and others weighed in with articles in successive issues. Already, in April, Eric Heffer had used the weekly’s pages to renounce the support for entry that he had maintained throughout the sixties. He had concluded that the cost to Britain of adopting the CAP would be intolerable; otherwise he maintained his belief in the desirability and inevitability of European unity.7 Nonetheless, as late as 30 November of that year the Tribune Group minutes noted that ‘Eric Heffer and Sid Bidwell, who normally favour entry to the Market, were nonetheless unhappy about the prospect of entering under Tory terms’. A week later, the minutes recorded that the group did not normally discuss the European issue for ‘at least two members had Common Market views’.8 Nonetheless the pro-Marketeers could no longer count on their most prominent and influential leftwinger. The Left/Right divide over Europe was now much clearer.9 When the TUC met in September some unions showed their hostility. At party conference Harry Urwin, of the TGWU, put a motion that argued against membership unless the Six agreed to a list of quite improbable conditions. The NEC’s ‘hold the
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 75
line’ resolution was carried by a meagre 95 000 votes out of over six million cast.10 The anti-Marketeers could call in aid public antipathy to the Common Market. In October NOP showed only 22 per cent of Labour voters in favour of entry, and the figures of 27 per cent of Conservative voters and 28 per cent of Liberals gave little comfort to those parties’ leaders. The effect on the cost of living was overwhelmingly the cause of opposition. The 1967 devaluation had contributed to inflation, and decimalisation in 1971 added further impetus. Besides, in March 1971 only 18 per cent of Labour voters thought that Britain’s future should lie mainly with Europe, against 30 per cent with the Commonwealth, 9 per cent with the USA, and 43 per cent with no one or having no opinion. Conservative and Liberal voters were rather more favourable to Europe, but with them also the Commonwealth led. Figures like these encouraged the campaign for an anti-Market stance by the party. Some saw a referendum as a means to prevent entry or, failing that, to achieve a later exit. In July 1962 a referendum had been mentioned in both camps, although assuming it unlikely. Responsibility for the 1975 referendum is usually attributed to Tony Benn, who suggested in May 1968 (when still in the pro camp) that a modern democracy required more means of showing popular choice than the five-yearly cross on the general election ballot paper. Douglas Jay agreed that year as he believed it would support the anti cause. On 10 December 1969 a backbencher’s motion for a referendum gained the support of 55 MPs of all parties, and not only antis. In the course of 1970 several unions called for a popular vote. At this time most antis hoped to swing the party to their side, seeing a referendum as a fallback. The main objection made to a referendum was that it was outside British constitutional practice (apart from deciding pub opening hours in rural Wales and other local issues). Benn, who had successfully overthrown established constitutional practice by shedding his inherited peerage in order to become an MP, made the cause his own. Initially he had little success. His proposal for holding a special party conference when the entry terms achieved by the Heath government became known, fared better. With some acrimony the NEC agreed, but a referendum was opposed on both sides, partly on constitutional principle and partly from tactical calculation that such a vote could go either way. Benn’s own position on Europe had always been individual, ambiguous and volatile: in the mid-sixties he had been an enthusiast on technology grounds. He was no proMarketeer in the sense of being associated with the LCE, but that was
76 Labour’s European Dilemmas
not the only organised group from which he kept his distance. His diary for 13 January 1971 recorded a meeting with Giorgio Amendola, the Italian communist leader, who argued for some machinery at the continental level to deal with international companies. ‘I strongly agreed with him, whereas Peter Shore’s argument is that it would be disastrous and set back socialism and so on.’ Three days later he described himself as a ‘long-term federalist’ and noted that he had declared himself in favour of entry at a Shadow Cabinet meeting where Denis Healey too had stated that he was now in favour. In May Benn made a gesture by presenting a referendum bill to the Commons, but refused supporting signatures so that the proposal would not be associated with one European camp or the other.11 Castle found Benn’s opposition to the EC now ‘almost mystical’.12 The arguments over membership hinged on two visions of the future of the British nation state. The pro-entry side, represented by Peter Stephenson in Socialist Commentary in March 1971, pictured Britain in 1980, outside the Community, being increasingly ignored, its circumstances increasingly determined elsewhere, its growth in the seventies only 37 per cent, against 67 per cent for the Six (according to OECD estimates), its industrial policy more and more dictated by external interests, its productive scale too small, and with consequent ‘frustration in any attempt to move towards socialism’. He concluded: ‘A Britain in 1980, outside the Common Market, will have lost a further degree of effective sovereignty – but without the compensating benefits that a sharing of sovereignty within the Common Market will bring’ (emphasis in original). The anti camp, as represented by Ron Leighton, concentrated on the immediate: the adverse budgetary and exchange costs of entry, the higher cost of living, the loss of Commonwealth preference, the loss of independent decision-making for economic planning and foreign policy, and a supposed threat to social services. He argued: The Common Market has made a firm commitment to economic and political union by 1980, with a common currency and eventually therefore a common government with common policies on economic and political affairs . . . There cannot be a great third power, a strong ‘European voice’, or any sort of voice, unless there is a European government and a European foreign secretary espousing a European foreign policy.13 Some pro-Marketeers agreed with his conclusions but did not dare to admit it openly.
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 77
In the Commons the two camps were marshalling their troops. On 19 January, John Silkin put down an EDM on behalf of the Tribune Group that the entry terms ‘so far envisaged’ would not be in the interests of the country. This gained 103 signatures at once and 133 by the summer, just under half the PLP.14 The fluidity of opinion and the tactical play in hand were such that the signatories included seven supporters of the LCE. It had been the same Silkin who, in 1967 as Chief Whip, had persuaded 260 out of the 361 Labour MPs to vote for the application to join. Thirty-five others who had bucked his whip then were now foremost among his supporters. Now there were only 287 Labour MPs in all, nearly half of them openly in or near enough to the anti camp. In March the LCE claimed 82 supporters in the Commons. On 11 May they made a riposte to Silkin’s EDM with a whole-page advertisement in The Guardian bearing the names of 100 MPs, as well as those of such leading continental socialists as Willy Brandt, Guy Mollet and Pietro Nenni, calling for the party to stick to a pro policy. The century was symbolic, and getting the last 15 difficult; ‘varying degrees of persuasion’ were applied, Jenkins recorded.15 This was the pro-Marketeers’ high water; in the following weeks the tide ebbed. David Owen recounted how he approached both Callaghan and Benn for support. The former would not sign but did not want it to be known that he had refused. Benn, Owen records, ‘clearly had no intention of signing, making it plain that his opposition was not to entry but to the manner in which the decision was being made’.16 However, the then director of the European Movement, Ernest Wistrich recalled that, after the list was published, Benn had telephoned him to express disappointment that he had not been asked to sign.17 New to the pro ranks was Denis Healey, who two weeks later followed up his signature with a two-page article in the Daily Mirror headed, ‘Why I changed my mind’. In his memoirs he contends that he put the arguments for both sides and that his main argument was: ‘If our economy is strong when we go in we shall reap a splendid harvest. If it is weak, the shock could be fatal.’18 However, most of the article undermines this gloss: ‘Some of my worries then [in 1962] have turned out to be unjustified. New arguments for joining have emerged.’ At a time when international food prices were rising rapidly, he thought price rise problems on entry ‘may turn out to be a minor issue’. On a wider front, the Community, Healey wrote, ‘looks very different with Willy Brandt running Germany, and would be more different still with Britain and the Scandinavian countries in’.19 So Healey put arguments associated with the fervent pro-Market partisans – for a
78 Labour’s European Dilemmas
while. He spent the rest of the summer explaining why he changed his mind back again, so much so that at party conference in October it was he, on behalf of the NEC, who moved the ‘no entry on Tory terms’ motion. He got back onto the NEC all right, though coming in second to last in the constituency section. Healey was not alone in hedging. Anthony Crosland, the social democrats’ – indeed the party’s – leading philosopher and a proMarketeer since 1962, though never the most passionate, was an LCE vice-president. Now he hesitated. His view was that there were more important domestic issues to be concerned with; in this he was almost unique. Like Healey, Crosland lost old friends and gained few new ones from his stance, and it cost him votes the following year when candidate for the deputy leadership. Others of lesser renown, like Brian Walden, were having public doubts, some under constituency pressure. Some union sponsored members were especially vulnerable. In July an open threat by Alex Kitson to TGWU-sponsored MPs who did not fall in line gave an opportunity for a Tory MP to question whether parliamentary privilege had not been infringed. For all the numbers being added up on both sides, the party, as Uwe Kitzinger saw it, was really divided four ways: ‘those who wanted to go in on any likely terms; those who would not go in on any terms whatsoever; those who were getting worried without quite knowing what to do, and the Leader who said he wanted to see the terms before doing anything’.20 Early in the year Wilson had told Jenkins that he hoped to get a majority in the PLP for entry; failing that, to have a free vote.21 In June Jenkins urged Wilson to stick to Europe in order to kill his reputation for deviousness; he might lose a conference vote but narrowly enough to ignore it.22 Wilson seemed increasingly to be slipping into the anti camp, feeling his position as leader under threat. In 1966 a similar personal situation may have been an element in making the EC membership application; this time it took him in the opposition direction. In The Observer Anthony Howard argued that for Wilson coming out against Europe would be in fact the hard option: Every argument of self-aggrandisement beckons Mr Wilson to come out in favour of British entry . . . [he] may be caught on a hook – but it is a hook that he has been driven on to, not so much by the nature of his personality as by the character of the party he leads.23 Healey believed that Wilson ‘showed great courage in refusing absolutely to reject British entry on principle’.24
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 79
On 25 May Jim Callaghan spoke in Southampton in terms which were interpreted both as pointing out the danger to the PLP of getting too far away from grassroots opinion and, if it came to a crisis, as a bid for the leadership. His reference to ‘the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton’ was interpreted by his critics as opportunistic and chauvinistically rabble-rousing, but it did follow a comparable display of French cultural arrogance by President Pompidou. As Kenneth Morgan stressed, Callaghan stood in the Atlanticist tradition in the party which had existed since Bevin’s day. ‘Men like Callaghan had an instinctive historical and emotional commitment to the Commonwealth idea. They had been brought up as children of the empire. They emerged in politics as champions of a multiracial partnership of free nations.’25 It was offensive to both the passionate pros and the passionate antis that Callaghan, Healey, Crosland (to a lesser degree) and many others did not share their feelings. At this stage Callaghan was certainly against entry, telling Jack Jones of the transport workers that he had three supreme objectives: to beat Heath, to keep the party united and ‘to stop us going into the Common Market’.26 The Daily Mirror, a loyal Labour paper which had been enthusiastically pro-Market since 1966, launched a scorching attack on Wilson on 16 July, the day before the special conference. Up to June 1970, it stated in a front-page editorial, Labour, in government, was in favour of British membership; in the autumn of 1971 Labour would turn against membership, it predicted. ‘Mr Wilson must not be surprised if the public, whether pro or anti-Common Market, are perplexed and disillusioned’, it continued. ‘The anti-Marketeers will be in a majority at the annual conferences of the Trades Union Congress and of the Labour Party itself. The PLP . . . will also prove to be unseaworthy.’ Coming onto dry land, the Mirror went on: ‘And probably most of the Labour Shadow Cabinet will opt for some form of pitiable self-interest in their political backyard.’ Back again to maritime metaphor: ‘This the first recorded occasion when a ship was deserted even before it set sail.’27 The Times was more temperate: Whatever Mr Harold Wilson’s innermost convictions on the European issue, a close examination of his statements over the past decade shows that he cannot fairly be accused of major inconsistency on textual grounds. Since 1962 Wilson has stressed that the terms of entry had to be consistent with British interests and those of the Commonwealth, and even when he indulged in ‘exuberant
80 Labour’s European Dilemmas
imagery’ about Europe at the end of 1966, he never abandoned caution.28 Edmund Dell – not a wholly dispassionate observer – attributes much of Wilson’s loss of favour in the press from then on to his changing position on Europe.29
In Central Hall, Westminster, the following day, 17 July, an attempt to have an immediate vote on policy was defeated by a card vote; Wilson had squared enough unions. The normal autumn conference would decide that. Pro and anti delegates were invited in turn to the rostrum by Ian Mikardo, the party chairman, avuncular and confident of the final outcome. The arguments from both sides were little changed. Peter Shore spoke with characteristic passion and orotund rhetoric: ‘Churchillian’ was how a later speaker described his speech. Do not be depressed by those feeble voices which seek to convince you, first, that you have no capacity to solve your own problems; secondly that the world of tomorrow is a world of vast aggregates, regional blocs from which it is death to be excluded, it is not; thirdly, do not fear, you have the power to stop this act of madness and to change the history of this country and to insist that we shall make arrangements for our future that are right – not for the CBI and for Edward Heath, but for the people of Britain. Even Michael Foot gave a pallid performance in comparison. Like Heffer he cited the burden of the CAP, which was in popular appeal the antis’ strongest card, and one which most troubled the pros. From the 1970 parliamentary intake, Neil Kinnock struck a popular chord when he argued that ‘because I want to see the Tories beaten, and because I am willing to use any weapon to beat them, I am against EEC entry on these terms at this time’. In return, John Mackintosh made one of the few really passionate speeches ever heard from the pro front. Does Peter Shore, he asked, not remember when he was at the DEA how the previous Labour government had been blown off course? Or the cuts and the deflation that MPs had to explain all round the country? But such arguments cut no ice with the antis: they were all the more reason to keep out of the capitalist Common Market. The sentiments of many delegates could be
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 81
summed up in Alf Lomas’s view that the Common Market was ‘founded by businessmen . . . run by businessmen in the interests of businessmen’.30 The arguments pro and con were all familiar. Perhaps the only new one was from a delegate who feared a threat to British beer from entry to the Community. So the same apparent ‘facts’ could be used by both sides, who saw them from different perspectives. Some in the party did shift their ground from conviction; perhaps more, in the Commons or outside, from loyalty to friends and associates, from guile or from fear. For most, attitudes were based on profound feelings, barely touched by argument. Each had his own reason on his side. Crossman was to sum up the situation: ‘. . . since there is no basis for a rational conclusion based on ascertained fact, each of us will choose the answer which suits the basic position upon which he stands and from which he views the whole complex problem’.31 He understated the issue, for the differences went deeper and were not confined to Europe. Winding up, Wilson insisted that the party had been consistent in its European policy throughout the previous ten years: each election manifesto and official statement, whether in government or opposition, had stressed that the terms of entry would have to be right. It was a skilful holding operation, leaving the antis sure that he was on their side, the pros thankful that it was not worse. Jenkins did not speak at the special conference. Of Wilson’s speech he was to write: ‘It was like watching someone being sold down the river into slavery, drifting away, depressed but unresisting.’32 Although Wilson had been assured by Jenkins that the pro-Marketeers would support him in the event of a Callaghan leadership challenge, he knew he could not rely on them in the longer term. ‘Wilson therefore turned to the constituency he knew best, whose loyalty had been seriously strained during the years of power . . . Wilson might not be left-wing in most of his policies, but he was left-wing by heritage, and the Left cautiously welcomed him back’, commented Ben Pimlott.33 On 18 July the NEC agreed by 16 to six on the resolution to put to the regular conference: its opening and key phrase was the party ‘opposes entry into the Common Market on the terms negotiated by the Conservative government’. The antis could happily accept this, as they had done so in effect since 1967 when they had abandoned opposition to membership on principle by agreeing to the application to join. ‘It all depends on the terms’ had become a well-worn phrase on all sides; now it was proving to be the crux of a decision. The NEC’s words could call in some of the undistributed middle for whom the
82 Labour’s European Dilemmas
certainty of a significant payments burden outweighed any more conjectural, longer-term, material or non-material advantages of membership. A general denunciation of the government’s policies helped, and the statement made the ritual call for an early general election. The resolution concluded by calling on the PLP ‘to unite wholeheartedly in voting against the government’s policy’. The NEC went on to decide on a national campaign to support this resolution, pre-empting the notional right of conference to reject or amend it. The whole basis of the ‘Tory terms’ argument was that there were fundamental differences between the situation in 1967 and 1971, or indeed between the spring of 1970 and the autumn of 1971. In making its EC application in 1967 the Labour government had dropped most of the famous ‘five conditions’ dating from 1961–62. It had accepted that membership of the Community would not prevent domestic economic planning nor hamper an independent foreign policy, and that EFTA countries were mostly making their own accommodation with the EC. It had also reluctantly swallowed the principles of the CAP. Finally, the Commonwealth interests to be protected had been limited to exports to Britain of tropical island sugar and of New Zealand lamb and dairy produce. True, the precise financial mechanism for the CAP was not decided by the Six until the close of 1969, when renewed negotiations were in the offing, and it would fall hard on Britain. But something like it had been expected in 1967. So there was little difference between what the Labour government would have accepted in 1967, what a Labour government re-elected in 1970 would have accepted and what Heath was ready to accept 18 months later. Thomson, who had been in day-to-day charge of the negotiations in 1967, and would have been again had Labour won the 1970 election, told the special conference that he would have recommended to a Labour government the terms that Rippon was negotiating.34 The ‘Tory terms’ argument was really a means of trying to keep the party united by maintaining an anti-Conservative front, and to put maximum pressure on the pro-Marketeers, especially the waiverers, to toe the line. But would they?
During the summer of 1971 there was much activity on both sides. Among the pro-Marketeers, William Rodgers, an LCE member since 1962 though never a prominent one, was in his element, called on the wheeling and dealing skills evident in his CDS days a decade earlier. Aided by some experienced and respected members of the PLP, he
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 83
began canvassing support for a major revolt, whatever conference should decide. A Tribune Group statement happily quoted a proMarket Conservative as saying: ‘Entry into the EEC is the only way to make Britain safe for capitalism’.35 At Brighton on 5 October conference duly decided by five million votes to one million to accept the NEC statement, having rejected by three million to two million a resolution from Walton – Heffer’s constituency which had throughout the fifties consistently called for a united, socialist Europe – in favour of ‘total opposition under any terms’. The NEC’s statement argued that the government had no mandate for EC entry, for the 1970 Conservative programme has stated: ‘Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more, no less.’ Even more damaging for the government had been Heath’s statement that ‘no British government could enter without the full-hearted consent of the British people’.36 In early September the TUC General Council, in a very detailed report, concluded that ‘entry on the terms negotiated would not be advantageous to the British people’. At the regular party conference too the bulk of the pro votes came from four unions which had long demonstrated pro-Market views: the municipal workers, the clerical workers, the iron and steel confederation and the dyers. As with the anti unions, their stance reflected the views of their leadership. Only the electricians held a ballot of its members, who voted two to one against entry, although only 20 per cent of them returned ballot papers. But it was a democratically-based decision and the only time that any union consulted its members on this issue. Conference also rejected by just over four million to under two million votes a resolution for a referendum by Brian Stanley of the post office engineers – in fact by a two-thirds majority. As in July, most delegates’ speeches were on well-trodden ground, though on this occasion the balance of speakers was heavily against entry. One speech was to prove notable for its prescience. A Scottish delegate, Douglas McEwan, said: Britain is going into Europe, and before the transitional period is over, we will have a new Labour government. That government must surely keep Britain in the Market. There may be a show of token renegotiations, but few of the major points in the present package are likely to change.37 The idea of the ‘renegotiation’ of the terms of entry had been born of Callaghan’s agile mind during the summer.
84 Labour’s European Dilemmas
For the pro-Marketeers in the Commons, the question was whether they should abstain under the PLP’s conscience clause or actively vote for entry, even though that meant going into the same lobby as the supporters of a hated Tory government. Unless the PLP itself decided on a free vote, they increasingly agreed on outright revolt. Initially Heath refused a free vote to the Conservatives, fearing too many would vote against, despite the overwhelming eight-to-one support at that party’s recent conference. On 18 October he reversed his decision, calculating that he would gain more Labour votes than he would lose Conservative. A Shadow Cabinet meeting called at short notice, and lacking some members, stuck to the three-line whip decision. This was endorsed the following day by the PLP by 140 votes to 111. A motion to accept the terms negotiated gained 87 votes, but was outvoted by 151. Conversely, a motion to oppose the terms went through by 159 to 89 members (the latter figure an exact measure of the pro voters and the abstainers, as it turned out on 28 October).38 The Labour Party was in disarray, with Wilson mistrusted on all sides. David Watt, a shrewd observer but an overt pro-Marketeer, described the atmosphere: The real animus has come from Mr Wedgwood Benn, who desperately wants the deputy leadership, from Mr Foot who wants to undermine the Right wing, and from Mrs Castle and Mr Peart who are dyed-in-the-wool anti-Marketeers. In spite of its capacity for trouble this is not, in fact, a very cohesive force.39 Enter Douglas Houghton, a quiet pro-Marketeer and a widely respected chairman of the PLP. Through what became known as the ‘Houghton formula’ he proposed that a vote against the whip on the principle of Community membership would be tolerated, so long as the whole PLP then opposed the subsequent government legislation which would be necessary to incorporate Community treaties and consequent legislation – the acquis communautaire – into domestic law. This, it was hoped, could satisfy the pro-Marketeers while preserving the party from risk of more serious rupture. In the six days devoted to the Commons debate Wilson had to rely on anti-Marketeers for frontbench speeches: Castle, Foot, Peart, William Ross, Shore and the now loyalist Healey and Benn. Douglas Jay, who had been sacked from Wilson’s Cabinet in 1967 for his unrepentant anti-Market views, was brought back to speak for the opposition. Well over 100 Labour MPs now supported the Labour Committee for Safeguards on the Common Market, dating from 1967. Among them
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 85
were future Conservative minister Reg Prentice, future Social Democrats George Cunningham and Bruce Douglas Mann and two future members of the European Commission, Stanley Clinton Davis and Neil Kinnock. Jim Callaghan’s position was sufficiently close to the committee’s views for it to print three of his speeches in a pamphlet. On 28 October, the Commons voted on a declaratory motion approving the ‘decision to join the European Communities on the basis of the arrangements that have been negotiated’. In favour were 281 Conservative, 69 Labour, five Liberal and one Ulster Unionist members; 356 in all. Against were 198 Labour members, 33 Conservatives, six Ulster Unionists, one Liberal and six others; 244 in all. The government had a majority of 112. Twenty Labour MPs and three Conservatives abstained. Although down from the hundred who had signed The Guardian statement eight months earlier, the 69 Labour rebels and the 20 abstainers were the core of the pro-Marketeers. In fact, eight of the rebels and four abstainers had not signed in May. Conversely, 22 of the signatories did follow the whip. Some, like Walter Padley, George Brown’s brother Ron and Shirley Summerskill, did so under constituency or union pressure; others like Healey, Walden and Leslie Huckfield from other considerations. The abstainers comprised 16 signatories and four non-signatories. Among the former was Crosland. Scenes in the voting lobbies were unhappy; abuse of Labour rebels was common, but reports of violence were untrue. There was irony in turned tables: it was the usually rebellious Left who now piously accused many of the normally conformist Right and Centre of disloyalty, if not treachery. The rebellion had its emotional cost. Roy Hattersley, a firm pro but not close to the Jenkins camp, described his feelings: ‘I had no doubt that I had been right to vote for Europe. But I felt all the joy of a police informer who had turned Queen’s Evidence against his own family.’40 Tom Nairn saw the division as between not just Left and Right, but between old ‘party men’ (with a strong phalanx of opportunists and rightwing populists) and ‘new men’ of bourgeois origin less dependent on the party machine and the old Labourist spirit. The nouvelle vague of middle-class professionals he thought much closer in appearance and spirit to continental social democrats.41 This interpretive view is compatible with Kitzinger’s more analytical approach. He found that a third of the rebels were over 60, but that only a few of these were intending to retire at the end of the current parliament, and so be beyond pressure. Three-fifths of the rebels had been elected before 1960; one-tenth were in their first parliament, compared with a quarter
86 Labour’s European Dilemmas
of the conformers. The rebels were better educated: one-tenth had had only primary education (against one-quarter) and two out of three had been to university (against one in two), with Oxford graduates prominent. On the other side, a sense of working-class solidarity and loyalty to trade union roots were factors in conformity. There were no ready sociological explanations such as ease with international relationships: Roman Catholic members were divided; those of Jewish origin split evenly. That a third of the rebels had served on Council of Europe delegations, compared with one-fifth of the conformers, could reflect either more initial interest in Europe or that the experience had conditioned their views.42 Backbench rebellions against the leadership, whether in or out of office, are common enough. But this was much more, a front and backbench rebellion against a parliamentary leadership which had, by all objective standards, reversed the policy which it had pursued four years previously. The ‘Tory terms’ argument was tehnically accurate in that they had been negotiated by a Tory government, but intellectually it was quite spurious. Although, according to traditional Westminster lore, the duty of the Opposition is to oppose, there are occasions when other considerations apply. This was one such in that almost one-third of the main opposition party agreed with the government’s aims over Europe; conversely, over one in ten of the government party disagreed with their leaders’ policy. Jenkins likened the issue to some of the great parliamentary occasions of the past, ‘the First Reform Bill, the repeal of the Corn Laws, Gladstone’s Home Rule Bills, the Lloyd George Budget and the Parliament Bill, the Munich Agreement and the May 1940 votes’.43 He is right in terms of parliamentary drama, but his comparisons understated the constitutional importance of entry into the European Community. On this both sides agreed; they differed over the desirability of the fundamental alteration in Britain’s status and situation that was entailed. The passions unleashed were understandable. Walden and five others argued in The Times on 5 November that it was not a simple right–left issue: ‘well over half of the traditional Right, some with the strongest claims to be the true heirs of Hugh Gaitskell, voted against the Market . . . [because] they believed that membership . . . is not for Britain compatible with the ideals of social democracy’. The coalition of interests and ideologies that made up the party was in danger. As in the fifties, many questioned whether it could survive. Political commentator James Margach wrote of rancour unparalleled since the rightwing attacks on Bevan and that ‘the unconcealed objective of the Left now is either to humiliate Roy Jenkins and
`No Entry on Tory Terms’ 87
his allies into submission – or drive them from the party’.44 For Wilson, Crosland, Callaghan, Healey and many others the issue was not one that could justify the breakup of the party; they strove to keep it together. The first two at least also strove to ensure that its survival would not be based on total rejection of the Community. For all the rancour, three weeks later Jenkins was re-elected deputy leader of the PLP by 140 votes – seven more than in 1970 – to Foot’s 126 (up from 96 earlier in the session). With some 50 votes from those who had followed the whip on 28 October it did not signify agreement with Jenkins on Europe, nor a healing gesture. It showed that the antiEuropean Right and Centre preferred him to Foot. But was it now that Jenkins’ judgement began to desert him? The problem was the second half of the Houghton formula: should the pros follow their party into the ‘no’ lobby against the European Communities Bill itself? Instead of the ‘bill of a thousand clauses’ which had in 1967 been considered necessary to bring British legislation into line with the acquis communautaire – the government produced a bill of only 12 clauses and four schedules, 37 pages in all. But the majority in the Labour Party and some Conservatives were determined to fight it all the way. The government refused any concessions on other pending legislation, and the general unpopularity of the government among the public made the prospect of trying to bring it down very tempting. It was a harrowing time. Heath was on a collision course with the miners, ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Londonderry left 13 civilians shot dead by the Parachute Regiment, the industrial relations laws and the Housing Finance Act introducing ‘fair rents’ for council housing stirred a bitter battle in and out of parliament. Both at the time and since it was argued that the Labour pros kept the government in office; but that supposes that in a vote of confidence the Conservative rebels would have been so numerous and so resolute as to permit its fall. Jenkins retailed how, at a lunch to try to resolve their differences, he failed to convince Michael Foot that if he believed that Enoch Powell and the other Tory rebels over Europe were men of honour, then the Labour pro-Marketeers were equally justified in sticking to their principles. But he concluded that, for Foot, defeating ‘the most reactionary Tory government for a hundred years’ was more important.45 Foot himself recognised that he too had used the PLP’s conscience clause in the past, ‘But I can’t ever recall that I went into the Lobbies to help a Tory government’.46
6 Staying or Going?
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 3 April 1974 Personalities: Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins
‘In place of the politics of opportunism, the politics of principle’ – Roy Jenkins1 The pro-Marketeers had made their great gesture on 28 October 1971 and a sense of achievement and solidarity buoyed them up until Christmas. But the New Year turned ill. Going through the voting lobbies night after night to oppose a measure of which they approved was dispiriting. Roy Jenkins recalled voting in the ‘no’ lobby on the Second Reading on 17 February as especially demoralising. 88
Staying or Going? 89
Clandestine arrangements made between some pros and the government whips ensured that the legislation got through – despite some close calls. The majority on the Second Reading dropped to eight; on some of the near 100 divisions during the next five months it was even lower. Despite heavy pressure from the whips, colleagues and, in some cases, constituencies and unions, a dozen or so Labour members persistently abstained. On the Third and final Reading on 13 July the vote – imposed by guillotine to get the bill through before the end of the session – the government won by 301 to 284. Its nominal majority over other parties was 32, and this majority of 17 compared with 112 on the principle of entry vote the previous October. Contributing to the majority were 13 abstaining Labour members. Fourteen Conservative members voted against or abstained, as did six Ulster Unionists, and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists. Jenkins paid an embarrassed tribute to these pro-Market ultras – sometimes described as the ‘Kamikaze Squad’. The abstainers were made up in almost equal proportions of old men who had decided that their political fate no longer mattered and young men with the gallantry of 1916 subalterns. . . . They at once provided us with an essential little shield behind which to shelter and made our political calculations rather tawdry. It is never comfortable to be dependent on men braver than oneself.2 The ‘old men’ included Austen Albu, Freda Corbett, Carol Johnson, George Lawson and George Strauss, who were not intending to stand again, and Ray Gunter, who was to resign from the party in March and from parliament the following year. An occasional abstainer was Christopher Mayhew, who left Labour for the Liberals in 1974. There were only two real ‘1916 subalterns’, both of ministerial potential. One was John Mackintosh, who abstained on several occasions, and who died at the age of 49 six years later. The other was Michael Barnes, the 39-year-old member for marginal Brentford and Chiswick, who was by no means a conventional Jenkinsite (though briefly to be a Social Democrat), having been critical of the Wilson government over, for example, Rhodesia, Vietnam and Biafra. His view on the European issue was that ‘it was absolute nonsense to vote against something you believed in. Here was something that was crucial to
90 Labour’s European Dilemmas
the future of the country . . . I did not cast a single vote against the Bill.’ Barnes believed that the pro-Marketeers (perhaps influenced by Jenkins’ leadership ambitions) made a tactical mistake in not abstaining more widely: If, say, 20 or 30 Labour pro-Marketeers had been prepared to do that, the animosity against the pro-Marketeers and the feeling that they were traitors, would not have been as great within the Labour Party as it was, because people would have had to accept that the government was not going to be brought down on this issue.3 What was brought down was Jenkins’ position as deputy leader. Feelings were bitter. Accusations such as ‘traitor’ and ‘opportunist’ were thrown back and forth. Wilson felt aggrieved that his attempt to keep the party united went unappreciated. ‘I’ve been wading in shit for three months to allow others to indulge their consciences’, he told the Shadow Cabinet.4 The enmity of the Left towards the pro-Marketeers was tempered by Harold Wilson’s decision to limit the opposition attack to criticising the government’s management and timing of the legislative process. David Wood, a close observer not especially friendly to Labour, saw this as, a formula that leaves Mr Wilson and the Shadow Cabinet conveniently uncommitted to the Common Market, even while they give the impression of being hostile to Britain’s entry. . . . He knows, as most of the Parliamentary Labour Party know, that the likelihood is that a future Labour Government would find it virtually impossible to return to the status quo ante bellum and the most that can be risked is a broad hint that a Labour Government would press for a renegotiation of some of the terms.5 In early February the Tribune Group decided to fight to get Britain out, and their influence was wider than their 46 overt supporters. Two weeks later Wood saw Wilson as having to pay for his appeasement of the Jenkinsites ‘by moving towards a commitment to withdraw from the EEC if there is no renegotiation of the terms of entry’.6 Michael Foot, appointed by Wilson as shadow Leader of the House in order to fight entry, was nonetheless fairly emollient towards the pro-Marketeers, resisting Tribunite pressure for a threeline whip on all details of the bill. Aware that he had used the PLP’s conscience clause himself, he resisted anything that resembled a
Staying or Going? 91
witch-hunt and deselection. Compared with the cautious attitude he had taken in 1967, Foot was now a passionate anti on the grounds that EC membership threatened British parliamentary democracy, reaching back for arguments to the Civil War and even to the AngloSaxon Witangemot.7 These constitutional grounds for opposition to entry were summed up by The Guardian writer Mark Arnold-Forster, who pointed out that the bill: • abolished Dicey’s principle that no parliament can bind its successors; • introduced an exception to John Hampden’s claim that Parliament should have the sole right to tax; • obliged Parliament to give up control of some public money raised in the UK; • recognised and endorsed the right of another body to issue regulations with direct effect in the UK; • recognised the European Court of Justice as the final arbiter in certain legal questions.8 The pro-Marketeers could not dispute this; they contended that Britain had moved on since the mid-seventeenth century and that, although the EC was imperfect, it was better to be inside (with the possibility of modifying policies and practices) than outside. There was no general recognition that the principle of an outside authority as the final arbiter for some aspects of British law had been accepted six years previously (though admittedly with an escape provision).
Jenkins’ fall from the deputy leadership had various causes. The means and the occasion were Tony Benn’s persistence in promoting a referendum. In his diary for 4 November 1970 Benn had insisted that he was interested in the substance of the European issue, not just in the machinery of a referendum, as Peter Shore asserted he was. Subsequent entries suggest this was true at that time, but that his personal campaign for a referendum also covered a move from proMarket enthusiasm to the anti position that he openly held by 1972. There was no more mention of being ‘a long-term federalist’. On 15 March of that year he got support from only four others in the Shadow Cabinet for a referendum. Party conference had, after all,
92 Labour’s European Dilemmas
voted against a referendum the previous autumn. But events were on his side. The following day President Pompidou announced that the French would be asked to vote in a referendum to approve British entry, while in London the government was considering a vote in Northern Ireland on the status of the border. In both cases the motives for recourse to a ballot were mixed, but so they would be in a Common Market referendum in Britain. On 22 March Benn persuaded the NEC (with Jenkins, Wilson and Callaghan absent) to vote 13 to 11 to ask the Shadow Cabinet to consider a referendum. A week later that body in turn decided eight to six in favour, with the split broadly anti and pro. A further blow to the Right and the proMarketeers on the same day was the NEC decision to appoint Ron Hayward rather than Gwyn Morgan as party General Secretary. Benn, the party chairman for the year, used his casting vote for Hayward. Jenkins recorded how these two decisions, together with George Thomson’s earlier one to take up the Brussels commissionership offered him by Edward Heath, influenced his decision to resign as deputy leader, which he did on 10 April.9 In his resignation letter Jenkins argued that in making the decision in favour of a referendum no thought had been given to the effect on the party: a major campaign would be ‘incomparably more damaging than any differences’ in the Commons, while he feared that a precedent might be set that could be used in respect of hanging, race relations, public ownership and the right of individual dissent. ‘I do not believe that the Shadow Cabinet between its two relevant meetings on the 15th and the 29th March faced and overcame these issues.’10 Thomson and Harold Lever – both widely respected beyond faction – and four other pro-Market party spokesmen, also resigned. But neither Foot nor Benn succeeded Jenkins: the PLP chose the colourless compromise Edward Short. (Jenkins was to stand again for the Shadow Cabinet in October 1973, and was re-elected.) With hindsight the resignations can be seen as heralding events nine years later. At the time few expected – though some on the Left hoped – that the European issue would become a major element in the resignation of Jenkins and many of his supporters not just from the front bench but from the party. Roy Hattersley with customary brio wrote: That was not the day on which the Social Democrats were born. It was not even the morning when they were conceived. But it was the moment when the old Labour coalition started to collapse. . . . I do
Staying or Going? 93
not think Roy Jenkins realised that he was acting as the catalyst to a cataclysm.11 On 12 April the PLP voted 129 to 96 for a consultative referendum, reversing its previous attitude and disregarding Jenkins’ question whether ‘a great party could turn around on one issue after another without seriously damaging itself in the longer term’.12 Foot argued that the party could bring down the government if it voted for a referendum and against the guillotine. Eight days later, the Commons rejected by 284 to 235 a referendum amendment by Conservative antiMarketeer Neil Marten. The rejecting majority was less than the number of 63 Labour members who abstained; had they voted for a referendum, the government would have probably managed to bring out its full force. How much popular support there was for a referendum is disputable. The Daily Express produced a 78 per cent positive response to a question loaded by references to referendums in other countries. A more objective poll showed 84 per cent against a referendum. There was general public reluctance to go in, but a common attitude was: ‘I don’t want to go in, but Britain probably should’.13 A few pro-Marketeers outside parliament favoured a popular vote.14 Not all anti-Market opinion favoured a referendum; some still fought a rearguard action for a straight anti ticket by the party. The Common Market v the Common People, a pamphlet for TUACM, stated that Benn had started a hare on a referendum: He appears to be neutral or slightly pro-Common Market. . . . Mr Benn is playing at politics again. . . . He wants to avoid the straight question of whether Labour rejects the Common Market. The Labour Party should say now that it does not accept the House of Commons vote on entry.15 But more widely the referendum appeared to offer a means of holding the party together and, to the antis, a way out for Britain.
Battle resumed outside Westminster at the TUC and party conferences in the autumn. The former was confused, accepting both a cautious statement by the General Council and a resolution for outright withdrawal by Alan Sapper, of the ACTT, and seconded by communist Ken
94 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Gill of the AEUW-TASS, both among the most consistent and vigorous antis in the union movement. Against the wishes of the General Council, congress voted by a substantial margin not to send representatives to the Community’s Social and Economic Committee. Politics was dominant over interest. Party conference had before it a report from the NEC reiterating the objections to the ‘Tory terms’ and listing the matters on which renegotiation would be required. These were major changes in the CAP, a new and fairer method of financing the Community budget, the rejection of ‘increased unemployment for the sake of maintaining a fixed parity’, the retention of parliament’s powers for ‘effective regional, industrial and fiscal policies’, agreement on capital movements to protect the balance of payments and full employment, better protection for the economic interests of the Commonwealth and developing countries, and no harmonisation of value-added tax. ‘If renegotiations are successful, it is the policy of the Labour Party that, in view of the unique importance of the decision, the people should have the right to decide the issue through a General Election or a Consultative Referendum’ . . . if these tests are passed . . . ‘we shall be ready to play a full part in developing a new and wider Europe’, the NEC report continued. But if the renegotiations did not succeed, ‘we shall not regard the Treaty obligations as binding’, while the people would be consulted on the advisability of negotiating withdrawal. The possibility of ‘failed’ renegotiations and a subsequent popular refusal to approve withdrawal was not considered. Party conference itself was more radical. A constituency resolution calling for moves to create ‘a democratic, socialist Europe’ was thrust aside by a margin of three to one. Another, resolution 415, calling for outright withdrawal, was lost by only 118 000 votes out of a six million total. Composite 44 was put by Dan McGarvey of the Boilermakers’ Union, who argued that the resolution was in effect a vote for withdrawal unless certain conditions even more stringent that those listed by the NEC were obtained. Heath’s settlement was transferring ‘the power of social, economic and tax legislation to the authoritarian Brussels machine’, removing ‘from the British electorate and a future Labour government the power to reform, let alone transform, our social and economic policies’. Britain, he insisted, would have to be entirely free of the CAP, VAT and ‘all Brussels laws and decrees covering economic and regional policy, public ownership, capital movements and taxation’. Voices from the hall were almost all one way. Harry Urwin, of the TGWU, frustratedly expressed a common grass-
Staying or Going? 95
roots feeling: ‘The parliamentary majorities of the three political parties have contrived to deny the people of this country a clear choice on the principle of entry into the European Power Bloc.’16 In vain did maverick MP Willie Hamilton quote party chairman Benn’s 4 February 1970 speech at Bristol University on the industrial considerations which had motivated the previous Labour government and the ‘obvious political advantages which would flow from our entry into Europe’.17 Summing up, Wilson called on the party to stick to its agreed renegotiation policy, but contributed to the anti-EC mood. He cited the EC’s unfair financial system: ‘The best calculation of the net outlay from Britain is £470m a year, against Germany’s £130m net outgoing; Italy on balance £2m in hand; Belgium and Luxembourg £27m in hand; £179m net benefit for the Netherlands and France gaining to the tune of £315m.’ As for the system of agricultural import levies: ‘It is not a tax we put into revenue. It goes into the maw of the Brussels agricultural fund to provide a featherbed for uneconomic French peasant farmers.’18 Conference accepted both the NEC report and the tougher McGarvey composite resolution 44, the latter by half a million votes.19 Party policy was set. On 13 December the PLP duly fell into line and agreed by 140 to 55 votes that, as membership of the Community was ‘in suspense’, so should be Labour representation in the European Parliament. When Britain joined the Community three weeks later its EP representation was limited to 17 Conservatives, two Liberals and an independent peer, leaving 16 seats vacant. In 1973–75 one was taken up by Dick Taverne, whose vote for entry in October 1971 was among many causes of tension with his local party, which decided not to readopt him. His appeal to the NEC rejected, he resigned and fought a by-election at Lincoln under the Democratic Labour banner. He was re-elected by 13 000 votes over the official Labour candidate, but lost the seat in the October 1974 general election. A year later in September 1973, Wilson wrote in his memoirs, ‘the issue was brutally and dangerously reopened’, when the TUC ‘contrived to end the week [of its conference] facing both ways’. Urwin again led the charge. An attempt to take the pragmatic line that British workers should not remain unrepresented in the ESC and not rely on the continentals and Irish to fight their battles was rejected. It could have been more threatening still to Wilson’s policy of preventing the party from adopting a straightforward ‘get out’ policy. On the Sunday before party conference the following month, ‘I had to lay my leader-
96 Labour’s European Dilemmas
ship on the line, and made it clear that I would resign and face the Party with the election of a new Leader if the NEC recommended Conference to bind us to a policy of withdrawal.’20 The NEC caved in and, confirming the referendum pledge, conference rejected a resolution for quitting the EC by half a million votes. But there was more than conference rhetoric, resolutions and card votes in play. The choice was between a referendum to get Britain out and one to keep it in. Appropriately, the all-party group Keep Britain Out became Get Britain Out.
Shore in a Fabian pamphlet, stressed that under pressure during the entry debates Conservative ministers had admitted that, in accordance with British constitutional practice, Parliament had ‘leased’ its powers to the EC, ‘retaining its power to call in that lease when it decides to do so’. The government, he contended, had broken a long-standing convention that major changes affecting the constitution should be agreed between government and opposition unless the people had had a chance to vote on them. Because the British and other Community governments had known when the accession treaties were signed that the Opposition was determined to change the treaties, ‘there can be no question . . . of Labour acting unethically or unconstitutionally in repealing the European Communities Act – or in breaking the Treaty of Accession itself’. The next Labour government, he argued, should repeal, amend or suspend the EC Act in order to return to Westminster those powers ceded to the Community institutions which concerned the acceptance of new Community enactments, the transfer of money to the Community budget and which gave Community law precedence over British law. This done, Britain would be in a strong position to start the renegotiations, Shore wrote. Moreover, as the CAP could not be changed for many years, Britain should be exempted from it. There should also be an exemption from the budgetary system by limiting Britain’s contribution to a ratio of its national income. While Shore was ready to accept free trade in industrial goods within Europe, he rejected the common external tariff against Commonwealth imports. In support of this he cited the fact that West Germany did not impose tariffs on East German goods because of the close connections between the peoples and industries of the two German states: ‘Precisely the same argument applies to the peoples and industry of the four British states, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.’ New Commonwealth countries should retain their access to the British market, he maintained.
Staying or Going? 97
The most difficult problem that Shore foresaw would be future Community law and decision-making. He suggested the abandonment of the ‘regulation’ – which has immediate effect throughout the Community when enacted by the Council of Ministers – and greater use of the ‘directive’ – which requires implementing legislation in each member state. By this means there would be ‘a double democratic defence’: no decision or law could be agreed without prior consent by the British government and parliament while the precise form of legislation implementing a directive would be left to the British parliament ‘to draft and shape as our interests and customs dictate’. Under these terms, Shore envisaged a European free trade area.21 A most revealing phrase in Shore’s tract is ‘the four British states’, an expression by 1973 usually heard only on the right of the Conservative Party. The comparison with West and East Germany was absurd. Those two states were composed of one nation split by force in 1945, and most Germans on both sides dreamt of reunification, however remote. Canada, Australia and New Zealand, while retaining some constitutional links with Britain through the monarchy, had voluntarily begun to separate their own affairs from the mother country a hundred years earlier – and Britain had voluntarily accepted that they did so. There was no wish in any of them or in Britain to create a single state. The weakness of the free trade idea which Jay above all espoused was that it was, even more than the Rome treaty, wholly capitalist in spirit and practice: there was no provision in EFTA for common policies, no dirigisme at all. In a North Atlantic free trade area, as proposed by US Senator Jacob Javits and favoured by Jay, there would be even less opportunity for the mildest of social democratic, ameliorative policies. Moreover, the free trade concept was quite incompatible with the other view, propagated by the Left, that the Community hardened the division between western and eastern Europe and that, without it, there could be some way towards ‘the unity of all of Europe’. Yet in 1973, or in 1967, or in 1962, there were no circumstances – short of the total withdrawal of US forces from Europe, the dissolution of NATO and the neutralisation of western Europe – in which Brezhnev’s Soviet Union would have released eastern Europe from its grasp. And who in western Europe would have bet on such Soviet beneficence? It was only when the Soviet Union’s capacity to hold on to eastern Europe collapsed in 1989 that the way towards transcontinental unification was open. Notwithstanding the East Berlin and Plzen riots of 1953, the Poznan riots of 1956, the Hungarian uprising of 1956, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of
98 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Czechoslovakia in 1968, the call for wider European unity was repeated year in and year out before the trades union and the party conferences. Far more than the Jay–Shore free trade project it was a will-o’-the-wisp. One leftwing commentator took a different standpoint. Tom Nairn saw the Labour Left as confronted with ‘a threat to its traditional essence, rather than the more tactical challenges upon which it normally lives’. The left’s ideal aspiration for society, he wrote, was ‘usually couched in universalist terms, a European Enlightenment concept turned into a world tradition’. Yet when faced with the challenge of supranationalism, In spite of a strong and still lively tradition of ethical internationalism and high-mindedness towards ‘narrow chauvinism’, Labour defended national sovereignty and ‘our’ absolute ‘right to control our own affairs’ against the great ruling-class ‘sell-out’. Abandoned by the right, nationalism was embraced by the great party of the ‘left’.22 Nairn saw a paradox in that those who might be expected to be the most nationalistic – the bourgeois and ruling groups – were the most enthusiastic for the European Community. More fundamentally, he contended, the dialectic of nationalism and Christianity animated the leftwing ‘soul’ of Labourism. It stands for the nation against the consistent betrayal and the corruption of the powers of this world – the ‘official’ nation of State and ruling elite. . . . The true and real nation . . . is a Christian inwardness. . . . While Labour’s right wing surrenders to the way of the world, its left wing remains true to the way of the spirit. The former is the nation of Mammon and force; the latter is the nation of spiritual equality and community, of commanding moral principle and righteous example.23 It is difficult to see Clive Jenkins or Urwin in this perspective, but it does accord with the Free Church backgrounds of Benn and Foot. But how many card votes had the New Left Review?, as Stalin might have asked. The various far-left groupuscules had differing views on Europe. The Socialist Labour League and the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) were confused. The International Marxist Group thought the Labour Left’s chauvinism worse than EC capitalism.
Staying or Going? 99
The International Socialists (later the Socialist Workers Party) were proentry in 1961; in the spring of 1963 John Palmer in International Socialism called for a United Socialist States of Europe. By 1971 the IS fell in line against entry. At this time, among the far-leftwing groups only the Communist Party of Great Britain had any significant impact on the political scene through the unions that its members led or influenced. On Europe, it echoed the nationalist (and Moscow) line: a 1972 booklet by its Secretary General John Gollan, entitled The Common Market: why Britain should not join, included a section headed ‘Parliament no longer supreme’.
With 17 seats fewer than an overall majority but four more than the Conservatives, Labour came unexpectedly back into office when Heath, challenged by the miners’ strike, called a snap election on 28 February 1974. Wilson distributed portfolios with particular care: Callaghan went to the Foreign Office, with pro-Market Roy Hattersley as his Minister of State for European affairs. Three strong antiMarketeers who would be important in any renegotiations, Shore, Fred Peart and Judith Hart, took trade, agriculture and overseas development respectively. Jenkins, Shirley Williams and Lever were safely confined to domestic affairs, the first back at the Home Office, the second concerned with prices and consumer protection and the third in the all-purpose job of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. But they did sit on the European strategy committee, which Wilson chaired. Benn was given industry. Shore accompanied Callaghan to most EC Council meetings, but Hattersley went too. Callaghan chaired a second Europe committee concerned with tactical matters. ‘I aimed to steer a steady course in interpreting the manifesto’, wrote Callaghan, rejecting Benn’s demand for ‘an all-or-nothing attitude – the manifesto, the whole manifesto and nothing but the manifesto’.24 At his first meeting with the other eight foreign ministers Callaghan irritated them by reading extracts from the Labour manifesto. This was taken by them ‘as proof that the new British government puts its party above the aim of achieving European unity. They were, of course, right’ wrote Hattersley later.25 The view of the other member states was that a treaty could not be changed every time a government changed in one member country or another. One element that did change was that the day after Callaghan spoke President Pompidou died, to be succeeded by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was less beholden to the memory of de Gaulle. In
100 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Germany too there was change: Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned after a spy scandal and was replaced by Helmut Schmidt, who was both more pragmatic and more Atlanticist. The manifesto had echoed the resolution passed at the previous conference. It stated that the Heath government had made a profound political mistake by accepting the terms and going in ‘without the consent of the British people’. The wording of both resolution and manifesto show that the reality was that it was now the antiMarketeers who were on the defensive, whatever they may have thought and whatever the general impression. The principle of membership of the Community had been long conceded, back in Gaitskell’s day. Once the issue had become a matter of ‘terms’, as it had been in 1962, in 1967, in 1971 and again in 1974, all the socialist arguments against the Community – such as the capitalist character of the Rome treaty – were disregarded when faced with the realities of office, however much they were proclaimed to the faithful from party platforms. For the general public socialist arguments were not just meaningless: too public a reliance on them would have diminished the popular appeal of the general anti-Market case. Conservatives with doubts would have rallied to their party’s leadership. On both sides of the argument care was necessary to avoid alienating supporters of a different party. Within the Cabinet, Benn records on 7 March that the Queen’s Speech text on Europe was that the government would ‘seek changes in the policies in the European Community’, and, after a referendum ‘looked forward to playing a full and useful part in Europe’. This he found a ‘complete watering down of our manifesto commitment’. Castle’s diary for the same meeting records ‘desultory talk’ that she could barely hear. The crux of the issue was whether the core British demands could be accommodated within the existing treaties; from the beginning Wilson and Callaghan determined that they would be. One close press observer, Michael Hatfield, saw this as ‘a masterstroke’; another astute outsider, John Cole, comments that both the pros and the Foreign Office were surprised that Benn and Shore in particular did not challenge Callaghan.26 The two noted Cabinet diarists of the period are unusually reticent. Castle limited herself to an editorial footnote that the French Foreign Minister had said that any renegotiation of the Rome treaty would be ‘unacceptable’, and to a reference to a Sunday Times report that civil servants were producing ‘a flow of papers to prove that one of the antimarketeers’ key demands – the need to amend the Treaty of Rome – was unneces-
Staying or Going? 101
sary’.27 Benn’s diary made no comment on either occasion. The antis had really given up. Two decades later, Shore conceded that they would just have been outvoted.28 Moreover, as the stress had for long been on the terms of entry, the whole affair had taken on a ritual form. A generally pervading pessimism was deepened by a Cabinet paper that foresaw Britain’s gross national product per head by 1980 as exceeding only Ireland’s in the EC, with Germany’s double the British level. Callaghan explained his attitude to the renegotiations as being based on his continuing belief that Britain’s economic salvation depended upon the British themselves, but that politically the voice of Europe in world affairs was in danger of being lost because the strength of the superpowers was so much greater than that of other individual nations. However, he felt that the way to finding a stronger European voice was handicapped by ‘a resumption of the long-running and tiresome argument between European Federalists and the rest’. But a weekend European ministerial meeting in April 1974, confirmed my scepticism that none of the advocates were serious about working out the details of a European Union or how it could be achieved politically. Nevertheless, they seemed ready to pay lip service to the idea and pressed for a declaration of faith by Britain, which I resolutely refused to give.29 This is another example of the problem from 1947 onwards of uncomprehending British pragmatism when faced with continental idealism, and vice versa. However, the more British ministers – whatever their stance on the membership issue – met their continental and Irish colleagues to thrash out practical matters, the less of a spectre the Community appeared. It also illustrates the difference of attitude between Right and Left about power, and not just because Callaghan had immediate responsibility for Britain’s international position. At the extreme, the Right was concerned with power in the here and now, the Left with aspiration. By June the contentious issues had been whittled down to the budget, farm policy, policy towards developing countries, and regional and industrial policies. Callaghan was by now talking of ‘when’ not ‘if’ these matters were ‘put right’.30 Negotiations lagged during the summer, some EC governments wondering whether it was worth bothering to complete negotiations with a minority government which
102 Labour’s European Dilemmas
might not survive the expected early election. This duly took place on 10 October and improved the government’s position, but only to a majority of three. The election manifesto had moved on from February: instead of a ‘General Election or a consultative referendum’, it had promised ‘giving the British people the final say, which will be binding on the government – through the ballot box’, on whether to accept or reject the renegotiated terms. So the outcome would bind the government. The wording also appeared to have moved slightly towards the pro position. Schmidt played a crucial role, both within the Labour Party and between Wilson and Giscard d’Estaing. The normal party conference having been cancelled because of the election, the party met in London on 27–30 November. Urwin argued in emergency resolution 14 that the pending referendum legislation should impose expenditure limits by campaigning organisations, with equal allocation of publicity opportunities through television, radio and the press. ‘The issue is whether Britain wants to be a self-governing parliamentary democracy or wants to be a minority province of a West European bureaucratic federation.’ This was agreed by a show of hands. Resolution 16 tried to tie the government’s hands more tightly, demanding ‘complete safeguards’ on parliamentary sovereignty, public ownership, capital movements, tax policy, subsidised food, duty-free food imports, Commonwealth imports on the old terms, labour movement control and defence. It also required the party to hold a special conference before the referendum. This went through by a narrow majority of 58 000 votes of near six million cast.31 All this was familiar if agreeable to most delegates. Novel was Schmidt’s contribution as fraternal delegate from the German Social Democratic Party. ‘Witty and amusing’, according to Benn. Castle’s comment is ambivalent for though the speech was ‘masterly’, she notes how he followed the blueprint she had sent him beforehand, including ‘the socialist appeal to “solidarity” ’. But she concluded: ‘I felt almost guilty. If I had not sent all those warnings he might have boobed. Instead, I helped him to strike one of the most effective blows yet for our membership.’ He earned an ovation.32 Schmidt’s weekend at Chequers was more fruitful still in providing the opportunity to review the renegotiations to date and to arrange a visit by Wilson to Giscard d’Estaing the following Tuesday. In Paris the Prime Minister told the French President that if the renegotiations succeeded, he would commend them to the British people. His public assertion to this effect on 7 December in turn contributed to a successful outcome of the negotiations. A summit meeting in Paris two days later settled the main
Staying or Going? 103
lines, in particular agreeing that Britain would receive 28 per cent from a new regional fund (of a modest $1.3bn), second only to Italy. More important, the budgetary issue was formally recognised as a Community problem. The heads of government agreed on a correcting mechanism to come into effect in the event of the ‘possible development of situations unacceptable for a Member State and incompatible with the smooth working of the Community’.33 Thus the matter was resolved through a general principle rather than making special provision for Britain, while British agreement to a ‘refund’ rather than a ‘reduction’ in the budgetary contribution also oiled the wheels. In the following weeks the details were worked out and confirmed at a further summit in Dublin in March. It was now the time for the Labour Party, aided by the British electorate, to resolve its internal problem.
7 The Public’s Opinion
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 12 March 1975 Personalities: Harold Wilson, Peter Shore, Tony Benn, Michael Foot
‘A life-raft that both sides in the party would one day be happy to scramble aboard’ – James Callaghan1 Water started to leak over the dam immediately after Christmas 1974 when Tony Benn issued to the press a ‘letter to his constituents’ in Bristol, South-East. ‘Britain’s continuing membership would mean the end of Britain as a self-governing nation and the end of our democratically elected Parliament as the supreme law-making body in the United Kingdom’, he wrote. He did so ‘as an MP and not as a minister’. Furthermore, he disingenuously claimed that, as he was not dealing with the arguments for or against entry, he had not contravened a Cabinet decision on 12 December to hold over 104
The Public’s Opinion 105
discussing the issue until the New Year.2 Benn’s move in turn gave heightened interest to an address to an academic audience (by coincidence also in Bristol) by Roy Hattersley, Foreign Office Minister of State, a week later. Though largely drafted before Benn’s letter and reflecting much that Callaghan had already said in the Commons, the address ratcheted up the tension. Hattersley’s theme was essentially the difference between ‘formal’ and ‘effective’ sovereignty, but the charge that Benn was pursuing ‘a Victorian chimera’ did not cool fevered spirits. Peter Shore added his quota on 14 January by a debating point in a parliamentary reply about the growing trade deficit with the EC countries. Harold Wilson had to struggle to keep his ministers in line. After the Dublin summit the Cabinet met on 17 March to consider the outcome of the negotiations, but reached no conclusion. At an early stage of the negotiations James Callaghan had said the government would be happy to accept 80 per cent of their initial negotiating proposals, and this he now believed had been achieved. The most difficult one had been finance. Later years were to prove that the renegotiations had not solved the problem, but it was now formally on the Community table for future reference. For the rest, the outcome was probably little different from what could have been achieved by normal intra-Community negotiations. Roy Jenkins was disdainful: ‘. . . largely a cosmetic enterprise, producing the maximum of ill-will in Europe and the minimum of result (except for a smokescreen under which both Wilson and Callaghan could make their second switch of position on Europe within five years)’.3 Kenneth Morgan, a more detached observer, sees the negotiations as serious, gaining important concessions for Commonwealth produce and a major interim settlement on the budget issue.4 By his own account, Wilson had believed that a year earlier the Cabinet comprised twelve anti ministers, nine pro, with Callaghan and himself as agnostic, pending the results of the renegotiations. The following day they voted on the agreement. With the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary accepting the terms, the Deputy Leader Edward Short came into line, as did Denis Healey, Merlyn Rees, John Morris and Chief Whip Bob Mellish. Anthony Crosland’s hesitations when in Opposition had long vanished. Fred Peart and Reg Prentice decided that changes in the terms in agriculture and overseas development respectively were enough to earn their support. Including the ministers in the Lords it was now 16 for and seven against. Barbara Castle, Benn, Michael Foot, Shore, John Silkin, William Ross and Eric Varley
106 Labour’s European Dilemmas
were the minority. Worse, from Wilson’s point of view, he had to admit to ‘a serious error of tactics’ the following week. Away from London, he left Short to chair a Cabinet meeting to settle the details of the agreement to differ, whereby ministers would be free to campaign on opposing sides in the referendum campaign but should generally observe Cabinet unity. Wilson claims that he had never assumed that his colleagues would agree that ministers, junior as well as senior, would be free not just to abstain but to vote against the government on the issue. But his colleagues agreed that they could vote but not speak against the government in the forthcoming debate. Benn’s and Castle’s accounts of these days differ from Wilson’s interpretation.5 Agreeing to differ was all very well in principle, but its translation into practice was difficult. There was talk in Cabinet of a new 1931, with a pro-Market/Tory coalition government emerging. ‘It did, indeed, look perilously close to a 1931 situation, with a Labour government at odds with its own supporters, and kept in office only by the prop of Tory support’, wrote Ben Pimlott.6 Nerves were getting very frayed. On 19 March an EDM to reject the terms put down by Joe Ashton, Benn’s PPS, gained 132 Labour signatures, rising to 140 and including nearly two dozen ministers – another deviation from usual form. In the NEC Ian Mikardo gained the support of 18 of the 29 members against continued membership as the terms achieved fell ‘very far short’ of the party’s objectives as set out in the last two election manifestos. On 22 March the Scottish TUC voted 346 000 to 280 000 against the terms. The referendum, rather than narrow the divide, threatened to widen it. The dissenters had perhaps overplayed their hand with their ‘crude conspiracy’.7 Wilson threatened to resign.8 Party General Secretary Ron Hayward (himself anti) realised the dangers to the party and produced a memorandum for the NEC, which recognised the right of all party members, including staff, to differ. This neutralised party headquarters during the campaign. When the Commons met on 7 April the situation reversed that in early 1972 when Wilson had had to rely only on antis to speak for the party’s opposition to the Heath terms of entry. In the debate the dissidents observed the guidelines, except for Eric Heffer, Benn’s Minister of State at the Department of Industry, whose speech in the Commons led to his prompt sacking. The government motion was passed on 9 April by 396 to 170, but with Conservative votes, for over half the PLP rejected the government’s position:
The Public’s Opinion 107
Just as the Labour rebels of 28 October 1971 had facilitated the Heath government’s majority for entry into the European Community, Table 7.1
Voting on Government Motion of 9 April 1975
Cabinet ministers Other ministers Backbenchers All Labour MPs
Ayes
Noes
Did not vote
Total
14 31 92 137
7 31 107 145
0 9 24 33
21 71 223 315
so the Conservatives came to the aid of the Wilson government on this occasion, though more decisively. Despite sharp criticism of the renegotiation policy they voted 249 to eight for staying in, with 18 absent or abstaining. Twelve out of 13 Liberals did the same, as also six out of ten Ulster Unionists. Thirteen nationalists voted against. One Liberal, one nationalist, four Unionists and two others did not vote. So overall there were 398 MPs for remaining in the Community, 172 opposed and 59 absent or abstaining.9 In parliament the government had got its way by a two to one majority. In the party it was much more difficult. Before the special conference scheduled for 26 April party headquarters published an ‘information paper’, The Common Market Renegotiations: an Appraisal, drafted with enthusiasm by Geoff Bish, the head of research, and reluctantly accepted by Jenny Little, head of international affairs. More in condescension than flattery the paper stated that the government had ‘done its best to meet our Manifesto objectives . . . the conclusion of this paper is that our terms have not been met’. Responsibility for this failure lay with the EC, which was ‘simply not prepared to concede the fundamental changes [required] by our manifesto’. The paper doubted that leaving the EC would lose Britain trade, or international goodwill, or any say in decisions affecting Britain, or lose jobs, or lose options for more trade with other parts of the world, or lose a voice in world affairs, or lose investment. Nor, it argued, would Britain lose financially, for its assets exceeded liabilities by over £5bn. It even claimed that if Britain stayed in, the EC would be less responsive to its needs than if it were outside. Finally it pointed to the undemocratic decisionmaking procedures of the Community. This pudding was decidedly overegged; a more balanced document would have been more
108 Labour’s European Dilemmas
influential. But as events in Cabinet had shown, rational discussion was over by this stage. The pro elements in the NEC could not get the document rejected, but when it did appear it stated baldly that ‘It had not been endorsed by the NEC’. The Financial Times is not a newspaper that many delegates would have been seen reading at the party’s special conference when it met in London on 26 April. Had they done so they would have found an analysis by David Watt, a social democrat and pro-Marketeer, of the sovereignty argument that gave little clear-cut encouragement to either side, though perhaps more to the antis than to the pros. The ‘pooled sovereignty’ argument, he found, is on the face of it an attractive line of approach . . . [it] rests on the ‘increased influence’ argument – it is better to be a medium-sized frog in a large pond than a large frog in a puddle . . . [but it] fails to meet the main problem. . . . We have lost sovereignty, but no one else has picked it up. It has seeped away somewhere through the cracks in the present Community structure. This loss of sovereignty, Watt continued, is limited by the retention of the ministerial veto. But then it is the retention of the veto, which prevents any genuine ‘pooling’ of sovereignty. The nine nations of the EEC do not yet have sufficient confidence in each other and their identity of purpose to adopt an executive which votes by majority, a parliament with real powers or a common defence policy. Economic and monetary union, which would represent a genuine cession of sovereignty, is indefinitely postponed. Hattersley 25 years later questioned whether the pros had been straightforward on the sovereignty issue: ‘Joining the European Community involved loss of significant sovereignty, but by telling the British people that was not involved, I think the . . . argument was prejudiced for the next 30 years.’10 By this time some of the cracks had been filled in, mutual confidence had increased appreciably, as had the identity of purpose, while economic and monetary union – that acid test – was fast approaching. The special conference met under the slogan ‘Conference Advises, the People Decide’ – astutely devised as a let-out if needs be. The NEC’s pull back from open conflict had calmed the situation and
The Public’s Opinion 109
reduced the conference to an anti-climax. Wilson (who was visibly nervous about the outcome) put on a low-key act, trying to persuade by a reluctant ‘yes’: ‘I have never emotionally been a Europe man.’ Bryan Stanley of the POEU opened for the NEC, arguing that the terms did not meet Britain’s needs and that the party should campaign massively for a ‘no’ vote in the referendum. Appeals to the ideology of socialism came from a succession of speakers, but they divided between those who argued for Europe first and socialism later and those for whom the currently capitalist nature of the Community was an insurmountable barrier, offering no way forward to a socialist Europe. Speakers on both sides used the same rhetoric of ‘socialism’: the division, as since 1961, was between those who were prepared to enter the ‘capitalist club’ and work from within for change and those who disliked it so much that they wanted nothing to do with it. Minds did not meet. Crossman’s observation made four years earlier before his death was still true. It was unlikely than any converts were made in that hall; the appeals were aimed, first at the party at large, only later at the general public. Michael Foot concluded for the NEC, urging the assembly to accept the view of ‘a majority of the NEC’ that ‘the party should campaign . . . for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Common Market’. Conference voted by 3.72m votes to 1.99m against – a near two to one majority against continued membership, and marginally avoiding the rule that a two-thirds vote (in theory) determines party policy. The line up of the unions on each side was familiar. Only about 450 constituencies had sent delegates and how they voted is uncertain. Perhaps they broke five to one against, perhaps two to one.11 The delegates went away to campaign ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or to sit on their hands.
The organisation of the referendum was in the hands of Short, the Leader of the Commons, who already had a constitutional role regarding Scottish and Welsh devolution. This had the advantage to the government of distancing the Home Secretary Jenkins from accusations of partiality in the arrangements. It had the advantage for him that it would not draw attention to his April 1972 resignation in opposition to the principle of a referendum and also freed him to play a leading role in the pro-membership campaign. One matter to settle was how the count was to be organised: the alternatives were a national count, a vote by county or a vote by constituency. A national count would be difficult and time-consuming, while a con-
110 Labour’s European Dilemmas
stituency count could involve difficulties for MPs if the results differed from their votes in the Commons. Finally, a county vote was accepted as the least hazardous politically. It would be awkward if Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland were to vote contrary to the UK result, but that was a risk to take. There was a greater risk still for the government. Would the vote be ‘yes’ or ‘no’? From mid-1973 until January 1975 MORI opinion polls showed a narrow vote to get out of the EC. In the latter month Gallup got a similar result, but then asked a second question: ‘If the Government were to renegotiate the terms and strongly urge that Britain stay in, how would you vote?’ This produced a response of 65 per cent in favour and 35 against, a two to one margin.12 The proMarketeers, long dubious about a referendum, began to see it turning in their favour. The antis, long confident that a popular vote would endorse their standpoint, had their first qualms. The two camps marshalled their troops under two ‘umbrella organisations’: Britain in Europe (BIE), with Jenkins as President, for the pros; the National Referendum Campaign (NRC) for the antis, chaired by Conservative MP Neil Marten. The ‘yes’ camp had the immediate advantage of being led by people who had sat on European Movement committees for some 15 years, who knew each other well and were familiar with cross-party cooperation. However, Ernest Wistrich, director of the European Movement since 1969, was shouldered aside as too enthusiastically federalist in favour of retired Whitehall mandarin and EC entry negotiator, Sir Con O’Neill. Though BIE only formally came into being on 1 January 1975, planning for action in the event of a referendum had begun the previous spring by the EM and under the cover of ELEC – the European League for Economic Cooperation, a business-orientated group. John Harris, Labour Party head of publicity for the 1964 election and a close associate of Jenkins, became ELEC’s part-time director in 1972. Two years later as Lord Harris of Greenwich he became Jenkins’ Minister of State at the Home Office, but he continued his contacts. Other Labour figures involved in ELEC were Harold Lever and Tom Bradley, General Secretary of TSSA and a longtime parliamentary supporter of the LCE. George Thomson kept his lines open to the pros after becoming European Commissioner. An additional characteristic of the BIE leadership, and of much of the wider support, was that they were from those parts of the political spectrum where ideologies were relatively close, sometimes overlapping. There were to be frictions, more at the lower than the leading levels, and outside London, but by and large the machinery worked
The Public’s Opinion 111
smoothly. Much of the activity at local level was to be carried out by Conservative and Liberal associations. The ‘yes’ campaign thus appeared more seamless than the ‘no’. With plentiful resources, the ‘yes’ camp could satisfy differences of view by changes of emphasis for different audiences. Behind the immediate ‘no’ vote objective the NRC campaigners’ ideological aims not only differed but fundamentally conflicted. By and large such subtleties passed the electorate by: it was a matter of a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, however arrived at. The NRC was made up of 12 organisations, of which the main ones were Get Britain Out and the Common Market Safeguards Committee, to which the Labour Committee for Safeguards on the Common Market was affiliated. The last had been founded in 1967 by Ron Leighton, with Douglas Jay as chairman. The NRC suffered from the fragmentation characteristic of the anti-Market cause from the beginning, and it also lacked common aims apart from winning the referendum. Many of their members had enthusiasm but little political experience. ‘It is going to be an awful ragbag’, Benn confided to his diary late in 1974.13 Although in the course of the campaign some participants found their strange bedfellows more congenial than they had imagined, it was an uneasy coalition. Some on the Left wanted import controls, the direction of capital investment and other qualities of a socialist policy. This was anathema to Conservatives, and also difficult for Jay and Shore, who campaigned for wider world free trade. Organisationally, the ‘no’ campaigners were at a much greater disadvantage: they had little money. The only media support was from the communist Morning Star, a few Scottish titles and two weeklies with small though passionate readership, The Spectator and Tribune. The last provided a focus for leftwing antis, organising a ‘considerable number of major rallies’, calling on the enthusiasm of many party and union activists.14 John Mills, a Camden borough Labour councillor who came in as organiser in April, recalls a hectic six weeks. The GBO movement he found ‘very disorganised’. An immediate task was to cancel most of the meetings GBO had set up in order to ensure that leading speakers had concentrated programmes of activity that could get television coverage. Union support was erratic, with Jack Jones ‘the most robust’ and Clive Jenkins ‘more mercurial’, among union leaders.15 The TGWU and ASTMS were most active in seconding staff; the former sent its research head Bob Harrison, the latter Barry Sherman, its research head, Sally Kellner and Hilary Benn. Some other unions provided volunteers and office backup.
112 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Finally, a crucial characteristic of the ‘no’ campaign was that it was largely drawn from the further ends of the political spectrum. Whereas the pro camp could field Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Jeremy Thorpe, David Steel, Edward Heath, William Whitelaw and, in a low-key role, the new Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, the prominent figures among the ‘no’ campaigners were mainly from the Labour Left – Michael Foot, Benn, Castle, union leaders Jones, Hugh Scanlon and Clive Jenkins – or were such far-right mavericks as Enoch Powell, Teddy Taylor and Ian Paisley. Moderate Conservative antis like Marten and Richard Body had little public salience and Jay lacked popular appeal. Getting agreement for such disparate elements to appear on a joint platform was difficult, sometimes impossible. Labour figures were reluctant to appear with Powell. These circumstances hampered the leftwing criticism of the EC, and obliged the left antis to adopt the nationalistic line, except before party or trade union audiences. For the Left the heavy expenditure by business interests on BIE confirmed the capitalist nature of the EC. Wilson and Callaghan tried to hover authoritatively above the fray, but were inevitably identified as being on the ‘yes’ side. Labour ‘yes’ campaigners did not hesitate to use photographs of and quotations from both on their leaflets. Callaghan made a brave attempt on television to distinguish ‘three views’ when discussing the government-financed leaflets that were put through every letter box: there was, he contended, the ‘yes’ leaflet, the ‘no’ leaflet, and there was ‘the government’s case’. For the ‘no’ partisans there was no difference between the last and the pro case, and public opinion too failed to make the distinction. With characteristic agility Callaghan had earlier covered his back: with £5000 from Marks & Spencer which financed a private opinion poll carried out at his request. It found that most Labour voters would vote ‘yes’.16 This satisfactorily reversed a Lou Harris poll reported in The Guardian before the Dublin summit that showed Labour voters 42 per cent against and 35 per cent pro.17 Two days later in the same paper Ian Aitken reported that Callaghan had stated that leaving the Community would be ‘catastrophic’, while Wilson maintained his ‘pragmatic’ approach of backing softly in. But he was closer than he pretended, calling in Harris, the arch Labour tactician on the pro side, for advice on his personal campaign presentation.18 The Labour Committee for Europe took the campaigning title of Labour Campaign for Britain in Europe, with Shirley Williams as president and Dickson Mabon as chairman; other MPs were active, notably John Roper and Bill Rogers. Its sponsors included 88 MPs, 21 peers and
The Public’s Opinion 113
25 trade union leaders. Veteran party regional agent Jim Cattermole, who had run the LCE since 1972, Peggy Crane, a former party staffer and Europe Left editor, and three others provided the organisational back-up. Much activity aimed at Labour voters was subsumed into the general campaign. Peter Stephenson, a longtime LCE member, headed the overall research team, which included Geoff Harris. The Labour Campaign had a budget of £92 000 in the three months up to voting day, drawn from the BIE budget. It arranged regional meetings and produced a stream of weekly briefing bulletins featuring arguments thought likely to influence party and union members and Labour voters generally. The industrial side was handled through the Trades Union Alliance for Europe headed by former TUC General Secretary Vic Feather and run by David Warburton of the municipal workers, a union long in the pro camp. This campaign was mainly manned by APEX whose General Secretary, Roy Grantham, had long been a pro champion through TUCFE. During the campaign a number of pro ministers and MPs, such as Crosland and Hattersley, preferred to appear on TUAE and LCE rather than BIE platforms. The arguments put up by both sides were now familiar, and worked to death in some cases. Only changes of external circumstances brought anything novel. The turbulence of the international economy since the oil crisis of autumn 1973 came to the aid of the pros in two ways. They argued that times were too dangerous for trying to go it alone. At an ICBH seminar 20 years later one ‘no’ campaigner argued that but for the instability in the world economy the ‘yes’ majority would have been substantially less.19 Secondly, world food prices had risen so much that the difference between them and EC support prices had largely disappeared. So the food price argument of the antis was severely dented. However, this did not prevent the ever-ebullient Castle making a trip to Brussels to show triumphantly how much more expensive food was there than in Britain; in response, BIE sent a team to Norway to show how costly the same food basket was in a country that had voted against EC membership. More discomforting for the pros was the sharp deterioration in Britain’s balance of payments in recent years. Speakers’ notes issued by the TUC showed Britain’s trade balance since 1971 as moving from a surplus of £370m to a deficit of £2.81bn in 1974, deterioration largely accounted for by trade with the EC countries. A deficit of £260m with these countries had become one of £2200m by 1974, mainly explained by a switch of food suppliers. Graphic though this point appeared, it reflected world food price trends and Britain’s heavy reliance on imported food.
114 Labour’s European Dilemmas
The ‘Commonwealth factor’ so important to Gaitskell had long vanished; indeed, it had played little part in the 1967 attempt to enter the EC. It was replaced in part by the ‘developing countries’ factor – largely neutralised by the extension to developing Commonwealth countries of the Lomé accord on access for their industrial and most agricultural products to EC markets. A convenient fillip for Wilson at the end of the Commonwealth conference in Jamaica on 1–5 May was the addition to the final communiqué drafted by Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley hoping that Britain would maintain its membership of the Community.20
Voting took place on Thursday 5 June, with some pro trepidation that complacency would slacken turnout and reduce the ‘yes’ majority. But the turnout was substantial and exit polls published late that night predicted a more than comfortable majority. Counting began the following morning and was completed by 11 p.m. There were 25.9m votes cast: 64.5 per cent of the electorate had voted, down 8 per cent from the October 1974 general election. Of the valid papers 67.2 per cent had voted ‘yes’ and 32.8 per cent ‘no’. ‘The consent accorded by the public to British membership . . . was not quite “whole-hearted”, but it was, at least, convincing.’21 The two-to-one majority paralleled both the Gallup Poll of January and the vote in the Commons in April, but was the reverse of the twoto-one against vote by Labour’s special conference. The 54 000 invalid ballot papers were proportionally more than in any recorded general election. The fall in turnout also implies some voters’ resentment, encountered by pollsters and canvassers, at being asked to vote on the sort of complex issue which many considered they had elected MPs to decide. England recorded a 68.7 per cent favourable vote, followed by Wales with 66.5 per cent, Scotland with 61.7 per cent and Northern Ireland with 52.1 per cent. In the last region – where the count was on a whole province not a county basis – the turnout of 47.4 per cent was well below the mean of 64 per cent in the rest of the country. Every county in Great Britain showed a majority ‘yes’ vote, except Shetland and the Western Isles.22 Psephologist Michael Steed’s analysis on the basis of previous electoral results suggested that the lower turnout in Labour-voting urban areas was more a reflection of normal voting patterns than of the yes/no divide.23 Certainly Labour voters were less enthusiastic than others in voting for staying in, according to opinion poll evidence.
The Public’s Opinion 115
Steed estimated a 52.5 per cent ‘yes’ and 47.5 per cent ‘no’ vote among Labour voters. Another study by Martin Collins concluded that 24 per cent of those who had voted Labour in October 1974 did not vote in the referendum, and that those who did vote split 55 to 45 per cent ‘yes’ and ‘no’.24 TGWU research head Bob Harrison argued to the contrary: the same margin as Steed but with a ‘no’ majority by extrapolating from the previous general election figures.25 David Butler and Uwe Kitzinger found his case ‘ingenious’ but flawed, as based on too many assumptions contradicted by other evidence.26 In a few areas Steed concluded that a well-known local personality’s attitude might have marginally affected the result. In Avon the 67.8 per cent ‘yes’ was slightly below the English average and may have been reduced by 1.4 per cent by Benn’s views as a local MP. Collins concluded that all the English and Welsh constituencies, and probably almost all in Scotland, voted ‘yes’. (In Cabinet, Barbara Castle had recorded for the previous 6 February, ‘Only Wedgie [Benn] went for a constituency count’.27 Had this taken place his humiliation could have been greater still.) For the antis the result was deeply disappointing. They had wanted a referendum, seeing it as a sure means of reversing the situation by calling in the will of the people against the parliamentary, media and Establishment élite: apart from occasional blips opinion polls had shown a consistent public antipathy (or at least indifference) to the Common Market since 1971. Unfortunately for the ‘noes’ the people finally agreed with the élite. The ‘noes’ could draw modest comfort from the fact that, on opinion poll evidence, they had held their own in the later weeks of the campaign. For the losers there was a convenient scapegoat at hand: the overwhelming financial and organisational power of the pro camp. How important it really was is impossible to know, but the superior BIE resources certainly showed themselves in obtaining more professional help, especially in preparing the television programmes put on air for both sides by the broadcasting authorities. At the TUC conference the previous September Clive Jenkins had launched an attack on the European Movement (before BIE itself was formed), saying: ‘I understand that £2m has been allocated . . . to try to defeat us. Do you know that this compares with a legal maximum for one political party in the general election of £1m? They are out not to sway public opinion; they are out to buy opinion.’28 Jenkins had a lucky hit, for although at that time it was not clear how much money either camp would raise, his figure proved accurate. The umbrella organisations were each granted
116 Labour’s European Dilemmas
£125 000 from public funds (a proposal to increase this amount had seen the anti ministers reluctantly whipped against). The White Paper published in October 1975 showed that BIE had spent £1.482m and the NRC £133 000 – a ratio of eleven to one.29 But this does not give the whole picture. The BIE figure was net of a repayment of £350 000 to the European Movement for referendum-related activity during 1974 and early in 1975 before BIE was set up; BIE also emerged with a surplus of £100 000. So the pro camp in fact had some £1.95m available and largely spent – very close to the sum plucked from the air by Clive Jenkins nine months before voting day. The budget of the LCE in the early seventies had ranged from £3000 to £32 000 (in 1973–74), compared with the £92 000 during this campaign. On the ‘no’ side the NRC raised only £8600 beyond the government grant, although GBO spent another £28 000. The largest donation to the NRC was under £1400 – from the TGWU.30 Anti unions had already spent a great deal on two general elections the previous year; their reluctance also reflected a suspicion that their cause was already lost and that to spend union funds openly and one-sidedly on an issue on which their members were divided, could have risked internal problems. So the real expenditure ratio was twelve to one. This financial overkill provided an excuse for the effective rejection of the referendum result by some ‘no’ campaigners; some sustained resentment 20 years later.31 How much companies, unions and such organisations as the London Cooperative Society (which urged its million members to vote ‘no’; Sainsbury’s urged ‘yes’) spent on leaflets and other encouragement to vote one way or the other, and the value of the time of staff seconded to help the umbrella bodies, is unknown. The referendum cost the Treasury at least £11.4m.32 Before the referendum the question of limiting expenditure was lightly passed over by the government, and various amendments put down by anti MPs were rejected. (The experience of the unlimited and unbalanced funding in 1975 was a factor in the Blair government’s decision to impose a limit on campaign expenditure in future referendums, along with the criticisms by the Neill committee of arrangements for the Scottish and Welsh referendums.) Jay’s hatred of the EC led him to extreme gullibility about the role, the resources and the persuasive capacity of the EC information services.33 Before British entry the Commission’s UK office played a background role, providing the pro side with ammunition but trying to avoid – vainly, it turned out – being accused of interfering in British politics.
The Public’s Opinion 117
During the referendum campaign it and the Parliament’s office again assumed low profiles, although maintaining significant contacts with the press, amongst others. The conspiratorial view also implies considerable gullibility and venality of British opinion formers. However, both British EC Commissioners, George Thomson and Sir Christopher Soames, spoke widely and prominently for the ‘yes’ campaign. While the print media were overwhelmingly pro, the broadcasting authorities could reasonably fend off accusations that they were biased in favour of a ‘yes’ vote. Television coverage by all channels rose from 42 minutes in the first week of May to over nine hours in the week up to 4 June. As Sir Charles Curran, Director General of the BBC, observed before the vote, ‘. . . the winners won’t thank us, they’ll thank themselves; the losers will certainly blame us’. Yet the main ‘no’ campaigners as individuals appear to have done well in television exposure, partly because they were fewer in number. Benn, for example, between 1 May and 4 June appeared on television 52 times, compared with 23 by Powell and 22 by Shore. Under the BIE umbrella Roy Jenkins appeared 27 and Heath 23 times. Wilson appeared 25 times. Overall, the leading antis chalked up 180 appearances in this period, the pros 116 and government speakers 48. Even if the last are added to the pros, the antis did well.34 The most compelling reason why the ‘noes’ lost was the public perception of their leaders. On 1–6 April Lou Harris International carried out a poll for BIE on the extent of public recognition of 28 leading political and union figures, the degree of respect/like and dislike/ disrespect they evoked, and of their views on Europe. At that stage 75 per cent of those questioned correctly identified Wilson’s views and 78 per cent Heath’s. Jenkins scored 39 and Benn 32. The summarised results for 19 of them for recognition, and like and dislike, in percentages, are given in Table 7.2. Although this poll was for the private use of BIE, the new Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher was omitted in order to avoid comparison with her predecessor Heath; Healey and Castle were also omitted. The poll showed clearly that not only were leading ‘yes’ advocates better known to the public but that they were better liked and respected. The ‘like’ responses in each case outnumbered the ‘dislike’ responses by up to four to one. In the case of the ‘noes’ the ‘dislike’ responses almost all outweighed the ‘like’ responses by a clear margin. Only Powell, Shore and Marten evoked more ‘like’ than ‘dislike’ reactions, and very marginally; and Shore’s recognition score was modest and Marten’s very low. All other ‘no’ advocates were clearly disliked
118 Labour’s European Dilemmas Table 7.2 Figures
Harris International Public Opinion Poll on Political and Union
‘Yes’ advocates Recog. Like Dislike Wilson Heath Thorpe Whitelaw Jenkins, Roy Feather Maudling Callaghan George-Brown Williams
97 94 91 83 82 79 79 79 79 78
42 42 40 33 34 33 26 31 28 34
23 21 11 8 9 15 14 11 16 11
‘No’ advocates Recog. Like Dislike Powell Paisley Benn Foot Scanlon Jones Jenkins, Clive Shore Marten
92 83 81 79 75 74 74 45 11
33 3 17 17 13 17 18 10 2
31 62 32 26 30 22 25 7 1
more than they were liked.35 As Body put it with wistful irony at a 1995 ICBH seminar: ‘The extremists were “No”; all the “nice people” were “Yes”, and were safe.’36 The ‘noes’ could bolster their self-esteem by arguing that this poll, which was not published until after the vote, demonstrated that their unpopularity was due to earlier and continuing vilification by the media. The same seminar showed that ‘no’ resentment of the media attitude was undimmed after two decades. Alf Lomas, who ran the London Cooperative Society’s anti campaign, agrees that the personalities rather than the resources were dominant: ‘It was like David and Goliath, only Goliath won.’37 In the case of Benn the plea of media vilification was justified, as Michael Hatfield commented: In the view of many politicians and the majority of political commentators he was mischievous, perhaps dangerous and even mad. Benn’s eyes became the object of close attention by the cartoonists: they stared out from beneath arched eyebrows and appeared to revolve. It was a malicious and grotesque distortion of the man and the creed he was promulgating, but at the same time he could hardly plead innocence. Benn thrived on ideas and ignored the risks of sometimes pushing them to the limits at inopportune moments.38 The ‘noes’ justifiably maintained that had the referendum been held before British entry the decision would probably have been negative
The Public’s Opinion 119
(though the attitude of the Labour Party is an uncertain factor); it would have meant asking the general public to agree to a leap in the dark. After the event this was a hypothetical argument. During the 1970–72 negotiations neither front bench had proposed such a departure from established constitutional practice. Whatever Benn’s own motives, the referendum was held by the government neither in the interests of democracy nor of constitutional propriety. It had three aims – to keep the Labour Party united, in power, and in Europe. In this it succeeded, at least for a while. By 1975 to vote ‘yes’ was to vote for the status quo. As Butler and Kitzinger commented: Those who had denounced referenda as instruments of conservatism may have been right. . . . Before entry, to vote for going in would have been to vote radically. But after entry, it was at least as radical and unsettling to vote for leaving. To come out after a few years would have been yet another disruption to the country’s life. So the verdict was not even necessarily a vote of confidence that things would be better in than out . . . though it may have been a marriage service, it had elements of a shotgun wedding.39
8 Not Taking Yes for an Answer
Nicholas Garland, New Statesman, 10 June 1977 Personalities: Michael Foot, Peter Shore, Tony Benn, James Callaghan
‘I have just been in receipt of a very clear message from the British people’ – Tony Benn1 ‘The result was, clearly, a setback for Tony Benn’, wrote Susan Crosland. ‘Nor did Roy receive the accolades. These – to general surprise – went to the Prime Minister. For the first time in his life, Harold Wilson was hailed in the British media as a statesman: his viciously denigrated zigzagging had been vindicated.’2 Small wonder that in his memoirs he chose to record two of those accolades from newspapers not normally given to praise him. ‘Wilson has shown great political insight’ was the view of The Times; . . . ‘quite frankly a triumph for Wilson’, declared the Daily Telegraph.3 Outside Number Ten he said: 120
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 121
the verdict has been given by a vote and a majority bigger than that achieved by any government in a general election in the history of our democracy. . . . It was a free vote, without constraint, following a free democratic campaign conducted constructively and without rancour. It means that fourteen years of national argument are over.4 Four years later he confirmed this optimistic view: ‘. . . it was a matter of some satisfaction that an issue which threatened several times . . . to tear the Labour movement apart had been resolved fairly and finally’.5 By keeping Britain in Europe without splitting his party Anthony Crosland believed that Wilson had achieved what Peel over the Corn Laws and Gladstone over Ireland had failed to do. Ben Pimlott made a more ambivalent comparison: ‘Wilson brilliantly succeeded where Ramsay MacDonald failed’, in relying on Conservative and other votes yet keeping his party together.6 David Owen, admitting to an unfashionable view, saw it as Wilson’s ‘finest hour’. He had ‘handled the campaign brilliantly’; it was ‘he and Jim Callaghan who delivered the Labour vote . . . a con, a clever con, and it was successful cosmetic politics’.7 Some other pro-Europeans were more grudging. Had it really been necessary to go through all the travail and bitterness of a divided party on 28 October 1971, the Shadow Cabinet resignations, internal party conflict, two special party conferences, the ructions over the ‘agreement to differ’, and the referendum campaign itself? Harold Lever thought that Wilson should have fought earlier within the party.8 Bill Rodgers believes that, If Wilson had decided to lead the party in voting in favour of entry, he would have done so with a much larger number than the 69 people who did vote for entry [in October 1971]. He could have held the party together by voting for entry.9 These views suppose that the discontent over Europe within the PLP, the unions and the CLPs, already evident in 1967 – and increasingly intermingled with other discontents about the insufficiently socialist quality of government policies – could have been, not just contained after the defeat in June 1970, but redirected towards a positive position over Europe by the party in October 1971, or at least by a majority in the PLP. Without patronage to bestow and with a weaker common purpose, the power of parliamentary leadership in opposition wanes
122 Labour’s European Dilemmas
among both backbenchers and the wider party membership. In the Labour Party this characteristic was at that time institutionally built in, given the voting power of the unions and CLPs at conference. Moreover, for Wilson to have led from the front on Europe would have required him to display a totally different personal and political character, not that of the subtle persuader, the consummate wheeler-dealer and the shrewd defender of his own position from rivals for his chair, Roy Jenkins and Callaghan among them. Wilson himself, questioned shortly after the referendum by John Cole, insisted that he had had to come out forcefully against in 1971 because he did think that the terms of entry mattered, and that the absence of ‘full-hearted consent’ by the British people to Community membership was a strong point that he was entitled to exploit.10 On the morning of defeat Benn issued a statement: I have just been in receipt of a very clear message from the British people. I read it loud and clear. It is clear that by an overwhelming majority the British people have voted to stay in, and I am sure that everybody will accept that. That has been the principle of all of us who have advocated the referendum.11 His fellow anti campaigner Barbara Castle was to comment that it was ‘a bit premature and so it proved to be, because he later changed his mind’.12 Fifteen years later Jenkins observed more acidly: Within two years Tony Benn was campaigning for a reversal of the oracle of direct democracy, about which he had spoken so sacerdotally before it had given him the wrong answer; and within six years he had got the whole Labour Party committed in this direction.13 Success initially reinforced Wilson’s hand. If Benn’s scene stealing private initiatives during the referendum had irritated his cocampaigners, his conduct had angered Wilson. He disregarded public warnings from party General Secretary Ron Hayward (‘Sack Benn at your peril’) and from Jack Jones (‘a grave affront’ to the unions). Benn was offered a choice between resignation and a straight exchange of portfolios with Eric Varley at the Department of Energy – ostensibly a post of equal status but not in reality. After much hesitation he took the offer. Varley lacked the ideological zeal of his predecessor. Little more was heard of the planning agreements, the nationalisation of docks and shipbuilding, and the industrial democracy envisaged in the 1974 manifesto. This swing to
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 123
the right, the difficulties of reconciling a national pay policy with trade union autonomy (the ‘Social Contract’) and growing economic crisis haunted Wilson in his remaining year in office and Callaghan’s three as his successor. Initially the solidity of the referendum result was reassuring. On the day the results were declared Peter Jenkins in The Guardian expressed the common opinion: ‘for practical purposes the verdict of the people means the case is now closed’. However, a colleague reporting reactions to the result wrote that only Clive Jenkins appeared unprepared to accept the result: ‘His attitude was one of defiance, he said.’14 By September, Cole recorded, Wilson described how earlier he had expected the European issue to disappear within a month. ‘I was wrong; it had disappeared within a week.’15 But already, on the day of the count, David Watt had written: ‘It is sometimes naively supposed that if the referendum produces a decisive “Yes”, the Left wing will immediately fall back affrighted like a squadron of demons confronted by a crucifix.’ By exploiting the European issue over the previous five years, he contended, the Left was stronger, aided by a shift of power in some larger unions from sociological and industrial reasons. He foresaw the Left bringing down the government if its demands were not met. Moreover, while the Left formally accepted the verdict, Watt saw them ready ‘to fight a bitter rearguard action over many of the implications of EEC membership’.16 In the event, and in a sense, the Left was to bring down the government, though in a manner and with consequences that only its most wayward members would have wanted.
The TUC and the PLP reversed their 1972 boycotts and sent representatives to the Economic and Social Committee and the European Parliament respectively. The latter was still formally, under the Rome treaty, the ‘assembly’, but had chosen the more ambitious title in 1961. In Britain, the use of the terms ‘parliament’ or ‘assembly’ usually offered instant recognition of a speaker’s attitude towards the EC. Half of Britain’s 36 seats went to Labour, with 16 to the Conservatives and one each for the Liberals and the SNP. The Labour contingent was initially chosen to reflect EC attitudes: seven pro and five anti MPs, four pro and two anti peers. The MPs were subsequently elected annually by the regional groups within the PLP. Former Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart was appointed leader and Tam Dalyell deputy. Others included Sir Geoffrey de Freitas, a longtime pro, Willie Hamilton (pro), Gwyneth Dunwoody (anti), Bob Mitchell (pro), John Evans (anti) and Betty Boothroyd (pro). There was also a pugnacious young leftwing anti,
124 Labour’s European Dilemmas
John Prescott. The peers included Donald Bruce, a director of Tribune who had been a Keep Leftist as an MP in the forties, and two of Wilson’s ‘press lords’ – old Fleet Street hands appointed life peers – Barbara Castle’s husband Ted, and John (Beavan) Ardwick. The Labour members joined the Socialist Group, despite opposition from such as Shore, who considered it composed of dangerously federalist social democrats, irredeemably compromised by sitting in national coalition governments with centre and rightwing parties. In December 1976 Stewart retired and the members chose Prescott over Mitchell to lead a British Labour Group which largely disagreed with him on Europe (and much besides). He profited from the wider horizons derived from regularly working alongside continental socialists, an experience denied those confined to the Westminster goldfish bowl. Two years later he foresaw an elected parliament developing its budgetary control powers and a committee system ‘such as that in the United States Congress, to develop investigations, checks and democratic accountability on all matters of public concern in the Community’.17 Prescott noted later how he could get a debate on, for example, the international activities of British Petroleum that would have been impossible at Westminster, and concluded that there were ‘new kinds of weapons of accountability that aren’t available to national parliaments’.18 British members found the committee system more open than at whip-ruled Westminster and that it was easier to get precise answers out of Commissioners and ministers from the Council than from ministers at home.19
Both the ECSC and the EEC treaties provided for the direct election of the assembly. The latter stated that ‘the Assembly shall draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure in all member states’.20 In 1958 the Assembly had commissioned a report, but de Gaulle’s reign prevented consideration until 1970. The Paris summit in December 1974 agreed to hold the first election to the European Parliament (the common if not yet the official term by then) in 1978. Wilson, more concerned about settling renegotiation terms, nodded this through with a caveat about the outcome of the referendum. This provoked objections from anti ministers that the Cabinet had never authorised him to do this.21 In Britain, the question showed the rival interpretations of the consequences of the referendum. To the pro-Europeans the two-to-one vote was confirmation that Britain was now in the Community with ‘the
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 125
full-hearted consent of the British people’, and that from then on it should play a full part in the Community’s development. The antiEuropeans mostly took a ‘thus far, no further’ stance. Castle admitted to being torn: ‘Does accepting the result of the referendum mean that we merely go through the motions of membership and in fact continue to stymie the development of democratic control in the Community?’22 Watt’s prediction in June proved correct. In September, in the same month as Wilson spoke so confidently to Cole, a cloud the size of Clive Jenkins’ fist appeared at the TUC conference. ‘I do not believe the British people have yet voted for an abandonment of our Parliament and for direct elections to the European Parliament. I do not think they have voted for European political and monetary union.’23 The anti-Europeans in the Cabinet, in the PLP and in the wider party did begin to ‘stymie’ such development of democratic control. In doing so they implicitly rejected the result of the referendum and were shortly to do so explicitly. The core of the antis’ opposition to Euro-elections was that democratic power, as far as Britain was concerned, could only reside in the House of Commons, and that no other elected forum could have any greater legitimacy, even in part. The Westminster parliament remained supreme in their eyes. Michael Foot had expressed his objections in Cabinet before the referendum: ‘We are destroying the accountability of Ministers to Parliament, and if we elect a European Parliament in 1978, it will destroy our own Parliament.’24 In November the Labour Common Market Safeguards Campaign (formerly the Labour Committee for Safeguards on the Common Market) listed seven aims. Three of them – reform of the CAP, better control over the EC budget and improved overseas aid – were unexceptionable. But opposition to direct elections, to economic and monetary union, to free movement of capital and to harmonisation of VAT certainly implied the rejection of the acquis communautaire, if not of the Rome and subsequent Community treaties themselves. Benn told Ron Leighton, the LCMSC chairman, that ‘we accepted the verdict and wanted to be constructive in safeguarding the national interest, but there were various questions for discussion. I mentioned the federal versus democratic question . . .’25 Others did not see federalism and democracy as opposed; some pro-Europeans argued that the two were essential one to the other. Early in 1976 the government drafted a White Paper on the European election. In Cabinet, Castle records for 12 February, ‘Peter [Shore] opened for the Dissenting Ministers by demanding that the paper should be labelled Green. Among other defects “the question of
126 Labour’s European Dilemmas
the relation of the European Parliament and the British Parliament is not looked at at all”.’ The matter was being too rushed, she argued, besides, a ‘uniform procedure’ was required under the treaty. ‘Now the European Council said it was too soon for that. Okay, then if it is too soon for uniformity, there is no commitment to rush the decision on direct elections either.’26 The Cabinet agreed the paper should be ‘green’.27 The Commons put the issue to a Select Committee, which completed its work between May and August.28 Did the treaty term ‘uniform procedure’ mean a single electoral system? The then nine member states used as many electoral systems for electing the lower houses of their national parliaments; some used another (if any) electoral system for their upper houses (if any); and some used other systems again at local and regional level. It was not simply a matter of the British using the ‘first past the post’ system (single member constituency) and all the rest using ‘proportional representation’. The European Court of Justice, when petitioned, took the view that if direct elections were to go ahead, initially each country should decide its own method of voting, and that subsequently the Parliament should propose a uniform system. This dampened hopes of the Liberals and the few Labour and Conservative advocates of PR of any pressure on the British government to make a change. So the European elections in 1979 were held with each state deciding which system to use. They have continued to do so, for the several attempts by the elected Parliament to achieve an even broadly uniform system have proved unacceptable to one country or another. The European Parliament was a representative and still largely consultative assembly, not a full legislature sustaining an executive. So the argument used to justify first-past-the-post for Westminster – that it normally assured a majority to carry on the Queen’s government – did not apply. In a diverse Community of nine states there was a strong case for ensuring that as many as possible political, ethnic, cultural or other minorities were represented. It was in order to ensure the nationalist community would be represented that Northern Ireland was allocated three seats and given an electoral system different from Great Britain. Such considerations cut no ice with anti-Europeans of any stamp: they just did not want an elected parliament. Writing to the Select Committee in May 1976 Safeguards Campaign secretary John Mills argued that the Council of Ministers should be strengthened vis-à-vis the Commission, ‘rather than expand the functions of the Assembly’. Furthermore, he argued, ‘Direct Elections were not sanctioned by the
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 127
Referendum result, since they were not mentioned at the time, nor is any commitment to them a binding consequence of either the Treaty of Rome or the Treaty of Accession’. But if direct elections were such a threat to British democracy – as Benn, Castle and Foot were so sure about in the months before the referendum – why had the ‘no’ campaigners not made them a prime issue in their campaign? Neither side considered in depth the problem of democratic representation and control in the Community. The pros saw direct elections as an advance, though they held varied views on how democratic control should be extended. The antis’ attempt to hang on to Westminster sovereignty also showed lack of forethought. One matter illustrates this. Neither took any notice of the communiqué issued after the December 1974 summit, which stated in paragraph 7: ‘Greater latitude will be given to the Permanent Representatives so that only the most important political problems need be discussed in the Council.’29 In other words, while the heads of government were ostensibly providing greater parliamentary control at the European level over draft Community legislation, they agreed to reduce the national ministers’ role in formulating such legislation, and therefore to reduce ministerial accountability to national parliaments. Henceforward national civil servants meeting in Coreper – the Committee of Permanent Representatives – would make even more legislative decisions, only passing up to their political masters issues they could not resolve or which were of political sensitivity in one country or another. Here was delegated legislation with a vengeance, and another matter of constitutional importance not ‘mentioned’ by either side during the referendum campaign six months after this decision. No compensating authority for the elected European Parliament over the Council or over Coreper was even contemplated. Nor had the Commons taken its own loss of authority as seriously in practice as many of its members proclaimed they should in theory. The Committee on Secondary Legislation was set up with the narrow brief of reporting to the House what matters it considered should be debated more fully. The House rarely did so and when it did, it was usually at a very late hour. Although the committee’s remit was later expanded and its name changed, and it made a more positive contribution, the House took a long time to recognise that times had changed.30 The House of Lords European committee, admittedly with a wider remit, proved far more effective. It produced a series of carefully prepared reports on a large number of matters that were treated with respect by the Commission and the EP and influenced EU policy.
128 Labour’s European Dilemmas
The Blackpool party conference in September 1976 was mainly notable for the barracking of Denis Healey for his attempts to stabilise the economy by major spending cuts and by an IMF loan under onerous terms. The debate on the NEC document, Direct Elections: Arguments For and Against, was a relatively calm interlude. Resolution 316 opposing direct elections was accepted by 4.02m to 2.26m on a card vote, just under the two-thirds requirement to make it party policy.31 Crosland told a Socialist Commentary fringe meeting that the government would go ahead with legislation. The constitutional dispute masked a greater issue for opponents of direct elections: the freedom of domestic action of British governments, especially of a socialist character, which was restricted by treaty obligations. The pro-Europeans tended to gloss over or to consider this issue less important than the hoped for gains from membership. From the sixties onwards the basis of the pro arguments had been that entry could provide an opportunity for greater economic growth, considered a necessary precondition of a more egalitarian society – the essence of Croslandite theory. But Keynesian social democracy, in David Marquand’s phrase, which had contributed to – even created – the unprecedented prosperity of Britain after 1945 was running out of steam, threatened by the failure to achieve consistent economic growth, whether inside or outside the Community. The social democrats were in crisis, uncertain of their direction. In part the urge to ‘join Europe’, which appeared to have achieved economic growth more successfully than Britain under either Labour or Conservative governments was a fuite à l’avant with an uncertain goal, a flight to the future from an increasingly uncomfortable present in a divided party. The split personality of the Labour Party was such that although the social democrats accepted the mixed economy and envisaged little extension of state ownership or control, nor even other non-capitalist economic forms, they still felt constrained to intone the mantra of socialism. Although rhetoric required them to argue that inside the Community the party could fight for ‘a socialist Europe’, that ‘socialism’ would be a long way off and necessarily compromised by other, non-Labour and non-British definitions of the EC’s social and economic aims. While Conservative advocates of EC membership could openly argue that it would ensure that Britain would never become socialist, the social democrats (and especially the embryonic Social Democrats) could not make a comparable case. The 1976 crisis provided a spur for the growing leftwing reliance on the ‘Alternative Economic Strategy’, of which Benn became the prime
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 129
advocate within the Cabinet. Instead of IMF loans and cuts in public expenditure (with Crosland and his supporters initially reluctant), the AES proposed import controls, the direction of and increased industrial investment and planning – much of which Benn had sought while Minister for Industry. Even if watered down by making the import controls selective such a policy would have led to conflict with other Community states. As experience had shown, EC rules were not as rigid in practice as they appeared on paper, but getting agreement for such controls for even a limited period would have been very difficult. As a long-term policy the AES would have been incompatible with Community membership. So rejecting the Community was not an add-on element for the Left; it was wholly integral to their position.32 David Coates commented that the Left was, correct to see in the EEC a further barrier to Labour Party radicalism, but quite unjustified in restricting their specification to the tiny Brussels bureaucracy. The basic blockage to Labour Party radicalism was the strength of Western European (and Japanese and American) capitalism, and its penetration into the British national economy; and that would not go away even if Brussels control could somehow be circumvented. Moreover, he argued, ‘by couching their argument in the language of “national sovereignty”, the Labour Left disguised the real issue of international exploitation of the working class of which the EEC was but one more manifestion’.33 Stuart Holland was, at this stage, one of the few parliamentary leftwingers who seemed to look beyond Britain’s borders: ‘. . . national capitalist planning has had only a short lifetime. It is now being smothered in adolescence by the accelerating trend to monopoly and multinational domination.’34 It is not necessary to adopt Coates’ or Holland’s ideological standpoints to see some validity in these judgements. Tom Nairn’s critique still held.35
Proportional representation for European elections had moved from a theoretical to a practical issue after March 1977, by which time Labour’s narrow majority had vanished through by-election defeats and defections. Callaghan, Prime Minister for a year (and it had taken three PLP ballots to get him there after Wilson’s resignation, with Foot leading in the first) sought allies to sustain his government. He drew up the ‘Lib–Lab Pact’ with Liberal leader David Steel, amongst whose
130 Labour’s European Dilemmas
aims were a devolved assembly for Scotland and PR for the European elections. Though content to see devolution and European elections, Callaghan told Steel that PR ‘was an animal of a very different colour, for the Party was against it and so was I. Despite this he reacted favourably.’36 Steel was satisfied with Callaghan’s assurance that even if he could not get the PLP to back PR, he would vote for it himself.37 Other Liberals were less sanguine. Christopher Mayhew, who had left Labour for the Liberals in 1974, wrote in his memoirs: From my long experience of the Parliamentary Labour Party I felt certain that if confronted with the stark choice between proportional representation for Europe and a disastrous general election, enough of its members could be browbeaten by the Prime Minister, Callaghan, into voting for PR.38 The failure to get a firmer agreement was ‘a historic mistake’, in Mayhew’s view.39 It meant a 20-year wait until New Labour brought in PR (in varying forms) for the European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and the Greater London mayoralty and Assembly. Meanwhile the Liberals saved the government from immediate danger and gave it crucial though not uncritical support for another 18 months. A White Paper in April 1977 offered alternative electoral systems for Europe. But the government made no recommendation and agreed that the Commons should have a free vote.40 The first proposal divided Great Britain into 78 single-member Euroconstituencies; each made up of about eight Commons constituencies, with voting by first-past-the-post. The second divided England into nine regional constituencies with between three and 14 members each. Scotland and Wales were each to be a single constituency electing eight and four members respectively. There would be an ‘open list’, with each party’s candidates listed alphabetically: the voter would put a cross against one candidate on the list of the party he wished to support. (This contrasts with the system used in 1999, with ‘closed lists’, whereby the voter could only vote for a party, the candidates’ positions on the list being decided by each party.) The third choice was the single-transferable vote system, which was soon dropped from consideration. Dissatisfaction in the party led to talk of the party boycotting the elections. General Secretary Ron Hayward warned the Welsh Regional Council on 28 May that if this occurred ‘people would contest the elec-
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 131
tion under some form of Labour banner . . . we would face the most serious split the party has ever known’.41 In June the European Assembly Elections Bill went before the Commons, with an initial proposal for regional lists. The Second Reading on 7 July went through by 394 to 147 on a free vote. For Benn: ‘a tremendous day. In forty-six years, since the protection vote in 1931, I don’t think there has been an occasion when Cabinet Ministers have been in opposite lobbies.’42 Six of the Cabinet voted ‘no’, another 26 ministers and 92 other Labour members joined them. These 124 were just exceeded by the 130 who voted with the government. Overall, it meant that some two-fifths of the PLP voted ‘aye’, two-fifths voted ‘no’, and another fifth abstained. For lack of time that summer, the bill was reintroduced in the next session. Because of this delay, the election was put off for a year until 1979. When the Commons resumed, a slightly amended bill was passed by 381 to 98. The anti ministers and many backbenchers abstained: less than half the PLP supported the government. On 13 December, the Commons rejected the PR option by 321 to 222, the majority including most Conservatives. Britain was, in Stephen George’s words, ‘an awkward partner’, largely because of its late entry to the Community, 15 years after the Six.43 Admitting a large country with a varied economy and interests was more difficult than small ones like Ireland and Denmark, which had farming interests amply catered for. For Britain the CAP was a major burden. But the Six’s complaint about Britain’s awkwardness was in no small degree their own fault, arising from their greed over agriculture and fisheries during the negotiations. That two key portfolios (by no accident) were in the hands of anti-Market ministers, John Silkin (agriculture and fisheries) and Shore (trade), was a minor contribution to the friction. There is little room for rhetoric round the negotiating table. Callaghan sought to limit the continuing divisions between his ministers by an all-day Cabinet meeting on 29 July 1977 to thrash out a coherent policy. Discussion focused on a paper prepared by David Owen, Foreign Secretary since Crosland’s death in February. What had been intended as therapy became very tense. After several personal exchanges, ‘a sudden wave of hatred engulfed the room’, Benn wrote in his diary entry – which Owen described as ‘give or take a little . . . an excellent account’.44 Owen was nonetheless satisfied by the outcome: ‘an official Government policy which was firmly pro-European, antifederalist and committed to enlargement of the Community to include Greece, Portugal and Spain’. The entry of Spain he saw as valuable in
132 Labour’s European Dilemmas
the party, for the encouragement of a democratic Spain was emotionally important to many on the Left, such as Foot and Jack Jones, the TGWU leader and an old International Brigader.45
Roy Jenkins soon faced the government with a new dilemma. Refused the Foreign Office when Callaghan became Prime Minister, finding his second stint at the Home Office less fruitful than his first, and beyond hope of leading the party, he took up the presidency of the European Commission in January 1977. The ideal of Europe and the reality were far apart. The Commission was no well-oiled and compliant Whitehall machine with established ethos and practices, but a multinational, multilingual, byzantine organisation, drawing on different national attitudes towards public service. Nor was its president a British prime minister in terms of authority, able to appoint and sack his colleagues or freely to assign their portfolios. Jenkins’ early consultations with member governments about their appointments to the Commission did, however, produce a more coherent team than any since 1957. Jenkins determined to make a mark, and chose for this objective the revival of the project for economic and monetary union, which had languished since 1970. The Werner report of that year had made EMU a target for 1980. Fixing target dates was a well-established, and often very successful, means of banging Community governments’ heads together, but in this case had proved inadequate. The monetary turbulence since the floating of the dollar in 1971 had not favoured such a major initiative, though making it more desirable. Jenkins decided the best approach would be to pursue the monetary rather than the economic objectives, which would require a great deal more negotiation and legislation. Moreover, there was, he thought, a ‘better chance of advance by qualitative leap than by cautious shuffle’.46 An academic address in Florence on 27 October 1977 provided a launch platform. The summit on 5–6 December gave an opportunity to gauge the governments’ reactions. Giscard was cool, Jenkins found, and Schmidt more reserved than at a tete-à-tete a month earlier. ‘Oddly, Callaghan was the most friendly’ among the major leaders, ‘but I was not sure that he was much engaged.’47 The two pages Callaghan devotes in his memoirs confirm this. Two Treasury ministers, Lever and Edmund Dell, were favourable. The Chancellor himself, Denis Healey, was to describe himself as initially ‘fairly agnostic’, but turning against British participation when he saw the effect would be that weaker currencies kept the Deutschmark low.48
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 133
By early 1978 the Germans and French were nearing agreement, with Italy and Benelux keen to follow. By the next summit, in Copenhagen on 8 April, the idea of a currency pool, with an exchange rate fixed against the dollar, was emerging: the Exchange Rate Mechanism. ‘I favoured the general idea as likely to bring more order into the currency markets of Europe and the world, but . . . I could not travel fast’, Callaghan admitted. ‘Many people in the Labour Party remained suspicious of what they thought was too close an entanglement with Europe.’49 This, and the view that sterling was too high to make full entry to the European Monetary System advantageous, kept Britain outside the ERM. But it did associate itself with the EMS by including sterling in the European Currency Unit basket and depositing some gold and dollar reserves as backing, accepting ECUs in their place. This showed willing and provided the basis for possible entry into the ERM after the next election. Consequently Britain was absent when the ERM came into effect in March 1979, with the participating currencies free to fluctuate within narrow limits. So began Britain’s unresolved relationship with the EMS up to and beyond the monetary union that eleven members of the European Union created on 1 January 1999. In opposing monetary union the anti-Europeans were on stronger textual ground than over direct elections: it had been ‘mentioned’ during the referendum campaign. In its leaflet distributed to all households the government stated: There was a threat to employment in Britain from the movement in the Common Market towards an Economic and Monetary Union. This would have forced us to accept fixed exchange rates for the pound, restricting industrial growth and so putting jobs at risk. This threat has been removed. Leaving aside whether there was necessarily a causal link between fixed exchange rates, restricted growth and unemployment, this seemed categorical. Barely two years later that ‘threat’ had reappeared. The logic of the Community was that, once the machinery of a common market had been established, it tended to roll on as economic and other conditions were affected by what had been decided earlier. It was this process of engrenage, of the ‘enmeshing’ step by step of the economies of the member countries – not the vague ambition in the Rome treaty preamble for ‘an ever closer union’ – which meant that the pros and antis would continue their battle. The referendum had
134 Labour’s European Dilemmas
been a major but not a decisive victory. The antis disregarded the popular will they had called in aid (they had been ‘cheated’, after all) and pressed on towards achieving the outcome they still desired: Britain outside the Community.
At the 1978 party conference Resolution 131 called on the government to start withdrawal negotiations; it was rejected. One voice was that of BLG leader Prescott: ‘I believe that it is not possible for us to leave the Community. I do not think the people will be given another referendum . . . if they did, I doubt whether they would vote to leave.’50 Such pragmatism found little favour. But Composite 42 went through by 4.85m votes to 1.64m, or by 77 per cent – well over the two-thirds formally required to settle party policy. This called for Labour’s next election manifesto to include the amendment of the EC Act to ‘restore’ to the Commons the power to decide whether any EC regulation, directive or decision should apply in Britain, to reform fundamentally the CAP to permit freer food imports and deficiency payments, to curtail the powers of the Commission, to give express right to the member states to pursue their own economic, industrial and regional policies, to reject EMU, and to ensure that Britain could keep the benefits of its indigenous fuels. The resolution was for withdrawal in all but name. The TUC took a more measured but no less critical view. The General Council had noted in June: Those who argue for Economic and Monetary Union do not deny that it would intensify the structural and regional problems of the weaker members of the Community. Their answer is that the Community should collectively provide adequate financial resources to the countries concerned. . . . Experience does not suggest that this in fact would happen: the regional fund is minute.51 Times were difficult for the pro-Europeans in other respects. The balance of trade with European countries had continued to deteriorate. From 1972 to 1978 the visible trade deficit with the Eight rose fivefold from £579m to £3039m, but that with the remaining EFTA members rose over sixfold – from £268m to £1746m. So although the overall visible trade deficit tripled from £1392m to £4153m, as a proportion of the value of imports it fell from 12.5 to 10.5 per cent. Nonetheless the deficit with western Europe rose from 61 per cent to 113 per cent of Britain’s overall
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 135
visible trade gap, a surplus elsewhere offsetting much of this. In those five years EC trade increased from 31 per cent of Britain’s total to 40 per cent, with EFTA trade declining from 14 per cent to 12 per cent (changes reflecting the move of Denmark from EFTA to the EC and the entry of Ireland into the EC). The ‘advantages of being part of a dynamic European market’ were not obvious five years after entry. Had the ‘cold shower’ treatment for Britain’s ailing economy proved too much for it? The figures appeared plain enough for the critics to claim that their case had been proved. Moreover, the budgetary problem was looming earlier than expected. By 1979 Britain was after Germany the biggest net contributor to the EC budget, paying in £780m net. This issue overshadowed the last year of the Callaghan ministry, and was to provide high drama for its successor.
At home, though the last election had only been three years earlier, the government’s fragility led to universal expectation of an autumn 1978 election. Callaghan astonished party and country by deciding to carry on, making, as it transpired, a fateful – and for the party a near fatal – decision. There followed the ‘winter of discontent’, with labour unrest leading to the closure of airports and ports, to rubbish bags lying uncollected in the streets and – most politically damaging of all – to some municipal workers refusing to dig graves, leaving the dead cramming the mortuaries. Finally, in March 1979, fewer than 40 per cent of the Scottish electorate backed devolution, as required by a Labour backbencher’s amendment. The Scottish nationalists withdrew their support from the government, and a confidence motion was lost. An election was called for 3 May. Callaghan used his authority to disregard in the manifesto the overwhelming conference vote for a withdrawal policy on Europe. Labour, the final text claimed, would once again be the only major party ‘offering the prospect of bringing about fundamental and much-needed reform of the EEC’. The enlargement of the Community to include Greece, Spain and Portugal, ‘will provide an opportunity to create a wider and looser grouping . . . thus reducing the dangers of an overcentralised and over-bureaucratic EEC’. We aim to develop a Europe which is democratic and socialist, and where the interests of the people are placed above the interests of national and multinational capitalist groups, but within which each country must be able to realise its own economic and
136 Labour’s European Dilemmas
social objectives, under the sovereignty of its own Parliament and people. Finally, a Labour government ‘will oppose any move towards turning the Community into a federation’. So there were gestures towards the anti-Europeans, but without tying the leadership’s hands. Not that Europe was relevant during the election campaign: those overflowing dustbins were. Labour got only 36.9 per cent of the total vote, its lowest since 1935. On 4 May Margaret Thatcher entered No. 10 Downing Street to begin 18 years of uninterrupted Conservative rule, the longest period in government by any party in the twentieth century.
Five weeks after the general election came the first ever international election – for the European Parliament. There were differences over manifesto wording here too; not that many electors read election manifestos. They are important within – and between – parties. In June 1977 the Confed had prepared a draft manifesto on which it hoped all affiliated parties would campaign. It was modestly ambitious about democratising the Community: ‘Parliament is to exercise a legislative function, its decisions being submitted to the Council for approval.’52 Largely as a result of Labour’s attitude the text was even more cautious by June 1978: the directly elected European Parliament must initially develop within the framework of the existing treaties . . . any further transfer of powers from national governments to Community institutions, or from national parliaments to the European Parliament, can only take place with the clear and direct assent of the national governments and parliaments.53 The socialist parties in January 1979 confirmed this statement of the obvious. Within the Labour Party there was a sharp battle over its own manifesto. With Benn as chairman of the European liaison committee, which had translated itself into the campaign committee, the NEC spurned a PLP attempt to be involved in drawing up the manifesto. Although it contained such phrases as ‘socialism cannot be contained within national boundaries’, it emerged as a call to get Britain out. ‘We declare that if the fundamental reforms contained in
Not Taking Yes for an Answer 137
this manifesto are not achieved within a reasonable period of time, then the Labour Party would have to consider very seriously whether EEC membership was in the best interests of the British people.’ The party would ‘vigorously resist any further extension of the powers of the Assembly’; and it echoed the general election pledge ‘to restore to the Commons the power to amend or repeal legislation applicable to Europe’. It was adopted on 24 January by 19 votes to four, with Callaghan abstaining. It meant that ‘the Labour Party will be fighting two elections this year on manifestos which, at least in part, are contradictory’.54 Party headquarters tried to establish a central list of approved candidates, but few of those selected and even fewer of those elected were on it.55 In January the leftwing Labour Coordinating Committee, whose leaders including Bryan Gould and Frances Morell, Benn’s political adviser, circulated all CLPs with eleven questions to put to prospective candidates to ensure they held appropriately anti-European views. It had little effect. In March Mills complained that 12 of the 27 candidates so far adopted had ‘a substantial history of being proMarket’.56 David Butler and David Marquand estimated that just over 30 of the 78 candidates were, on past evidence, pro, and the remainder divided between ‘hard’ and’ soft’ antis.57 The NEC’s animosity showed too in the decision that any MP wishing to stand for Europe had first to resign from the Commons. Two pro-Europeans, Sir Geoffrey de Freitas and Colin Phipps, who did so, were not selected. Three ex-MPs who had lost their seats in 1974 were also rejected, including two October 1971 pro-Market rebels, Michael Barnes and Dick Leonard. Barbara Castle alone was both selected and elected. The resignation condition was motivated not only by anti-European sentiment but also by envy that MEPs might be paid more than MPs. In 1978 the pay was £6897 a year, the lowest in the EC apart from Luxembourg and Ireland. The matter was settled early in 1979 when Callaghan persuaded the other governments that MEPs should be paid by their own countries at the same rate as national MPs. This meant that German MEPs on £23 165 would get over three times their British colleagues’ salaries. Travel, secretarial and administrative expenses were paid by the European Parliament on an equal basis, and generously by British standards. In Britain the elections were held under the usual provisions, with candidates having a free leaflet distribution and the parties free broadcasting time. In addition from the 1978 and 1979 budgets the European Parliament provided £8.34m to the existing political groups
138 Labour’s European Dilemmas
in the delegated Parliament, according to their size. The Socialist Group redistributed much of its £2.5m to its constituent parties, including £270 000 to the Labour Party, which spent little extra from its own sparse funds. The Anglo–Danish European Conservative Group received £730 000 overall, of which the British contingent received some £460 000, or nearly twice the amount directly available to Labour. Although these funds were for ‘information’, not for campaigning, the distinction was difficult to discern. In November 1978 an NEC request to the government to provide state funds for campaigning was refused; amendments to the election bill were also rejected. The crumbling of the party’s organisation was shown when it contrived to throw away £25 000 of its resources. Dennis Skinner persuaded the NEC that the candidates’ centrally produced election circular, Labour for Europe, gave the wrong message, and 25m leaflets were pulped. The reprint was headed Labour and Europe. The campaign was a dismal affair. One Brussels comment was that the British were divided into ‘Don’t Knows’, ‘Don’t Cares’ and ‘Don’t Wants’.58 Having won the main prize, Downing Street, the Conservatives were content with a low-key campaign and a low poll, assuming that their superior organisation, buoyed up by one victory, would get out enough of their supporters to assure a second. In the Labour Party hostility and indifference to the Community and a marked failure to campaign with any vigour at both national and local level had the reverse effect. Turnout for the general election had been below average at 76 per cent; on 7 June it was 31.8 per cent, the lowest in the Nine. Between 3 May and 7 June Labour’s share of the vote fell from 36.9 per cent to 33 per cent. The single-member constituencies averaging 507 000 electors greatly exaggerated the swing against Labour: for one-third of the votes Labour gained a little over one-fifth of the 78 seats in Great Britain. The Conservatives’ half share of the vote gave them three-quarters of the seats: 60, against 17 Labour MEPs and one Scottish Nationalist. Compared with the ‘setback for Tony Benn’ in the referendum four years earlier, the early months of 1979 – at least within the party – proved an unalloyed triumph for him and for the NEC over the Prime Minister and the PLP. It showed how power in the party had shifted. In opposition the shift would accelerate.
9 Withdrawal Pains
“Once and for all – just because the brain appears to have ceased functioning it doesn’t mean any of you can have the heart!”
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 19 February 1981 Personalities: Roy Hattersley, Shirley Williams, Tony Benn, Michael Foot
‘A rape of the British people and their rights and constitution’ – Peter Shore1 When the Commons reassembled in May 1979 the PLP re-elected James Callaghan as party leader and Michael Foot as deputy leader, both unopposed. The elections to the Shadow Cabinet gave seats to a dozen former cabinet ministers. On the surface all was as usual. Tony Benn chose not to stand for either capacity: his position on the NEC was sufficient. Outside Westminster events were gathering speed. At party conference in Brighton that year the Left’s three-fold reform programme was formally presented: the election of the leader by the party 139
140 Labour’s European Dilemmas
organs not just by the PLP, the compulsory reselection of MPs by constituency parties before elections, and control of the content of the manifesto by the NEC. A resolution to alter the method of electing the leader was rejected, but the other two changes went through, though for constitutional reasons requiring confirmation the following year. A commission of enquiry was appointed by the NEC to examine the party’s structure. In other fields conference agreed ‘overwhelmingly’ to renationalise without compensation the services and industries being privatised by the Thatcher government. Europe did not greatly feature at conference. It was increasingly clear that party sentiment was moving towards a ‘get-out’ policy, masked again by demands for changes in Community policies so drastic as to guarantee rejection by the other member states. A debate on the European elections saw further recriminations about the party’s campaign organisation. Alf Lomas, a long-time anti newly elected as an MEP, reminded conference that the manifesto had stated that if the fundamental changes demanded were not achieved within a reasonable period of time, then Britain should leave the Community. That period, he suggested, should be ‘no longer than one term of the Assembly’ (i.e. by 1984).2 This view was reinforced by composite resolution 40, the mover of which noted that an opinion poll just after the European elections had found only 40 per cent of respondents wanting to stay in the Community, and only 25 per cent in the case of Labour voters. Peter Shore contended that ‘the gap between the reality of membership and the myth that was so sedulously propagated has never been wider’, and called for the return to the Commons of major decisions on legislation and taxation. Barbara Castle, who now also sat in Strasbourg, stated on behalf of the NEC that things were ‘worse than expected’, for the CAP was ‘so anti-internationalist, anti world common sense’.3 The relationship of the MEPs with the party was delicate. Attitudes towards the EC spilt over into attitudes towards the MEPs. The anti MEPs had to answer the question why they had stood for and attended an institution that they wanted to leave: their answer was a duty to defend the British working class (and also to keep pro-Europeans out). Westminster MPs, in the view of one MEP, were ‘fanatically jealous’. It took some time before the MEPs received the courtesy of passes to the Houses of Parliament, initially being required to queue up with the public. This discouraged contacts. Typical too was that initially the Labour MEPs were not admitted to the floor at party conference, alongside the MPs, but exiled to the gallery. Confusion was added to distance: for several years conference reports varied on different pages
Withdrawal Pains 141
from referring to the European Parliament and the Assembly. Shore, amongst others, long referred to the MEPs as ‘assemblymen’. Members of a body of limited powers and uncertain role, the Labour MEPs wandered in limbo. At the time of the Euro-election five of the 17 Labour MEPs – Ken Collins, Derek Enright, Michael Gallagher, Brian Key and Joyce Quin – were open supporters of the LCE. The following year the Safeguards Committee listed nine MEPs as their supporters, including Castle and Gordon Adam. But the latter’s pro-European stance was soon evident, as was that of Win Griffiths. The hardline antis formed the ‘Group of Six’ – Richard Balfe, Janey Buchan, Richard Caborn, Lomas, Tom Megahy and Barry Seal. When the Labour members first met, Castle was the only choice to lead them: she alone had parliamentary and ministerial experience, and was nationally and internationally known. They formed the British Labour Group, appointing Jan Royall in London to coordinate their activities. The Labour members were only one-sixth of the 112-strong Socialist Group in the European Parliament, the largest group but itself with barely a quarter of the total EP membership of 410. Although many continental socialists were highly critical of the EC, their criticism did not stretch to wishing their country to quit the organisation or to see it break up. Attempts by hardline anti Labour MEPs in both the 1979–84 and the 1984–89 parliaments to distance themselves from the Socialist Group were rebuffed. Understandably most Labour members were treated with suspicion by most other socialists. Over time, as had happened with the anti MPs in the delegated Parliament in 1975–79, daily cooperation with foreign colleagues broadened understanding among Labour MEPs that social and economic problems in Britain were paralleled elsewhere, and that only international action could help resolve them. Among the party at large the insularity of British socialists, which Clement Attlee had pinpointed in the thirties, was still a factor, notwithstanding easier means of travel and communication. The Labour Party had long had links with brother parties abroad. But membership of the Confed4 and of the Socialist International touched only the leading party figures who met their opposite numbers when these bodies met.
In 1980 pressure for constitutional change within the party intensified – as a step to policy change. On 31 May a special conference was held at Wembley to try to achieve common ground. The NEC adopted the
142 Labour’s European Dilemmas
principle of the ‘rolling manifesto’ which aimed at consolidating the development since 1976 whereby NEC working parties provided the basis for the election manifesto. On 5 June the Safeguards Committee published a document stating roundly that the next Labour government should be elected on a clear mandate to withdraw from the Community. The ‘Gang of Three’ – David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams – responded two days later with a joint rebuttal and on 1 August followed up with an open letter in The Guardian. Private discussion of a breakaway widened but the inevitability of a break from the party was far from evident. As already seen, Jim Callaghan, as party leader and Prime Minister, in 1979 had rejected much of the draft text of the manifesto, overriding majority NEC opinion. Yet conference in Blackpool on 29 September– 3 October refused to give the NEC full control of the manifesto, although the mandatory reselection of MPs and the creation of an electoral college to choose the party leader did go through. The composition of the college was left undecided. On Europe the ‘reasonable period of time’ given for fundamental reforms, mentioned in the Euro-election manifesto, turned out to be three months: a resolution favouring withdrawal went through by five million votes to two million. ‘That is sensational; a fantastic victory’, recorded Tony Benn.5 Unilateral nuclear disarmament also went through, but not withdrawal from NATO.
In November 1980 Callaghan resigned, ensuring that for the last time a new leader would be elected by the PLP alone. Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Peter Shore and John Silkin stood as candidates to succeed him; Benn did not risk defeat – more likely, humiliation. In the first ballot Healey led Foot comfortably by 112 to 83; the others got under 40 each. In the second ballot most of Shore’s and Silkin’s support swung to Foot, who beat Healey by 139 to 129. The latter was elected unopposed as deputy leader. Roy Hattersley saw Foot as ‘the candidate of the quiet life’; but by electing him, ‘the PLP sacrificed its claim to being the best judge of who was most likely to lead Labour into government’.6 The following month another special conference at Wembley decided that the future electoral college should give 30 per cent of the votes for leader and deputy leader to the PLP, 30 per cent to CLPs and 40 per cent to the unions. This triggered the Limehouse Declaration on 25 January 1981 attacking the ‘isolationist, xenophobic and neutralist’ trends in the party, and led to the Gang of Three and their followers going off to form the Social Democratic Party in March.
Withdrawal Pains 143
The secrecy of the ballot which chose Foot as leader prevented exact analysis of how individual MPs had voted, but there were certainly some from the Centre and Right who voted for Foot on the second ballot (as they could declare to their CLPs) in the hope that a leftwing leader could in fact stem the advance of the Left. Ivor Crewe and Anthony King calculated that others who were by then contemplating leaving the party voted for him in order ‘to inflict the maximum possible damage on the party and also to increase the chances that a large number of MPs would follow them’.7 Ten years later five SDP defectors admitted to them anonymously that they had voted for Foot on the second ballot if not the first; a sixth possibly did so, Crewe and King believe. Had these voted for Healey, there would have been a tie; if the sixth had done the same, Healey would have won. So Labour’s first real leftwing leader since George Lansbury got the job on rightwing and possibly saboteurs’ votes.8 The European issue, although important, was only one factor in the formation of the SDP. It was one of a cluster of views on nationalisation, nuclear disarmament, the party structure, ‘entryism’ and the general leftward drift. It also starkly posed the question whether Labour was a socialist or a social democratic party. It gave a muddled reply. Of the 28 Labour MPs who eventually joined the new party, 22 had been in the 1970 parliament, but only 11 of them had been October 1971 rebels who voted for EC membership. Two others had abstained and nine had followed the whip (in one case certainly unwillingly). Moreover, those 11 Labour/SDP rebels were a decided minority among the 30 of the 1971 rebels who were still MPs ten years later. Of the 14 (out of 20) abstainers in 1971 who were still in the House only two – an even lower proportion – joined the SDP.9 A public and officially recorded vote – particularly one defying the whips – is certainly more committing than signing a statement or joining a faction, but it can mask a personal – and contrary – opinion. Statistically, there is a similar pattern regarding support for the LCE: only 16 of the 28 defectors were listed among 44 LCE supporters in the Commons at the end of 1980. Conversely, therefore, two-thirds of LCE supporters in the Commons remained with Labour. So Crewe and King are correct to conclude that, overall, Europe was not the overriding consideration among the majority of the MPs who left Labour. However, the end–1980 LCE members in the Commons who did leave included the chairman Tom Ellis, three out of four vice-presidents – Tom Bradley, Dickson Mabon and Owen – and four out of six executive committee members. The active core of the LCE in the Commons vanished.
144 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Also badly wounded were the Manifesto Group and the Campaign for Labour Victory, the parliamentary and wider party ginger groups that had tried to stem the leftward shift. So for the early and most determined defectors – as with Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams, both now out of parliament – the European issue was of higher priority than with most who followed. This is confirmed by the actions of the parliamentary officers of the LCMC/LCE between 1961 and 1981: of eight successive chairmen, six joined the SDP, of six secretaries, four did so (Hattersley and Ivor Richard were the exceptions), as did all six deputy chairmen and all four treasurers over that 20-year period.10 The motives of those MPs who left the party were various, some creditable, some less so. Fear or anticipation of deselection may have been a factor, although of eight MPs who were in fact deselected in the following months only one joined the SDP. Latecomers to the party included George Cunningham, who had been anti throughout, and Bruce Douglas Mann, whose position had been ambiguous. Like Michael O’Hallaghan they had voted against accepting the renegotiated EC terms in April 1975. He, however, had been one of the 100 signatories of the pro-Market statement in The Guardian in April 1971, although he followed the whip on the following 28 October. Three MEPs did contemplate joining the SDP early on but decided against. A fourth, Michael Gallagher, did so late in the EP’s first term when faced with deselection. Peers were free both from economic pressures to try to keep their jobs and from political pressures from constituents. So their decisions to stay or go may have been more dispassionate. Yet only two of the 15 named LCE supporters in the Lords joined the SDP: former EC Commissioner (George) Thomson of Monifieth and Walston. The non-parliamentary supporters had no professional interests at stake either. On 2 March 1981 – before the SDP was formally launched – LCE supporters were asked whether the group’s membership should be limited to Labour Party members or should be open also to others subscribing to similar aims. The vote was 77 for the former and 102 for the latter, with four abstentions. Once the SDP was formed later that month, its sympathisers left the LCE, which itself split. This was not a matter of ideology but whether or not it should maintain an affiliation to the European Movement, about which some members had long been uneasy. Those wanting to disaffiliate formed the Red Rose group: Arthur Palmer, as chairman, and Betty Boothroyd, Giles Radice, Sam Silkin and others in the Commons and MEPs Enright and Collins; Peter Stephenson was secretary. The others, including Hattersley, Denis Howell and George Robertson, renamed the remaining group the Labour Movement in
Withdrawal Pains 145
Europe. They were separated brethren until reunited after the 1983 election.11 It was a dismal period for Labour pro-Europeans: ‘To say you were for Europe, you were also saying you were halfway to leaving the Labour Party for the Gang of Four’, said Hattersley.12 The Fabian Society faced the same problem. Its members voted by 1544 to 1343 (out of a June 1980 membership of 3757) that the society be confined to those who were, or were eligible to be, members of the Labour Party. An associate status created to cover others was little help. By June 1982 membership had fallen by over 600, or by one-sixth. Most of the trustees of the Dartmouth Street Trust, an associated educational arm, joined the SDP. How many other members left the Labour Party is unknown. For decades membership figures were based on affiliations submitted by CLPs, which were subject to a minimum figure. The peak figures for membership were over one million in 1951 and 1952, when the minimum affiliation was 250. After 1963 the minimum was 1000. Even on this basis recorded affiliations were down to 666 000 in 1979. Few CLPs reached 1000 real members; most had very much fewer. Various studies estimated the true total at 250–300 000.13 Perhaps one-fifth were ‘activists’. In 1980, when the minimum affiliation was 256 per constituency, the declared total was 348 000; in 1982, with a minimum of 167, 274 000. Now membership is on an individual basis, registered nationally. The decline of the social democrats within the Labour Party had been marked also when the monthly Socialist Commentary ceased publication in 1978. Never on a par with the weekly New Statesman or Tribune in circulation or influence, it had for three decades provided a platform for the Centre and Right, and had pioneered the proEuropean cause in the mid-fifties.
Moves towards a manifesto commitment to leave the European Community speeded up even before the SDP breakaway. In his last Labour conference speech on 1 October 1980 Owen had argued for, if necessary, another referendum, as the TUC had agreed a few weeks earlier. ‘It is a constitutional outrage first to go to the British people and let them decide in 1975 and now not even give the British people the chance to determine their own destiny.’ Peter Shore brushed this aside: ‘I do not believe . . . that if we state clearly in our next manifesto what our policy is, that we have any necessity at all to resort to yet another referendum.’ He continued:
146 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Seven years ago, when Heath took us in, the waters of the Common Market were up to our ankles; five years ago, when we had the referendum, they were up to our knees; by 1980 they are indeed up to our chest. And we are going to have to swim and fight if we are going to restore to Britain and the British people its own power over its own future. Entry to the EC was ‘a rape of the British people and their rights and constitution’.14 Composite resolution 15, moved by Clive Jenkins, calling for a withdrawal commitment in the next manifesto, went through by five million votes to two million. For Benn, it was ‘a fantastic victory’. Gaitskell, Wilson and Callaghan when leaders in turn over two decades had resisted a firm commitment against the Community; Foot willingly accepted it. With the hard-core pro-Europeans out of the party, and the other pros demoralised, party opinion on Europe went with the flow of the radical policies. When Healey contested the deputy leadership with Benn and Silkin under the new electoral college system the following year, he resorted to disparaging comments on the Community that outdid Harold Wilson’s in 1970–71. Silkin was eliminated in the first round, which showed Benn well in the lead with the constituency vote – the outcome of a vigorous campaign all summer by his campaigners in the CLPD and the Rank and File Mobilising Committee. Meetings round the country attracted up to a thousand and great efforts were made to win over trade unionists. Given the loss of members to the SDP and the far more numerous party members who slid away or became passive, Benn triumphed in the constituencies, beating Healey in the second round by four to one. But he went down by five to three with the unions and an even firmer two to one among his parliamentary colleagues. Neil Kinnock was one of 37 MPs who abstained from supporting either candidate. The ‘soft Left’ started to show itself. Overall, Healey’s victory was extremely narrow with just 50.426 per cent of the combined vote. It was high water for ‘Bennery’, after six months of rancour at all levels in the party. Over 100 MPs, led by Hattersley, Shore and Gerald Kaufman, formed Solidarity, a new ginger group to try to counter the now divided Left. The first fruit was that five leftwingers were ejected from the NEC that autumn. On 21 July 1981 the NEC overwhelmingly endorsed a twelve-month timetable for withdrawal from the Community. Presented to conference the following October it stated ‘. . . the Labour Party is now firmly committed to withdrawal of Britain from the EEC’.15 Membership had
Withdrawal Pains 147
brought ‘little or no benefit to Britain’, it maintained, and cited how EEC taxes had raised the price of food, how Britain had paid over £3bn net to the Community budget over five years, how membership had led to a massive deficit in the balance of payments, and how the EC had taken over significant powers to make laws and levy taxes, so undermining democracy. Nor was there any sign that Britain’s EC partners would agree to wholesale reform, it stated. By the time Labour returns to office, the British economy will have been dangerously weakened by the years of Tory economic policy. Labour will have no choice but to carry through a radical, socialist economic strategy – a strategy involving the use of instruments and measures of a kind that would inevitably bring us into direct conflict with the EEC. On trade planning, on selective aid for industry, on providing access to our markets for lower-priced food imports, on the direction of investment and capital flows, and on many other issues, our policies are in conflict with either the letter or the practice of the Treaty of Rome. To remain a member while implementing such policies would ‘engender bitterness, division and mistrust throughout the Community. . . . The price would not be worth paying. Withdrawal is the only logical policy for Britain.’ Another round of renegotiations would not be worthwhile, the statement read. On the previous occasion the party had rejected the outcome of renegotiations, but the people had voted to stay in, ‘helped (it is now much more generally accepted) by a Tory, media and big business campaign which was extremely successful in misleading the electorate’. The statement outlined the procedure for leaving the Community. There would be preliminary discussions with the Community authorities before the next general election. Once in power preliminary negotiations would establish a timetable for leaving, while the 1972 EC Act would be amended to end the power of the European institutions to make law applicable in the United Kingdom. The main negotiations would then ensue, covering the trade arrangements subsequent to withdrawal. British representatives would withdraw from the EC institutions except to discuss matters related to withdrawal. A transition period was then envisaged to disentangle the mass of EC regulations, directives and decisions from British legislation, with new domestic arrangements being phased in. Finally would come the full repeal of the 1972 Act and withdrawal from the Community institutions.
148 Labour’s European Dilemmas
There would be no need for a further referendum, the NEC statement concluded, for the issue of membership would be ‘central to the whole programme of the Labour Party’. This statement went through even more overwhelmingly than the withdrawal resolution of a year earlier, by 6.21 million votes to a mere 782 000. This trend was backed almost as decisively when Composite 10 calling for a manifesto commitment to the same effect won 5.81 million votes to one million. Conversely, a call for a new referendum went down by 5.83 million to 1.07 million.16 In The Times on 27 November political correspondent Anthony Bevins saw the appointment of Eric Heffer as European spokesman in a contrary manner than most current opinion. ‘Friends believe he is wavering’, he reported. Moreover, President Mitterand had told Foot and Healey on a visit to Paris that he would ‘not facilitate’ Britain’s leaving, and that French socialists ‘argue from direct experience that the Market would create no impediment to a government implementing socialist measures’ (he might have been less sanguine a year later). To achieve its hardline aims, the NEC, Bevins concluded, needed to work ‘on the soft left, executive “floaters” like Neil Kinnock and Miss Joan Lester’. Three days later the party accepted a Commission invitation to send a delegation to Brussels to examine a withdrawal process. Judith Hart led three other MPs and four party officials. The experience was sobering. The report to the NEC on the visit noted the range of problems to be faced but that ‘no official at any time stated that it would be impossible for Britain to withdraw’. However, an ‘EFTA-type’ agreement (as with Sweden, Austria and Switzerland) would be ‘fraught with problems’. These countries, for example, accepted the Rome treaty rules on state aids to industry and had no consultation rights on industrial technical standards. In other words, Brussels decisions would still determine significant elements in the British economy. The EC representatives made clear that Britain could expect no more favourable arrangement than the ex-EFTA neutrals. Simply to repeal the 1972 Act – which anti-Marketeers had long seen as necessary to restoration of Britain’s parliamentary and national sovereignty – would be in breach of international law, Commission lawyers said firmly. The negotiation process would take 18–24 months, and would require the agreement of each individual member state, so opportunities for delay and difficulty would be considerable.17 Campaign Briefing No. 14 attempted to play down the problems, reporting that the Commission spokesmen had agreed that Britain could buy food cheaper outside (true) and that there were no major legal problems (untrue).
Withdrawal Pains 149
On 10–11 February 1982 Foot and Heffer went to Brussels to meet the EP Socialist Group and to attend the Confed Bureau. Withdrawal, Foot stated, was not a policy in isolation, but part of Labour’s ‘Socialist Alternative’: the EC and the peace policies in Europe were interlinked. A European foreign policy, he claimed, could be pursued through the Socialist International, and Britain’s relations with the Community would be better if it were outside. The report to the NEC on the visit recorded that his reception, especially by German and Italian MEPs, ‘showed outright hostility’, and ‘most uncomradely language’ was used. They were ‘not disposed to dealing sympathetically with the withdrawal’. French and Dutch MEPs were noted as being more conciliatory, appealing to Foot and Heffer to consider all the options and to await the outcome of the French Socialist Party’s ‘experiment’ of seeking rapid growth, deficit financing and a programme of nationalisation.18 Other MEPs suggested that Labour underestimated the flexibility of the Rome treaty and were using the Community as a scapegoat for Britain’s problems. One factor which divided the Labour party and continental socialists was that many of the latter, in childhood or youth, had experienced fascism, occupation and war and knew within their own countries what bitter civil conflicts had resulted. The British had not known this, so for them the deep emotional urge towards unity in Europe was largely absent. British Europeanism was always more detached. Faced with this surge of emotion, arguments about budget contributions appeared as evidence of the offshore islanders’ shopkeeper mindsets to which Napoleon had referred. Heffer, however, had always retained his internationalist instincts and he acknowledged the contradiction in party policy between wanting a united socialist Europe and wanting to get Britain out. The party, he thought, had more than its share of little Englanders ‘who suffer from the delusion that civilisation ends at Dover’.19 At the time of his Brussels visit he complained that the Confed parties were too enmeshed in EC issues and had no overall socialist strategy. Although he believed that the prospect for socialism on the EC scale was never better – with socialist parties in office in Greece, France and Germany, and possibly soon in Spain – he nonetheless insisted that Labour policy remain unchanged. ‘The ultimate aim of Labour should be a socialist Europe standing independent and neutral between the two great powers . . . a bulwark of freedom and democracy, and give support for human rights, political and economic, in all parts of the world.’20 So, as with the Keep Lefters in 1947, the problem was how to get from A to C when B apparently stood in the way.
150 Labour’s European Dilemmas
This attitude irritated Ann Clwyd, former Guardian journalist and now MEP. In an article entitled, ‘Why I have changed my mind on the Common Market’, she wrote: ‘Over the past 21/2 years I have come to see the Treaty of Rome not as a strait-jacket, but more as a stretchable, elastic girdle.’ She concluded: It is not enough for spokespersons in the Labour Party to rabbit on about their internationalism. We who come into close daily contact with EEC socialists know that they treat such protestations with scepticism given the increasingly nationalist campaign being waged . . . in Labour’s name.21
Meanwhile the Thatcher government was struggling with the ‘BBQ’ – the British budgetary question (or the ‘bloody British’ question) – which had been an actual or potential problem since British entry in 1973 and a factor in the 1974–75 ‘renegotiations’. A temporary respite was achieved in 1980, but the fundamental problem remained as the other member countries were unwilling to see a radical change to the system of financing the Community. The established interests of most member states and the federalist doctrine of the Commission combined to defend the status quo. The Community’s ‘own resources’ were based on the transfer from the member states (which acted as collecting agents) of import duties and agricultural import levies, plus a small but growing proportion of the revenue from value-added tax. Even less were most states willing to reduce the two-thirds of the Community budget going to farm support. Even with John Silkin as Minister for Agriculture the Callaghan government had been torn between protecting British farming and its dislike of the system. In power, the Conservatives were hobbled in turn. They were more beholden to the farm vote but were faced with a bigger net contribution to Brussels. Thatcher grappled with another paradox: a possible solution beneficial (though not exclusively) to Britain would be through the enlargement of the regional development budget. But this was ideologically unacceptable when the Conservatives were cutting down their own expenditure in that field. This led to Britain refusing EC aid that required a matching national government contribution. Although Thatcher’s ‘handbagging’ of her negotiating partners and her strident demands for ‘her’ money back served to justify the Labour Party’s criticism of the Community, it was to her domestic political benefit rather than Labour’s. The diplomatic
Withdrawal Pains 151
equivalent of a foreign war served to distract domestic opinion from the rising unemployment and widespread factory and business closures that resulted from Conservative policy. Banging the drum for a real foreign war in the Falklands brought added nationalistic benefit in the 1983 general election. The Safeguards Committee built on the 1981 resolutions with a booklet produced in time for the following year’s conference. Contrary to much other opinion, the booklet cited negatively the experiences of the French government under François Mitterand and of the PASOK government of George Papandreou in Greece in introducing the sort of policies that Labour favoured. France, it argued, was forced to accept a lower degree of franc devaluation than it wished, and was obliged not only to raise its export price for steel but also to freeze its share of its domestic steel market. Greece has fared even worse. In March 1982, the new socialist government asked the EEC for a modification of its terms of accession and for special exemption from certain Community rules, e.g. those concerning competition policy, public aid to industry, protection of new industries, exemption from production limits and export aid to small and medium-size firms. The EEC Commission has now told the Greek Government that its request cannot be granted, i.e. the Treaty of Rome must take precedence over Greece’s socialist industrial policy.22 The LCMSC concluded that: it is quite clear that the EEC Commission would never allow us to put into effect policies of planned trade, exchange controls and selective industrial intervention which form the basis of Labour’s Alternative Economic Strategy. Therefore withdrawal is an essential prerequisite to their implementation. The booklet made: no extravagant claims about the benefits of withdrawal, although there would be very positive advantages in the form of lower food prices, a 200-mile fishing zone, and the ending of our EEC budget contributions. The problems of the British economy are too serious and too deep-seated to be solved simply by leaving the EEC, but
152 Labour’s European Dilemmas
there is no chance of our being able to tackle these problems until we are free of the constraints imposed by membership. Some of the arguments that pro-Europeans put forward on the risks of leaving were certainly exaggerated. A Community deprived of Britain would still look to it as a major market, while Britain in turn was more dependent on EC markets than it had been a decade earlier. Arguably, the greater the British trade deficit with the residual EC the higher the card Britain could play. So, superficially, any trading arrangement – at least in manufactures – should not be too difficult to achieve. Moreover, once a major country, after years of membership, started to negotiate its departure, there would be risks to the EC that other elements of the acquis communautaire might start to unravel. The Greeks would demand major changes; perhaps others too. More important, the Germans might question the basis of paying for farm support, so vital to French governments whether left or rightwing. So the EC would face limits to its power to bully Britain. However, dividing western Europe economically once more, probably in an atmosphere of acrimony, could incur risks to western security. The possibility of unilateral British nuclear disarmament of course did that already. Although the purs et durs of the Safeguards Committee were as determined as ever, elsewhere opinion was shifting. With economic neo-liberalism championed – and triumphing – on an international scale a national approach appeared increasingly anomalous to intellectually more alert party members. The party’s journal New Socialist provided a platform. In the May–June issue of 1982 Bob Rowthorn and John Grahl noted how the ‘obsession [about the EC] leaves a gaping hole in our international relations’.23 In the following issue Francis Cripps and Terry Ward conceded that the international recession meant ‘the search for an AES for Europe is . . . beginning to acquire some reality’. The future of the withdrawal policy depended, in their view, on the progress made in developing an alternative strategy for the European left. However, they insisted that: For Britain the planning of trade as well as international finance is an irreducible requirement. The Labour Party could never agree with any European perspective that asserted the freetrade principles of the Common Market and the OECD or the free capital principles of international finance and multinational companies.24
Withdrawal Pains 153
Later, John Palmer, Brussels correspondent of The Guardian, declared Cripps and Ward to be ‘right over the advocacy of faster European Community integration and even outright political union’.25 The shift to a wider – but still dogmatic – perspective by Cripps (a former Benn adviser) and Ward was noteworthy given their seminal role in promulgating the original, and basically insular, AES.26 The original AES was, in Donald Sassoon’s view, ‘the last attempt by the Labour Party to develop a socialist strategy which required insulating the country from the constraints on the international economy’.27 Yet it was not only British membership of the Community that was at issue: this was the time of the ‘peace movement’, of the European nuclear disarmanent campaign and the battle against the basing of American Cruise missiles in Europe. The Left was beginning to think internationally, but was hog-tied by its obdurate antagonism to the Community. The issue moved to a wider forum in September 1982, when Castle, whose anti-Market credentials were fireproof, wrote in the New Statesman, arguing that the party risked being hooked on to a purely negative policy by seeking to get Britain out. Three years’ experience of the European Parliament had convinced her ‘that membership of the Community had been accepted by the British people, despite their grumbles, as part of their way of life’. Few political battles are won by a negative, ‘as those of us who campaigned for a “No” vote in the . . . referendum found to our cost’. It would be better to fight for something – Labour’s programme – than fight against something, better to stay in and ‘fight the election on a restatement of our policy for growth and jobs, and challenge the Commission to tell the British people that it was incompatible with our membership’.28 The forthcoming conference would be the time to start this change, Castle concluded. In her memoirs she recorded that continental socialists were more receptive to her arguments than some in the Labour Party: none of the former, seemed to regard as an insurmountable obstacle the freedom of action that had been claimed for a Labour government. . . . Most European countries were going through economic difficulties and I had a feeling that they would have welcomed a review of the Community’s rules to enable them to be applied far more flexibly.29 Two fellow MEPs – Lomas and Balfe – accused her of a U-turn and of being ‘dishonest and naïve’ in wanting to stay in the Community but
154 Labour’s European Dilemmas
to break all the rules. A third, Megahy, joined in to argue that her approach was ‘a formula for fudge’, and if she conceded that the EC Act would have to be repealed, we would be ‘halfway out – so why not finish the job?’30 But she found that her reception at conference by old anti-campaigners Shore and Foot was more understanding than by Clive Jenkins and Ian Mikardo. Of Benn she noted in her diary that ‘the most significant thing he said was that to drop withdrawal would be more than the party could bear’. She added: ‘This is Tony’s trouble – he has got the rank and file so firmly hooked on his over-simplicities that he has left himself no room for manoeuvre or adaptability’.31 Benn’s published diaries do not mention the matter, and are terse on the whole conference: ‘Compared with last year, when the left was riding high with successes everywhere, this year the left is very much tail-between-legs.’32 The tide was already ebbing: the Left lost more seats on the NEC. Foot’s own speech did show signs of a shift. To applause, he recalled that as a party Labour was committed to withdrawal, adding, alongside the commitment (and I am not seeking to weaken it in any way) we are committed as socialists to understand our international obligations. . . . We must carry through our commitments in that field in a manner which is in proper conformity with our international obligations and our obligations as socialists to other people in other lands. Understanding his words, in the view of New Statesman commentator Peter Kellner, defied ‘textual analysis unless one employs the kind of skills Kremlinologists use to read between Pravda’s lines’. The ambiguities, he concluded, were quite deliberate and pointed in the direction suggested by Castle: ‘Labour will not allow EEC rules to inhibit big changes in economic, industrial and trade policies, but neither will it take an initiative to tear up Britain’s membership card.’33
Notwithstanding Castle’s article, Foot’s ambiguity and the widening debate, the 1983 election manifesto was categorical: ‘The next Labour government, committed to radical, socialist policies for reviving the British economy, is bound to find continued membership a most serious obstacle to the fulfilment of these policies.’ The text repeated the problems relating to industrial policy, exchange controls, and the regulation of direct overseas investment and food imports.
Withdrawal Pains 155
For these reasons British withdrawal from the Community is the right course for Britain . . . we are . . . committed to bring about withdrawal in an amicable and orderly way, so that we do not prejudice employment or the prospect of increased political and economic co-operation with the whole of Europe. The six-paragraph section concluded with a timetable for withdrawal on the lines indicated in the previous year’s NEC statement.34 On the face of it there was no fundamental change. This proposal for ‘a gentle rupture’ from the Community was ‘a deeply illogical policy’, as John Grahl and Paul Teague put it, in seeking trade and investment controls which were ‘incompatible with the continuity of economic relations with EC members that was promised in order to make withdrawal more widely acceptable’ at home.35 But few voters read manifestos, above all if they run to 15 000 words. Labour’s European policy, especially when embodied in that ‘longest suicide note in history’ (in Kaufman’s words) was disregarded in a overall popular disavowal of Labour. When the votes were counted on 9 June 1983 the party’s share of the total was even lower than in 1979, when it had been the lowest since 1935. This time an even more painful historical comparison was achieved: at 27.6 per cent it was the lowest level since 1918. But in that year the party had been on the way up. Now, Labour lost another 60 seats and the Conservatives gained as many, despite obtaining a lower share of the vote than in 1979. The SDP/Liberal Alliance drew votes from both big parties and was only a head behind Labour with 25.4 per cent. But it won only 23 seats, against Labour’s 269. The SDP itself won just six seats; almost all the Labour defectors of 1981 being defeated. This apart, the outcome gave no one in the Labour Party much satisfaction – except for Tony Benn, who though losing his own seat, drew comfort from the fact that 8.5 million people – 28 per cent of the electorate – had voted for socialism. More dispassionate observers concluded that the glass of socialism was three-quarters empty. Making withdrawal from the Community a manifesto commitment had made its contribution to defeat. If, as the NEC stated in 1981, withdrawal was ‘central to the whole programme of the Labour Party’, then the voters had rejected it completely – along with union power, unilateral nuclear disarmament and a party led by Foot.
10 Osmosis
Nicholas Garland, The Independent, 11 May 1988 Personalities: François Mitterand, Neil Kinnock
‘Europe needs you’ – Jacques Delors1 Michael Foot, widely respected and liked but too unworldly to be leader of a party in torment, let alone a prime minister, resigned immediately after the 1983 election. Four sought to succeed him and four contested the deputy leadership. Roy Hattersley stood for both positions. The essential choice was between the ‘dream ticket’ of Neil Kinnock and Hattersley in leader/deputy partnership and the Left’s duo of Eric Heffer and Michael Meacher. Kinnock won the leadership in all three sections of the electoral college – union, CLP and PLP – with a comfortable 71 per cent overall, although less than half the PLP supported him. Hattersley won 19 per cent support in the leadership contest. He was elected deputy leader with 67 per cent, against Meacher’s 28 per cent. Unlike Foot’s election in 1980 there was no question about how MPs voted: this time 156
Osmosis 157
their votes were recorded.2 The result was announced at conference in Brighton on 3 October. At a celebratory party the new leader led the singing of both ‘The Red Flag’ and ‘Bandiera Rossa’, an intensity of leftwing demonstrativeness that led one participant to conclude that party policy would soon shift centrewards.3 On European policy the leader and deputy had disagreed. Kinnock’s first conference speech in April 1971 had been against entry, he had co-authored an anti-Market pamphlet the same year and had campaigned strongly in Wales for a ‘no’ vote in the referendum. Hattersley was a former secretary of the LCE and in 1966–67 political director of the Campaign for a European Political Community, run by the Federal Trust and the European Movement. However, in his leadership manifesto Kinnock had softened, noting that by 1988 Britain would have been in the EEC for 15 years. ‘That does not make withdrawal impossible. . . . After that length of time however, withdrawal should be regarded as a last resort.’4 The 1983 conference was not concerned with Europe. It focused on immediate domestic discontents: the economy, unemployment and the social services. A signal of change on Europe slid out a month later. The party’s Campaign Briefing No. 31 stated: The European elections next year give socialists the chance to offer common solutions to the problems we share. Action by individual governments will not be enough. We must work with our allies in a Europe-wide ‘crusade for jobs’. . . . Only Labour has a clear vision of where Europe should be going. We want to break the Tory stranglehold on our economy and work with our trade union and socialist allies for jobs, peace and social justice. Compared with the general election manifesto the previous summer this was a shift indeed. Kinnock had been changing his political views for some time. In 1980 he had distinguished between two types of socialism, Socialism by prescription and socialism by plod. The former is all say and no do, all plans and no power. . . . That leaves plodding. It is as dour an idea as can be found. . . . Such a course is offensive to monorail militants as it is to gradualists. He was being unduly even-handed: the gradualists were inherently for plod. On the Community he reiterated his commitment to with-
158 Labour’s European Dilemmas
drawal.5 As leader four years later he called for a ‘new Messina conference’ to decide whether to ‘reject, revise or rewrite’ the Rome treaty, for a European Council ‘which sets its own agenda on issues raised by its own peoples and parliaments’, and for a ‘new all-European Assembly’ to which ‘all European parties’ might be invited to send representatives. He was apparently rejecting supranationalism, the Commission’s role of policy initiative and the directly elected European Parliament. Our future, like our past and present, lies with Europe for historic and geographical reasons. But it will only lie with the EEC [his italics] if the Common Market can be a source of tangible benefit to the British people . . . we could only realistically accept enduring membership if, at the very least, we suffer no material loss or disadvantage.6 The breadth of this European wish list suggests it was a smokescreen behind which he could manoeuvre. A clue lies in the words ‘In the age of multinational capital, democracy must be multinational too’. At this time, Giles Radice recalled, he told junior front-bench spokesmen that ‘the sensible course was not to criticise ineffectively from the sidelines but to participate fully in the development of the EC’.7 But the issue was still too sensitive to debate openly, even by the party’s intellectuals. The Fabian Essays in Socialist Thought, published in 1984 to mark the centenary of the Fabian Society – still scarred by the SDP split – referred to the matter only in passing. Reflecting on this period a decade later Kinnock said that changing party policy was easiest for the sale of council houses and Europe. Less easy to alter, he thought, were nationalisation and accepting ballots for trade union action, while party sentiment on defence and nuclear weapons had been the most difficult of all to alter.8 Kinnock also admitted to ‘an error of judgement’ in not having accepted the verdict of the 1975 referendum, the result of which ‘was so complete that it was a cause that could not be pursued, and that what we had to do was to maximise influence from the inside and not continue to court the idea of trying to get on the outside’.9 In fact, a formal change in European policy was left nearly as long as with defence and nuclear weapons. The paradox was that, along with these two other externally orientated issues, Europe could be left at the end of the queue. There were more immediate and more pressing internal battles to fight: eliminating the influence of Militant and trying to re-establish the party as a credible electoral and
Osmosis 159
governmental instrument at both local and national levels. The march of time would settle the European issue. The European election due in June 1984 provided further impetus for change. A campaign team was set up before Christmas 1983 and steps taken to ensure that the selection process for Euro-election candidates was less haphazard than in 1979. The scent of backsliding spurred the anti-Europeans again to try to ensure that candidates accepted the formally unchanged withdrawal policy. But their time was running out. Early in 1984 the NEC considered a paper by the head of research Geoff Bish, whose report before the referendum had so irritated the pro-Europeans. The tone of this paper was very different. It commented that, in the economic and industrial fields, the Confed draft ‘does fit in extremely well with that of our own campaign: namely in obtaining co-ordinated action at EEC and European OECD levels, to expand the economy and create employment’. However, it saw difficulty in how far the party was ready to go in encouraging action at EC level. But it added that, with Labour out of office for the next four years, ‘British workers, as with other workers in the Community, need all the help they can get on such issues as industrial democracy, regional aid, and so forth’.10 In February 1984 the BLG placed an advertisement in New Socialist featuring unfavourable comparisons between Britain and most EC countries in terms of GDP per head, fixed investment, overall government expenditure, health and social security expenditure and pension levels – comparisons which previously had been the preserve of the proMarketeers. The party’s European manifesto acknowledged that Britain would remain within the Community for the term of the next European Parliament (i.e. 1984–89) and that Labour should seek to ‘get the best deal for Britain within it’. But, ‘We believe that Britain, like all member states, must retain the option of withdrawal’. There was some softening: EC rules ‘may stand in the way’ of a Labour government seeking to reduce unemployment. More constructively the manifesto saw opportunities for significant joint commitments: coordinated increase in public investment; a decisive move towards industrial planning at national and EC levels; a new emphasis on regional policy, with a major increase in EEC funds . . . development of industrial democracy (especially within multinational companies); and a common target of 35 hours a week for the EEC.
160 Labour’s European Dilemmas
So, many of the objectives of the AES did after all appear to be compatible with the Community: arguably they could be better achieved within a European than a national framework. There was no sign now of the defiant ‘ourselves alone’ attitude: that the Labour Party alone was marching in step. The party had much less trouble than in 1979 in accepting the draft Confed manifesto, despite its reservations about the EMS, the powers of the European Parliament and increasing the Community budget. The outcome of the 1984 European election was encouraging. Labour gained 36.5 per cent of a low turnout: a marked increase on the previous year’s general election. The outcome showed, for Labour, a satisfying drop to 19.5 per cent in the Alliance’s share; it won no seats. Labour near doubled its European representation from 17 to 32, cutting the Conservatives back from 60 to 45. Of the 1979 intake of Labour MEPs three were lost to deselection and four had been elected to the Commons in 1983. The party had not yet cut off the European Parliament as a direct path to Westminster, although direct passage in the other direction had been banned from the start. However, three who had lost Westminster seats in 1983, Bob Cryer, Leslie Huckfield and Stan Newens, did come into the EP. The first two proved to be among the most obdurate of anti-Europeans. Cryer refused the title of MEP: his writing paper was headed ‘Labour Party Representative in the Common Market Assembly’. Newens, a Tribunite MP and hesitant anti-Marketeer in the sixties, was now uneasy with the party’s stance. Selected when anti sentiment was still strong in CLPs in the winter of 1983–84, the new BLG initially proved more firmly anti-European than the 1979 intake. The 1984 intake was more divided, splitting politically broadly down the middle, although swinging a little one way or the other on individual issues. One MEP remembered the ‘angry, hostile atmosphere’ in the group.11 At times animosity was greater within the Left, between the Tribunites and the harder-line Campaign Group, than between Left and Right. Barbara Castle remained leader for a year and Alf Lomas succeeded her in mid-1985 for two years. So when the party leadership at home was sidling towards acceptance of the Community the MEPs, who could have provided a bridge between continental socialists and the party at home and helped to soften the crude in/out option, were digging into a bunker. One example was, after two years’ wrangling, in October 1986 they agreed by 18 to 13 to submit to the NEC a document on the repeal of the EC Act of 1972. This hard left approach had the reverse effect from that
Osmosis 161
intended; it further diminished the influence of the BLG. Kinnock put a ban on the document’s circulation. The presence of the BLG leader in the NEC (initially as an observer; as a voting member at the end of the decade) did little to help. The stalemate within the BLG pushed the MEPs collectively to the sidelines of policy-making during the crucial period between the election of Kinnock and the 1987 general election. Even in their own terms and with regard to their own objectives the leftwing MEPs in particular failed. Nor did Lomas’s election and continued obstructionism by the hard antis improve relations with the rest of the Socialist Group. Kinnock sought better, not worse relations with continental socialists: policy seminars were held in 1985–86 with the French and German socialists.12 The presence in London from the mid-eighties of representatives of the French socialist party and of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the SPD-linked think tank, helped to widen Labour horizons. Kinnock was also active with personal contacts in the Socialist International and the Confed, getting to know leading continental socialists in or out of office. This still nominal CND supporter helped Felipe Gonzalez with his 1985 referendum campaign for Spain’s entry to NATO. In 1987 the BLG swung towards the centre, electing as leader David Martin, whose position on Europe had moved appreciably. John Tomlinson, a former Foreign Office minister and long a strong proEuropean, became deputy leader. That autumn Martin was the first BLG leader to be invited to address conference. The party, he told delegates, did not have the luxury of three or four years before the next general election to develop new policies, because the next major test would be the 1989 European elections, in less than two years’ time. ‘If we are going to use those elections as a platform for a Labour victory at the next general election, we need a clear and unequivocal statement from this party about where it stands on Europe.’13 The following year the BLG, by another quixotic act, replaced Martin by Barry Seal and elected leftwingers as the group’s officers. So by the time the party had got an unequivocal European electoral policy, and was campaigning very largely in agreement with other Confed parties, the Labour MEPs were led by anti-Europeans.
After the 1983 general election the trade unions, the naturally more pragmatic arm of the labour movement, began to reassess their policy. It was a slow and largely subterranean process. At congress that year
162 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Alan Tuffin, for the communications workers, and backed by the electricians, called for a change in TUC policy, which had been resolutely against membership since 1981. After the next election, he said, Britain would have been in the Community for 16 years and getting out would be extremely difficult. His motion dealt with reality, he said. Bill Sirs, for the steelworkers, argued that unions would get ‘more advantageous legislation out of the European Parliament, no matter how weak you think it is, than we will get out of Thatcher’. The General Council thought the motion was premature, and it was rejected. The sleeping dogs lay for the next two congresses. However, British unions were engaged in day-to-day working with other unions through the ESC, and they had direct links through ETUC (in the establishment of which in 1973 the British had played a leading part). On the one hand, the TUC brought a new and distinct style to the working of European trade unionism . . . more concerned with increasing the effectiveness of the trade union organisations in Brussels than in making rhetorical statements about the need for a Democratic Workers Europe which was a tendency amongst continental unions.14 On the other hand, the British irritated continentals with their desire to play a leading part in Community union affairs but without any commitment to European integration and while backing Labour’s withdrawal policy.15 A new generation of leaders, such as Bill Jordan of the AUEW and John Edmonds of the GMB, led an active policy in Brussels. A remoter but not unimportant influence on union attitudes was the easing of the Cold War. Since the late forties the democratic socialist unions had been wary of close relations with communist unions. This was now less important, while the formation of Solidarity in Poland undermined the centralist, Leninist structure in the east.16 At home Margaret Thatcher had no time for the unions. Legislative changes had made it increasingly difficult for unions to protect their members. The ruthless rundown of manufacturing industry and, after 1984, coal mining progressively deprived them of their base. Membership fell from its peak of 12 million in 1981 by a million in the following three years (and to only seven million by the end of the nineties). British unions were having to reassess their traditional assumption of superiority in organisation and influence vis-à-vis their
Osmosis 163
continental colleagues. They began to look enviously at the part the latter played, formally or informally within state and para-statal structures, recognised in law. The Community itself and the procedures adopted in Community countries appeared more and more positive. Yes, the Community was a constraint on British governments, but it could therefore be a constraint on a British Tory government.17 A new vocabulary began to be heard: instead of ‘both sides of industry’ came ‘social partners’. This had a broader sense, implying that it was not just two lots of antagonists facing across a table: it meant unions and management recognising their mutual interests and their wider responsibility towards the general community. That ‘social partners’ came from France was itself a sign that the unions were looking beyond Dover. But for ideologues it meant ‘class collaboration’. Roy Grantham dates the change in attitude, in both the unions and the party, to 1986–87, when the squabble over British budgetary payments had ended, when sterling fell at the end of the oil crisis and when there was a growing recognition in Britain that women’s rights and other social advances were being achieved through the Community. In this period MPs, MEPs and grassroots responses showed the worst was over for the pro-Europeans.18 Conversely, the antis were losing ground. When Edward Barber became membership secretary of the LCMSC in 1986 he wrote to all MPs, MEPs and others listed as supporters, seeking renewed subscriptions. But the numbers dwindled, as MPs started to go cold on his cause.19
This broader approach to industrial relations and economic development had its origins in the post-1945 wish on the continent to rebuild a sense of social cohesion after wartime enmities. Bitter post-war social conflicts also contributed to the search for an inclusive approach. Ironically, the TUC had made its own contribution when it advised in the late forties on the reforming of west German trade unions, including industrial copartnership. One element on the continent was Roman Catholic social thought. So the Catholic influence which had been a factor in Labour opposition to the ECSC in 1950, was now showing a positive side that could benefit British workers. The ESC may not have had much power, but it did provide input from employers, employees and other interests for draft EC legislation. Rights to parental leave from employment, protection for part-time workers, sexual equality and greater opportunities for the disabled were attractive to the British. Apart from the potential benefit to the workers, it meant British unions
164 Labour’s European Dilemmas
being brought back into the mainstream of policy-making, from which they had been expelled in Britain. Thatcher dismissed such measures either as inherently undesirable or as being of no concern of the Community. For her the single market was in principle fine, but if there was any need for such social policies (which was doubtful anyway) then it was up to national governments to pursue them.
One influential Catholic was also a socialist, albeit on the right. More important still, he had since January 1985 been the President of the European Commission. Jacques Delors had been France’s Finance Minister during the economic expansion experiment early in the eighties which had shown that membership of the EC did impose constraints on national policy-making (which many British anti-Europeans felt justified their cause), but also that national policy-making by medium-sized countries was inherently conditioned by external forces (which they were more reluctant to accept).20 Delors persuaded French socialists that fiscal rectitude and fixed exchange rates were desirable at a time when the Labour Left in particular still believed that deficit financing and the power to devalue were beneficial. David Lea, as Assistant Secretary General of the TUC, knew Delors from the seventies. He stressed his ‘enormous tenacity’ and almost ‘unworldly altruism and commitment’, and likened him to Monnet in his contribution to European integration.21 Bruce Millan considered that he stood out from all the other commissioners, and emphasised his clarity of vision of what he wanted to achieve.22 Delors accepted that open trade was desirable, but criticised economic liberals like the Thatcherites for underestimating the social and environmental costs. He believed that those affected by changing economic forces should be helped. While competitiveness in a single market might be expressed through wage rates, it was therefore only just that the social framework should be harmonised. As a Frenchman his philosophical antecedence had been Colbert, not Britishstyle nineteenth-century free trade. So he inclined towards ‘EuroColbertism’, wishing to see European champion companies built upon the basis of national champions that could then take on American multinationals.23 A ‘common market’ had been long established with the abolition of customs barriers within the EC and of the grosser forms of national discrimination against foreign enterprises. But the ten member states (12 with Spain and Portugal in 1986) were a long way from a ‘single
Osmosis 165
market’, wherein economic activities took place with the same freedom they had enjoyed within a national framework. In one country or another there were public monopolies, regulations limiting public works contracts to national companies, laws preventing foreign banks, insurance companies and other services from operating on the same basis as local concerns, rules excluding foreign professionals, and so on. The issue had been recognised in the Rome treaty but progress in eliminating such barriers had been slow. Moreover, such economic objectives were not the whole story to many, particularly in the European Parliament. Altiero Spinelli, one-time commissioner and now MEP, whose federalist ardour dated from his days as a prisoner of Mussolini, now made a contribution. He produced a report for the Parliament on European union. Somewhat watered down, it emerged as Parliament’s draft treaty for European union in February 1984. This won wide support on the continent and, watered down again, provided the basis for the draft Single European Act published in December 1985 aimed at consolidating the single market. It is Lord Cockfield, Thatcher’s nominee to the Commission in 1985, who, with Delors, can claim the credit for laying down the objective of achieving a single market by the end of 1992 and providing the impetus for getting it through complex intergovernmental negotiations. Cockfield had served in Thatcher’s Cabinet but was more technocrat than politician. He took his brief to achieve the single market seriously. This led him to conclude that implementation required more qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers in order to get the near-300 acts of legislation into effect without years of haggling.24 All national leaders except Thatcher agreed. Cockfield had ‘gone native’, London orthodoxy held. She was persuaded only with difficulty to accept that the SEA and the legislative method it provided for the EC was the only path available to the single market that she wanted. As Brussels correspondent David Buchan noted: The irony was that Mrs Thatcher’s single-minded advocacy of the EC single market was that it helped unleash integrationist forces . . . for trade in this single market to be properly free of barrier and distortion requires a certain supranational supervision and surrender of sovereignty.25 A new treaty was necessary because extending QMV and granting more power to the EP to oversee the EC legislation needed to implement the single market required parliamentary approval in the
166 Labour’s European Dilemmas
member states. Although comprising 50 amendments to the Rome and other EC treaties, the SEA was cautious. Thanks mainly to British opposition, the ‘qualitative leap’ towards European union envisaged by Spinelli and most MEPs (and by a few member governments) ‘had been reduced to a stumble towards more closely delimited cooperation amongst the EC partners’.26 The act extended QMV to six articles on mutual trade, leaving seven still subject to unanimity. One article on social policy was modified to ‘promote’ the improvement of working conditions and to develop a dialogue between management and labour, but only ‘if the two sides consider it desirable’. Encouraging noises were made – but without much financial commitment – about the environment, regional policy, research and development, and health and safety at work. The member governments also agreed to ‘endeavour jointly to formulate and implement a European foreign policy’, but unanimity was required for this. On defence there was nothing in the Act, except stating that the states were ‘ready to coordinate their positions more closely to the political and economic aspects of security’. The reality was thus far different from the rhetoric of the antis in Britain. ‘Keep Brussels at Bay: kill the European Bill’, urged press advertisements in June 1986 from the British Anti-Common Market Campaign, chaired by Lord Stoddart, a former Labour MP. Douglas Jay, Nigel Spearing and Bryan Gould backed him, along with several of the Tory ‘Europhobes’ who were to plague John Major a decade later. ‘British self-government’ was at stake with this further step to ‘a European super state’.27 But although on both sides of the Commons the last-ditch opponents did not number more than about 30, they proved obdurate in stretching out the procedure, forcing the government to impose a guillotine. Caught in mid-channel the Labour Party did not quite know how to handle the SEA. To have been seriously analytical would have required the now dormant withdrawal policy to be publicly and certainly acrimoniously aired and examined. The pro-European George Robertson, as spokesman for European affairs, based his criticism of the government on its hostility to the inclusion of social policies, accusing it of wanting ‘the export of Thatcherism’.28 As Judge commented, Labour’s opposition to the SEA was ‘still based on a fundamentally nationalist perspective’. However, he conceded: What worried the Labour leadership was that the SEA represented the triumph of ‘Euro-Thatcherism’ – of free trade, free market poli-
Osmosis 167
cies with no compensatory harmonisation of social and employment policies. What worried them even more was the ‘major transfer of sovereignty from Westminster to Strasbourg’.29 Peter Shore and Michael Foot came in on this note, the former arguing against the extension of QMV and the ‘so-called cooperation’ between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers over certain legislative procedures. ‘The veto power of the Council of Ministers has been the central defence of British national interests’, he said.30 Roy Hattersley saw the SEA debate as ‘the last throes of the old unthinking anti-Market position’.31 Social programmes had been incorporated in the Community structure from the ECSC onwards. It had provided housing for steel and coal workers and for retraining and encouraging new investments in the event of redundancy. In just two concentrated sectors of industry this was relatively easy. Extending such programmes to those affected by the creation of a general common market would have been a much greater challenge, and politically and economically impossible. So the social programmes under the Rome treaty were relatively small scale. Little was done for regional development until the seventies, and then more in terms of coordinating national programmes than on a Community-wide basis. By the early eighties the Vredeling proposal for worker representation on company boards had been largely dormant for a decade. During Ivor Richard’s term as Commissioner for Social Affairs the draft directive was still in play, while such proposals as the statutory right to parental leave and a basic 35-hour week had surfaced. But at this stage Cockfield’s concentration on the market was dominant, and Richard’s German successor in 1985 was a sick man. Stanley Clinton Davis, the following Labour nominee (and the first of the subsequent three Labour Commissioners to have opposed British entry in 1971), thought that the resultant slowness in getting the social dimension into play materially affected the ability of the Delors Commission to function as effectively as it could have done.32 It took four years from the time the initial Cockfield proposals were issued in the summer of 1985 for the social dimension to take concrete form as the Social Charter. So when the SEA came into effect on 1 July 1987 the social dimension was still shadowy, although, as noted above, the British government did have to concede on some points. However, the SEA episode did demonstrate that the Community was not the unchanging monolith that some antis professed to see, but was subject to change and change in a desirable direction, albeit slowly.
168 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Thatcher called a general election for 11 June 1987. On Europe Labour’s manifesto differed sharply from 1983. Labour’s aim is to work constructively with our EEC partners to promote economic expansion and combat unemployment. However, we will stand up for British interests within the European Community and will seek to put an end to the abuses and scandals of the CAP. We shall, like other member countries, reject EEC interference with our policy for national recovery and renewal. It combined nationalistic pugnacity with implicit acceptance of membership. Withdrawal, like unilateral nuclear disarmament, the removal of US nuclear bases, the repeal of Conservative trade union legislation, renationalisation of privatised industries and the control of capital movements were policies left to wither. For Labour the election outcome was an improvement on 1983. The party’s vote recovered by 1 1/2 million votes to just over ten million and a two per cent share of the total, increasing the PLP by another 20 seats to 229. This was still disappointing. The fight against Militant and pulling the party towards the centre had not been enough. As in the fifties the party had suffered a third successive defeat. But in that disappointing decade the party had won between 12.2 million and 13.9 million votes, and between 42.8 and 48 per cent of the poll. This time it recorded barely ten million votes and under 31 per cent of the total. The difference from the fifties was that calls for the party to move leftwards, to offer the electorate a more socialist programme, were muted. Tony Benn was no Nye Bevan. In response to defeat the party set up seven review groups to draw up policy drafts. On 25 May 1988 the NEC met to consider the texts. According to Benn’s diary, when presenting the statement on ‘Britain and the World’, Gerald Kaufman said: ‘It accepts the Common Market and leaves disarmament open’. Ken Livingstone moved to include the repeal of Section 2 of the 1972 EC Act, while Benn himself suggested that Common Market legislation should not apply if the government asked the Commons to vote it down. He recorded: ‘ “Repeal of Section 2 equals withdrawal”, Kinnock argued. “The electorate rejected that in 1983, and it would wreck the economy if we withdrew.” So he has come out as full Marketeer.’33 Given that Benn normally displayed all the qualities of a witchfinder general in sniffing out deviant thoughts, it is odd that it appears to have taken him five years to interpret Kinnock’s evolving views on
Osmosis 169
Europe. It is also a measure of Kinnock’s crablike progress on the issue. Hattersley said that Kinnock’s change of view ‘happened imperceptibly; it was osmosis’. He admitted that he would have liked to be able to say he had been an influence on Kinnock, but he played virtually no role in the process.34
The third electoral defeat hastened rethinking elsewhere. Frances Morell in 1987 put a paper35 at a European Left conference, marking a further step away from her Bennite past. For many party members such as myself the strength of the attachment to the strategy of democratic socialism in one country is puzzling. The widespread conviction, at grassroots level, that we are the only real socialists in Europe has an innocent, unworldly charm. It is so obviously incompatible with the international analysis of the relations between capitalism and labour which is a fundamental feature of socialism. In almost all the articles written since the 1987 defeat, she continued, ‘the possibility of national policy instruments being inadequate to achieve the objectives set is hardly mentioned let alone seriously analysed’. Furthermore, Morell charges that the fact that Europe follows free market and financial orthodoxy ‘derives in no small measure from the failure of the Left to put forward a common and coherent set of alternative principles’. The last was certainly true, but the belief that Labour comprised the only real socialists in Europe was much more than ‘innocent, unworldly charm’: it had been a major cause of the party’s arrogant self-regard and self-isolation from the rest of Europe – and from reality. It had also been a major factor in the Left’s own ultimate self-destruction. British socialist exceptionalism dating from the forties took a long time to die. The international framework in which Britain existed was now also recognised by another prolific writer, Hilary Wainwright. She saw the New Left of the seventies and eighties as having two bases. Those with origins in the party and parliamentary politics, such as Benn and Foot, had ‘tended until recently to see socialism in national terms’, and ‘still believed that [it was] control or transformation of the nation-state that mattered’. The alternative left ‘organising round peace, nuclear power, unemployment, and feminism’ she saw as ‘drawn in an inevitably international direction by the international character of the institutions it was
170 Labour’s European Dilemmas
up against’.36 These two bases had formed a temporary alliance, but the contradictions between them finally forced them apart. Closer to the mainstream of Labour politics, the Fabian Society in February 1988 published a pamphlet by BLG leader David Martin. He called on the party to help ‘bring common sense to the Common Market’. Britain under Thatcher, he said, was ‘the dirty man of Europe’, dragging its feet over measures to control dirty beaches, acid rain, leaded petrol and the dumping of toxic waste in the North Sea.37 The environment was one field where MEPs’ knowledge and experience did contribute to party thinking. Ken Collins, who chaired the EP environment committee for 15 years, recalled that Bryan Gould, when shadow environment minister, conceded that EC-scale action was necessary.38
It was not pamphlets or reports that most clearly signalled the change in the British labour movement’s attitude towards the Community. At a meeting of the ETUC in Stockholm in May 1988, Delors spoke of ‘a set of basic social rights as “one of the . . . major axes of European social space”, clearly implying that that these rights would be enforceable’.39 He was invited to address the TUC the following autumn. To anyone following Community affairs the content of his speech at Bournemouth on 9 September was not novel. But it was to the delegates. Speaking from a platform chaired by Clive Jenkins, a scourge of the pro-Europeans for 25 years, Delors noted how ‘throughout Europe we encounter similar mechanisms of social solidarity, of protection of the weakest group and of collective bargaining’.40 A large market of 320 million will increase competition. It will benefit the consumer and allow European industry to compete on a world scale. It will create new job opportunities and contribute to a better standard of living. These benefits will only be achieved with increased cooperation in scientific, monetary and social fields and they must be spread throughout the Community. Up to 1992, Delors said, the Commission would be devoting £40bn to backward regions, rural development, restructuring areas of industrial decline, long-term unemployment and jobs for the young. While conceding that ‘it would be unacceptable for unfair practices to distort the interplay of economic forces’, the Commission was urging on the
Osmosis 171
member governments that the large market should not reduce social protection for the people, that it should benefit each and every citizen by improving working and living conditions, health and safety protection at work, and that there should be collective bargaining at the European level. Delors proclaimed as a general principle ‘every worker’s right to be covered by a collective agreement’.41 According to Lea, who had initiated the invitation to Delors, this was ‘big stuff’. For a Frenchman what he was saying was not novel, but in ‘British trade union and industrial culture it was most revolutionary’, he believed.42 It was dawning on the mass of the union movement that there were things to be learnt across the Channel. In response Ron Todd threw over three decades of hostility by the TGWU. Of workers’ participation and industrial democracy, he said: In the short term we have not a cat in hell’s chance in Westminster. The only card game in town at the moment is in a town called Brussels, and it is a game of poker where we have got to learn the rules and learn the rules fast. . . . We have to seize the initiative on this whole debate from the employers. . . . They are still working under the delusion that they can have all the commercial harmonisation they want and can exclude anything that looks like social harmonisation or an extension of workers’ rights. That they condemn as social engineering, but social engineering is what 1992 is all about.43 Roy Grantham, of APEX – long in the pro camp – moved a composite motion, with the support of ten other unions that had taken diverse attitudes in the past. To stress the impact of the 1992 programme he pointed out one element which would affect a wide range of unions: the requirement that public works tenders by local authorities would have to consider tenders from anywhere in the Community. That provision for one would open up a major change in long-established custom. Another delegate concluded: ‘For too long, Congress, we have allowed others to set the agenda for Europe’. The title of the report adopted by congress, Maximising the Benefits: Minimising the Costs, encapsulated the new realism. ‘To capture the potential gains’, Delors had summed up, ‘it is necessary to work together. Your movement has a major role to play: Europe needs you.’ For the first time in almost a decade the TUC was being ‘addressed by a politician with considerable governmental
172 Labour’s European Dilemmas
power, who thinks it worth listening to unions’.44 Congress was rapturously grateful with three standing ovations. Some delegates sang ‘Frère Jacques’; others hummed along. But it was not Brother James who had been asleep. It was he who had rung the matins bell to waken the British brothers from their near three decades of troubled sleep, with a recurrent nightmare of never getting near the seats of power again. But it came at a price for traditional attitudes in the British union movement. ‘The European model promoted by Delors was based, first, on the recognition of individual workers’ rights to consultation, not the right of trade unions to industrial prerogatives, and, secondly, on the codification of mutual obligations in contrast to the traditional voluntarism of British trade-union practice’, wrote Denis MacShane, who had long been involved in European union affairs as Secretary General of the International Chemical Workers Federation.45 The insistence that the unions alone should represent the workforce (which had wrecked the Bullock Report in the seventies), the resistance to Wilson’s Social Contract, the defence of the closed shop with compulsory union membership in a workplace, and ‘FCB’ – free collective bargaining – were from a past world.
Three weeks later the Labour Party met in Blackpool in an atmosphere similar to that in Bournemouth. All the big unions were in favour of Europe for the first time since the tentative welcome given to Harold Wilson’s entry bid of 1967. Compared with the TUC the party conference was an anti-climax, and was certainly the first conference ever to have been at ease with itself over Europe. Clive Jenkins made a noted recantation: ‘The Trades Union Congress is re-estimating our thrust into Europe. This is a hard process of learning from life itself.’ In justification he cited the socialist governments in Spain, Portugal and Greece, and socialist parties poised for power in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, and a socialist Commission President in Delors. ‘Only the British government is out of step in Europe.’ Jenkins called for European legislation to protect workers in companies undergoing mergers and takeovers, the right to be consulted by management and to have power in companies, legally recognised equal status for women and Euro-minimum wages. ‘We look forward to the battles over the new European company law, already drafted with a social dimension which is abhorred and detested by the British government.’46 His memoirs recorded: ‘Along with Lord Beaverbrook,
Osmosis 173
General de Gaulle, Enoch Powell and Tony Benn, I got it wrong then, and got it right 20 years later.’47 Between Bournemouth and Blackpool there had been Bruges, where Thatcher on 20 September had made a crucial contribution to changing Labour opinion. ‘We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels’, she said. Her onslaught on federalism (however defined) finally broke the socialist–nationalist alliance that had sustained the anti-European cause in the Labour Party since 1961. The ideological started to separate itself from the instinctual. If socialist measures were to be achieved, then Europe – even at the risk of building a ‘super-state’ – was the only way forward. It was ‘the only card game in town’. This was recognised at Blackpool in composite resolution 58, moved by Bill Jordan of the engineers’ union, who said that Britain was politically and economically integrated into the Community and that Labour, ‘in conjunction with the other socialist parties . . . must seek to use or adapt Community institutions to promote democratic socialism’. After referring to Thatcher (though doubtless with others also in mind), Jordan said that ‘we have had our own little Englanders ever hoping that Europe will go away and always ready to attack the Common Market, but never able to offer any constructive answers to the real problems of change in Europe’. The motion was overwhelmingly accepted. The antis had a last fling: a resolution calling on a future Labour government to amend the 1972 European Communities Act, in order to ‘determine our own legislation and taxation’ was remitted, that is to say, binned.48 The arguments by pro-Marketeers in the sixties and seventies that it was only Europe that could provide a substantial enough framework to give workers such rights and such power over large, especially multinational companies – even before any talk of ‘globalisation’ – had counted for nought with Clive Jenkins and his allies at the time. Had there been 25 wasted years by the Left? Delors ‘gave intellectual respectability to the process of the changing of minds’.49 But though acting as a catalyst and ‘saving the unions and party from themselves’, the speech also showed how the Community had itself changed.50 For Grantham the invitation to Delors was ‘a public celebration’ of the previous change in attitudes in the unions. Although the basis of the social dimension had always been there, drawing on the attitudes towards inclusiveness and partnership common on the continent since 1945, it was only under Delors’ leadership and under the impetus of
174 Labour’s European Dilemmas
the single market that the dimension was able to achieve its full effect. Anti-Europeans in the Labour Party and trade unions had been mainly but not entirely wrong. But what greater impact, and much earlier, the British labour movement could have had had it dragged itself out of its insularity and its negativism in the sixties and seventies. The SDP defectors contributed to the Thatcherite domination of Britain during the eighties, but the Left too bears a large – arguably greater – burden of responsibility. Rosamund’s comment on the trade unions applies equally to the political wing of the labour movement: The appearance of a forthright version of Europe, apparently sanctioned by the Conservative leadership with a neo-conservative defence of sovereign statehood, provided a powerful impetus for the development of a plausible pro-European alternative. The slogan devised by the European Labour Forum, which deliberately subverted the message of Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech, was typical: ‘Socialism through the backdoor. Come in! Don’t bother to knock!’51
11 Making the Change
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, Spring 1992 Personalities: John Smith (waving ‘Maastricht debate’ paper), John Major
‘Positively bubbling with enthusiasm’ – Austin Mitchell1 In 1984 Labour’s second Euro-election manifesto had provided the first step away from the policy of outright withdrawal from the EC. The 1987 general election manifesto tacitly abandoned withdrawal but essentially marked time. Thanks to that unexpected alliance between Jacques Delors and Margaret Thatcher, the party had come out of the closet. The 1989 European manifesto was unashamedly enthusiastic. Growing dissension among Conservatives over Thatcher’s attitude meant that Labour could present – and see – itself as the party more in touch with the flow of European developments. Apart from any objective assessment, this was good for party members’ morale; events seemed to be on their side for the first time since the seventies. They wanted that ‘socialism by the back 175
176 Labour’s European Dilemmas
door’ that Thatcher was determined to resist. The social policy proposals debated by the Economic and Social Committee and the European Parliament early in 1989 showed how far the government was out of step with the other member governments, including those controlled by the right. It was also increasingly out of step with its own MEPs and many of its MPs. The Social Charter unveiled by the Commission a month before the European elections was proposed as ‘a solemn commitment’ for member governments to implement in the run up to the completion of the single market by January 1993. The action programme contained 47 policy instruments, mainly directives requiring implementation by national legislation. They covered such matters as working conditions, freedom of movement, consultation and participation, equal treatment of the sexes, and health and safety. It offered both employers and workers the right to form ‘professional organisations and trade unions of their choice for the defence of their economic and social interests’. For all the acclaim the Charter won – for the most part – it had taken four years after the launch of the single market programme to emerge as a coherent whole. Significantly, this was shortly after Delors began his second term as Commission president. He was the first president since Walter Hallstein in the sixties to serve for more than four years, and was ultimately to serve ten. The Charter could not have provided the leftwing parties with a better basis for their election campaigns a few weeks later. For the first time Labour was in a position to make a positive contribution to the Confed manifesto. ‘At the end of it all, there were still some reservations, but the progress that Labour demonstrated was extraordinary. Kinnock and his team deserve the credit for this’, was the view of Enrique Barón, then EP socialist leader.2 True, the manifesto had been watered down from the initial draft to take care of various member parties’ caveats. But unlike the Danish social democrats, Labour did not find it necessary to enter a formal reservation to the Confed text about its ‘various federalist proposals and its specific call for social and fiscal harmonisation’. Labour had come a long way. Moreover, compared with 1979 and 1984, European issues did play a part in the election campaign: Thatcher’s ‘Brussels bashing’ and the crude chauvinism of the Conservative propaganda were much less in fashion. The TUC added to this mood by spending £200 000 on ‘soft’ advertising, commending the Social Charter to the public, but not by saying ‘Vote Labour’ outright. On 15 June Labour, for the first time since 1974 in a countrywide poll, did better than the Conservatives: 40.1 per cent against
Making the Change 177
34.7 per cent of the total vote. Following the SDP–Liberal merger, the new Liberal Democrats’ support shrank to 6.4 per cent. They were no longer a threat. Labour won 45 European seats, against 32 for the Conservatives – the exact reversal of the 1984 result. Moreover, for the first time in a European contest a significant number of candidates were opting for Strasbourg in its own right and not as second best to Westminster. An interesting sideline was the election of Ken Coates and three others who were among the first leftwingers to make the leap over negativism; so much so that they became known to their fellows as the ‘federalist four’. In the following years Coates’ European Labour Forum provided a quarterly outlet for articles by British and continental socialists (and by no means only from the Left). New Labour had no appeal for him, and in 1998 he and Hugh Kerr were expelled from the party – for Coates no new experience. As leader the BLG chose Glyn Ford, who had shifted his stance over Europe since first elected in 1984, when he had tried to forge a ‘Broad Left’ from the hardline Campaign Group sympathisers and the Tribunites. Carole Tongue as deputy leader and the other officers of the BLG were from the European wing, now a comfortable majority. A year later the BLG changed its name to the European Parliamentary Labour Party, a signal that its members were no longer the despised deviants far from the emotional heart of the party. This change was formally recognised in 1991 in changes to the party’s constitutional rules. In the same year the first joint parliamentary coordination committee was chaired by George Robertson the European spokesman, who was later replaced by ex-MEP Joyce Quin. But the relationship was consultational only; there was no formal attempt to whip the MEPs to the PLP line. However, blatant divergences (over, for example, the Gulf War) and inadequate EPLP whipping (over EU-assisted miners’ benefits) led to bad feeling.3 Appointing ‘link’ MEPs to liaise with shadow ministers was another move to integrate the MEPs with the party: Gary Titley joined the shadow foreign affairs team. (After 1997 he was appointed European PPS to Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, a one-time fervent antiEuropean.) Dianne Hayter, formerly General Secretary of the Fabian Society, became the EPLP’s Chief Executive in another move to strengthen bonds. One upshot was the first annual Euro-conference in 1992. After ten years of isolation the opportunity for the MEPs to play a more positive role vis-à-vis the party at home was available to them. However, a sense of rivalry remained, with some in the home party retaining disdain for the MEPs.
178 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Expressing enthusiasm about European integration and using EC policies as a means to attack the Conservative government was one thing; engaging constructively in the Community’s affairs was another. For the first time since 1979 the party had to consider EC policies on their merits. The immediate major issue was economic and monetary union. Since James Callaghan’s exclusion of sterling from the ERM in 1979, Labour had not had to think through its position on this. The path laid out by the intergovernmental committee chaired by Delors envisaged a three-stage EMU process: Stage 1 was the completion of the single market and the consolidation of the ERM; Stage 2 comprised the formation of the European Monetary Institute with the central bank governors in an advisory role, and the hardening of the currency unit; Stage 3 was the formation of the European central bank with power to set a common interest rate, the fixing of the national exchange rates against a single currency unit – the ‘euro’ – and the issuing of notes and coins. Labour now accepted Stage 1, but there it stuck. Its first instincts were to resist the encroachment on national governmental prerogatives involved by an EC central bank and European supervision of national budgetary plans. The party still baulked at accepting the logic of its move over the ERM. In April 1989, Neil Kinnock had told the Wales TUC that Thatcher was ‘creating the threat of two-tier Europe, with Britain firmly in the second rank . . . a second speed Britain will not generate the wealth which is essential to sustain and enhance the prosperity and to expand the justice and freedom of the British people’.4 But his own party’s policy at this stage was as likely as hers to create two tiers. However, in the weeks after that autumn’s conference the party ‘executed an about-turn’ on the ERM. ‘Hardly anyone noticed, because Nigel Lawson had just resigned.’5 Early in 1990 New Socialist published a justification of the ERM by Charles Grant, The Economist’s Brussels correspondent, who stressed how Britain already suffered from both internal and external economic instability, and that the loss of monetary freedom to a European central bank should not be mourned. Former high-inflation countries as France and Italy had effectively given up their monetary sovereignty to the Bundesbank; which was why they accepted a European bank in the management of which they would have a say.6 He argued that Britain had little real monetary sovereignty as had been shown in October 1989 when it took just 20 minutes for the Bank of England to follow the Bundesbank in raising its interest rate. However, this was at a time when Chancellor Lawson was informally shadowing the mark. Nonetheless, there were legitimate questions about the hazards of trying to create a politically motivated currency.
Making the Change 179
Thatcher capitulated to her ministers on 8 October 1990 and, without consulting the other member states, took sterling into the ERM at DM2.95. This was the last day of the Labour conference. John Smith, the Shadow Chancellor, and the deputy leader Roy Hattersley issued a statement approving the move, although without expressing their concern at the relatively high parity.7 By now the party was preparing to move one step further. Already anxious, the LCMSC on 16 October issued a statement, signed notably by Peter Shore, Nigel Spearing and Austin Mitchell, that ‘any commitment to EMU by the party leadership will deepen the split’ over policy. The committee still claimed 80 supporters in parliament, but the hard core was probably a third of that; it had gained little strength from the 1987 PLP intake. On 28 October in Rome 11 member states – Britain stood apart – agreed that Stage 2 of the EMU project would start on 1 January 1994. A month later Labour joined that majority: the NEC issued a position paper endorsing the principle of a single currency, though without commitment to its date of introduction. ‘There can be no question of accepting Division Two status for our country in the Community of the future.’8 This meant, in John Rentoul’s view, that the party had abandoned full employment as a primary aim and ‘that the overriding objective of its macroeconomic policy would be to maintain the value of the pound against the Deutschmark’. The 1990 policy document referred not to ‘full employment’ but to ‘the highest possible levels of skills and rewarding employment’.9 The use of the exchange rate as an instrument of policy, which had been central to the AES and was still championed by Bryan Gould, had been abandoned. Two months later Smith reaffirmed the demand that the proposed European Central Bank (ECB) be accountable to elected governments. It would, he also said, be a serious error to have a rigid timetable ignoring the problems of convergence. So ‘a greatly expanded system of regional and structural funds at the Community level’ was necessary. He added another caution: ‘We believe it is important to distinguish between monetary union and the far from precise notion of economic union implying, as it might, the loss of fiscal and budgetary sovereignty.’10 Labour wanted ECOFIN – the ministers of economic and financial affairs in the Council – to exercise that control in the first instance, for constructing the ECB as too direct a parallel with the Bundesbank would mean it operated ‘in an uncertain political vacuum’.11 EMU posed a problem to which leftwing parties were particularly sensitive. Even more than a single market, economic and monetary union risked creating major imbalances between regions. In a single market context ‘between regions’ meant between nations. Experience
180 Labour’s European Dilemmas
since 1945 had shown that it was only the highly skilled or the unskilled who could be tempted or cajoled respectively to uproot themselves to work in another country with another langauage and culture. All member states had regional programmes sustained by a sense of national solidarity. But by the nineties there were increasing grumbles in the richer regions. In Italy the north was less generous to the south; in Germany celebration at reunification was tempered by the cost to the west. Was the sense of European solidarity sufficient to permit large transfers of the relatively rich German or Danish taxpayers’ money to relatively poor Greece or Portugal? The answer was surely ‘no’. Publicly Delors was sceptical about this concern. The Brussels correspondent of The Financial Times wrote: He believes the economic evidence is on his side showing that there need be no ‘compensation’ for EMU because it will benefit all regions. But his real rationale is political. He reckons that asking richer states for still more money, on top of their agreement to double structural aid over the 1989–93 period, would provoke such an argument as possibly to kill the whole EMU project. The Labour Party, he continued, would probably have to waive its demands for strict political control over the ECB, more money for poor regions and a concerted growth policy, as the Commission under Delors was putting its stress on competition and squeezing state aids.12 But Labour needed to be cautious on its own account. Compared with the ‘Club Med’ countries, the areas of industrial decline in Britain (and elsewhere in northern Europe) were not now the poorest in the EC. The party’s European spokesman George Robertson conceded that too massive a boost in structural spending would make Britain an even bigger net provider.13 As it was, in 1990 Britain’s net contribution to the EC budget approached £2.5bn, a level it was to average for the rest of the nineties.
Differences of opinion with Delors, or with other socialist parties, did not mean that Labour was not ‘pro-European’. It meant that, at long last, the party was debating, not about being ‘in’ or ‘out’, but about what sort of Community should develop. It was also a facet of a debate, perhaps more implicit than explicit, about the future of the party. In Marxism Today in October 1990, John Lloyd wrote that
Making the Change 181
Kinnock had crushed the Left far more effectively than Gaitskell, and even though the party still described itself, or thought of itself, as socialist, it was so no longer. A democratic socialist respects parliamentary and other democratic procedures: s/he would be likely to privilege democracy over socialism. But the outcome s/he wants is socialist: that is s/he wants a society different from that produced from capitalist/market relations. A social democrat accepts the field is ploughed by capitalist relations, but will argue about the crops: what is planted and how it is tended and harvested. To Lloyd, Labour had always been social democratic in office, but it had been ‘putatively socialist’. The anti-Marketeers had been quite right that the EC precluded socialism: its institutions, its members and its policies ‘all render the tools of socialist planning and intervention either useless or unlawful. The only leftism practically possible is social-democratic: the only argument worth having is about the crops, not the field.’ Another observer, Stephen Tindale, agreed: A genuinely socialist party would have rejected the Delors initiatives and the Social Charter as a fig leaf, as the left of the party did. The Labour leadership did not; it welcomed them as paralleling its own political aims. In the space of a decade, Labour had gone from British socialism to European social democracy.14 So had Kinnock’s distinction ten years earlier between ‘socialism by prescription’ and ‘socialism by plod’, passed away? Or had it been a case of his clinging to that word ‘socialism’ when the concept it represented was already slipping out of his – and Labour’s – politics?
The background at this time was the collapse of communism, symbolised most dramatically by the opening of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, the implosion of the communist governments throughout eastern Europe, incipient disaster in Yugoslavia, the end of the Cold War, the Gulf War, the reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Capitalism appeared triumphant. State control of the economy, whether by democratically elected or authoritarian governments, had lost most of its appeal. Although the leftwing depiction of the
182 Labour’s European Dilemmas
European Community as the economic arm of NATO had always been oversimple, Stalin and his successors had been the great federators of western Europe. With the threat from the east gone would the impetus to unity in the west weaken? There was anxiety both inside and outside Germany that a reunited country of 80 million might be less committed to integration. This provided a spur to consolidate the Community. Transatlantic relations also needed to be reassessed: in the eighties the Community, as ‘an economic giant but a political pygmy’, contributed to economic and political frictions with the United States. These external circumstances added to pressures within Britain that had made the desperate clinging to the nation state, whether by the right or the left, all the more dysfunctional. The Community had blurred the traditional boundaries of the nation state, literally and figuratively. That had worried Michael Foot and Enoch Powell alike. Within Britain, botched Scottish devolution had brought down the Callaghan government. While trumpeting the cutting back of the state in economic matters, Thatcher concentrated even more political power in London, abolishing the metropolitan authorities, emasculating local government more generally and imposing the poll tax on Scotland before England. Pressure for change, including electoral reform, the incorporation into law of the European Human Rights Convention, devolution in England as well as to Scotland and Wales, racial and sexual equality, animal rights and disarmament, increased in waves of often inchoate extra-party agitation with which the established party structures had difficulty in coping. The Charter 88 movement gained support from individuals in all parties and of none. These were also the issues that appealed to the male, middle-class, middle-aged house-owners who were dominant in the CLPs.15 The move from traditional concern with mainly economic and social issues to such civic and constitutional issues was part of Labour’s transformation. But that transformation included acceptance of the Thatcherite economic changes. The Labour leadership had no interest in alternative socio-economic structures such as producer cooperatives or copartnership, let alone workers’ control. Publicly owned industries were sold off, the cooperative movement withered and building societies and insurance societies demutualised: the only legitimate form of economic structure appeared to be the public limited company. Labour was accepting UK plc. Neo-liberalism triumphed.
How did Labour Party members react to the change in policy over Europe? A poll found that 89 per cent of them wanted to remain in the EC, and only 16 per cent wanted the party to resist further integration. So
Making the Change 183
the grassroots wanted more integration by nearly five to one, and were now ahead of their leaders. They could no longer be claimed by the antiEuropeans. Could they still be claimed for socialism? There the signals were mixed. Over 80 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed that nuclear energy development was essential and almost as many wanted more aid for the Third World; neither is a particularly socialist policy. Nearly threefifths (58 per cent) disagreed that production was ‘best left to the free market’, while much the same (57 per cent) agreed that Labour should aim to capture the middle ground of politics and 58 per cent wanted proportional representation. On party management, 81 per cent wanted OMOV for the party leader, 72 per cent thought the conference bloc vote ‘disreputable’, and 63 per cent wanted the constituencies alone to select candidates.16 Party opinion was shifting, but confused in intent. Public opinion was also cautiously, though capriciously, more favourable to Europe. Research for the BLG before the 1989 Euro-election found that only one-third of the public felt itself European and that twice as many felt ‘British through and through’, especially Labour supporters. Yet the 40 per cent who felt closer to Europe outnumbered the 25 per cent who favoured the ‘special relationship’ with the USA. Three-quarters saw Britain as ‘one of a group of equal nations who should cooperate for mutual benefit’. Only 31 per cent wanted to be part of a United States of Europe, against 26 per cent who thought that ‘Britain is an island and has little to gain from other European countries’.17 Within the PLP too opinion was shifting. Brian Sedgemore, a Campaign Group veteran, went demonstrably public on 15 June 1990 with a passionately pro-European (and pro-single currency) speech. ‘It is time that Left-wing Members regarded the European Community as a stunning opportunity rather than a upas tree of woe.’ Sedgemore admitted that he had rethought his views on Europe over the previous two years: ‘the idea of national economies controlled by national Governments is dead . . . the joining of the ERM could prove critical in helping . . . [to] deal with the damaging effects of currency speculation’.18 A single currency alone he described as federalism without democracy. This was a big shift for one of the architects of the AES. Doug Hoyle, another vigorous anti-campaigner, expressed the increasingly common pragmatic view: ‘It’s sad . . . But it is the reality. We are in Europe. We are going to stay in Europe and what we have to do is to get the best out of Europe.’19 Shore and Douglas Jay, who epitomised the instinctual view, did not give up so easily, complaining of the ‘potentially disastrous impact’ of EMU on jobs, industry and living standards. The document endorsed by the NEC on 28 November they found ‘disturbingly inadequate’.20 The Independent suggested that 50 Labour MPs were ‘integra-
184 Labour’s European Dilemmas
tionists’, 154 were ‘Euro-pragmatists’, and those who were ‘anti-Europe’ numbered only 20–30. The paper noted that the LCMSC had collected 52 subscriptions from MPs that year, well down from the 1987 level.21 Giles Radice said: ‘I still have to pinch myself when I make speeches to Labour audiences and find them on my side.’22 The following year Sedgemore took a further step with six other leftwing members by putting down an EDM stating that while the Social Charter was ‘vague, commits governments to little, and aims only to appease workers facing restructuring . . . [it] provides a starting point for a much-needed and strong social dimension to the single market’. The signatories favoured a single currency, a European central bank, common environmental, foreign and defence policies, and federation ‘subordinate to the European Parliament’. They looked forward to extending the boundaries of ‘a democratic, federal and social Europe on a pan-European basis’.23 This was the most enthusiastic leftwing endorsement of European federalism since the days of Kim Mackay and Keep Left in the forties. Among its sponsors was Ken Livingstone, who only three years earlier had argued in the NEC for the repeal of Article 2 of the 1972 EC Act in order to keep European legislation under British control.24 The volte-face by the Left arose from the recognition that the market had come to stay, and that ‘full federation was preferable to a halfway house of an economic community of sovereign states’, as Michael Barratt Brown put it. Those who look to the European Community for the protection and the social provision that European nation states can no longer provide, will have to accept a common currency, but will need to insist on a common social budget . . . otherwise the unregulated market will simply result in gross inequalities, most uneven rates of development between regions, both inside and outside the Community, and no checks to environmental degradation.25 In this way many of the formerly anti-European Left leapfrogged right over the party leadership, leaving many of their old associates stranded.
During 1991 the Major government struggled vainly to persuade the other governments that ‘widening’ – bringing in eastern European countries – should precede ‘deepening’ the Community by means of a new treaty providing for EMU, the Social Charter, extended QMV, and
Making the Change 185
increased powers for the EP and the Court of Justice. The government struggled also with its own recalcitrant backbenchers. At the end-year summit in Maastricht Major won what he claimed to be ‘game, set and match for Britain’, but only at the expense of taking a step towards a two-speed, or ‘variable geometry’, Europe. Far from taking Britain into ‘the heart of Europe’, the aim he had proclaimed, he pulled it further to the periphery by obtaining an ‘opt-out’ from the Social Chapter in the Treaty on European Union (as the Community was now to be known) and the chance of a later ‘opt in’ to Stages 2 and 3 of EMU. The government was also in the lead in ensuring that two new ‘pillars’, concerned with foreign policy and security and with justice and home affairs, would be handled on an intergovernmental basis, excluding the existing EU institutions. The Labour Party enjoyed the Conservative discomfort. The opt-out on EMU gave tacit satisfaction.26 It could criticise the government without undertaking difficult commitments itself, and internal divisions could be masked. The Social Chapter was even easier to handle: the whole party could unite in damning the government’s indifference to improving working and social conditions. Visiting Brussels on 2 April 1992 shadow employment minister Tony Blair told the Commission that the next Labour government would immediately accede to the Social Chapter.27 That government appeared imminent.
An election had to take place that spring. The last parliament to have gone to full term was in 1959–64, and the ensuing election gave Labour a majority of four. But 8 April 1992 gave unexpected victory to the Conservatives, with a majority down from 56 to 21. Notwithstanding the Policy Review, the dropping of unilateralism and nationalisation, the acceptance of the EC and a general rebranding, Labour suffered its fourth election defeat in a row, even more dispiriting than in the fifties. Despite gaining another 42 seats to a total of 271 seats, it still had 65 fewer than the Conservatives. Its share of the vote was up only to 34.4 per cent. It regained 11/2 million votes but was still 11/2 million behind the Conservatives. Kinnock immediately announced that he would resign and the election of a successor preoccupied the party over the following weeks when the Maastricht treaty was before Parliament. Official policy on the treaty was that, failing the incorporation of the Social Chapter, the PLP would abstain. The Tribune Group collectively now also overtook the leadership in Euro-enthusiasm: on 18 May it called for a vote
186 Labour’s European Dilemmas
against the treaty because it did not go far enough. Three days later 59 Labour members voted against the treaty; Tam Dalyell and Andrew Faulds broke ranks the other way. Group secretary Peter Hain issued a discussion paper that echoed the call for greater democratisation in the Community, for ‘federalism’ and for ‘a social rather than just a free market’. Tribune itself saw ‘the germ of a coherent vision of a democratic federalist future for Europe’.28 Hugo Young thought the Tribunites’ position was tempting to the leadership. ‘But Smith is like Major only more so: believing in Europe, crablike in his approach, molelike in his timidity before the presumed scepticism of the country, but moving relentlessly, however far below the surface, in one direction only.’29 Shore, now on the sidelines of the party, was deeply unhappy. Smith, in his view, was so devoted to Europe that he preferred Maastricht without the Social Chapter to no Maastricht at all. Smith’s refusal by this time to reject outright the capping of governmental borrowing to 3 per cent of GDP and a ‘wholly unaccountable’ ECB he saw as ‘seriously injurious’ to a future Labour government.30 The 51 to 49 per cent ‘nej’ vote in the Danish referendum on 2 June, the overwhelming ‘yes’ vote in Ireland two weeks later and the news that the French too planned a referendum, spurred calls for one in Britain. At the time of Maastricht the NEC had turned down by 24 to two a proposal from Dennis Skinner and Tony Benn (who were to lose their executive seats in 1992 and 1993 respectively). A cross-party referendum campaign was formed, but it got little support beyond the customary anti-European elements. The two front benches were against it. The 1975 referendum had failed to unite the Labour Party; another would open up old wounds. For the Conservatives it would be worse. Public opinion on a Maastricht referendum was ambivalent. But a referendum on a common currency was a different matter from one on the treaty: on that, two out of three voters would want a referendum, MORI found.31 Both parties were to enter the next general election committed to such a popular vote.
In July Labour chose a new leader. Smith received 163 nominations, Gould 63 and Livingstone 13. Smith, a rebel for Europe on 28 October 1971, was, with Hattersley, the only member of the PLP with cabinet experience. He presented ‘a picture of cautious pragmatism’, in one analysis. Gould was ‘more “Eurosceptic”, criticising elements of the party’s stand on the EC. However, though he raised numerous
Making the Change 187
questions, he provided few answers.’32 He also got few votes from the 1200 delegates who met on 18 July. Smith romped home with 90.9 per cent, gaining virtually all union and CLP votes and 23 per cent of the 30 per cent of the total cast by the PLP and the MEPs (who were brought into the parliamentary college the year before). Smith’s success among the CLPs reflected much more than the change in the party’s general attitude: members now had the individual right to vote for candidates by secret ballot and by single transferable vote. Labour finally had a leader whose belief in European integration was unambiguous and proven.33 Gould’s resignation as the Labour conference assembled on 27 September signalled the end of significant opposition to Labour’s European policy and also his departure from British politics and from Britain. Conference was unmoved. It overwhelmingly accepted the NEC’s report ‘Europe – Our Economic Future’, which stated that the treaty, ‘while not perfect, is the best that can currently be achieved’, subject to the inclusion of the Social Chapter. Moving the report EPLP leader Ford argued: ‘Of course it is flawed in parts, but so was Magna Carta, the UN Charter and the American Declaration of Independence. . . . We want Maastricht plus.’ Benn made a historical excursion in a different direction: ‘the biggest constitutional change this century. It transfers powers, won very painfully by the Chartists and suffragettes, from the electors to commissioners and bankers.’ A referendum was rejected. For the NEC, Gerald Kaufman – previously a long-standing anti on sovereignty grounds – said that the best referendum would be the European elections in 18 months’ time.34 The government had meanwhile suffered a further shock when sterling was forced out of the ERM on ‘Black Wednesday’, 16 September. Four days later the French ‘petit oui’ to Maastricht by a margin of under 2 per cent told the European political élite (and François Mitterand and Helmut Kohl in particular) not to take for granted public opinion over the pace and nature of integration. It also underlined that governments can control referendum questions, but that the voters may give answers to different questions. In Britain consideration of the Maastricht bill had been postponed after the Danish referendum. On 4 November the Commons voted by 319 to 316 to resume the debate, such an uncertain victory that the government again put off further debate until after the planned second Danish vote. Nor was the New Year any better. On 8 March the government had a symbolic defeat and conceded that British representatives to the proposed Committee of Regions would be elected local authority members not
188 Labour’s European Dilemmas
government nominees. Not until the spring was there any relief for the government: the Danes on 18 May voted again, this time ‘ja’ by 57 to 43 per cent. Two days later the Third Reading was carried by 292 to 112. Labour formally abstained, but on this occasion four members voted for the treaty and 65 against (along with 41 Conservatives). The party emerged intact, though not especially gloriously.
In the country the Labour Party was increasingly ‘Europeanised’. The government concession on the Committee of the Regions provided a means to bring Labour councillors into EU affairs.35 Richard Corbett noted how, apart from the meetings of the pro and anti groups and the BLG/EPLP at party conferences, the number of fringe meetings with European themes had risen from three in 1987 to ten in 1995, with the number of MEPs invited to speak (on any subject) up from 13 to 62.36 The constitutional changes agreed in 1991 confirmed this. Apart from the inclusion of MEPs in the leadership electoral college, the EPLP was given five seats on the party’s policy forum and input into its policy commissions, the right to consultation in the preparation of the Euro-manifesto and a regular annual conference.37 Perversely, MEPs were now banned from seeking election to the Commons while holding their Euro-seats. The 1978 ban on MPs standing for the EP was spiteful. The equivalent decision regarding MEPs, though formally symmetrical, was merely short-sighted. It meant that Labour was to deprive its Westminster – and potentially its governmental – ranks of men and women with experience of the European institutions and of working with other socialist parties. Pauline Green, who led the Socialist Group in 1994–97, is a case in point. Seven of the 1979 intake and four of the 1984 intake were later elected to the Commons.38 (Three – Richard Caborn, Geoff Hoon and Quin – were to become ministers in the Blair government.) In countries with electoral list systems two-way traffic was easy. Yet France, which has single-member constituencies for the National Assembly, values movement between the national and European parliaments. Relations with other socialist parties were good. The Confed was now the Party of European Socialists, a change of name that expressed the greater unity achieved. The manifesto for 1994, in the composition of which Green played a leading part, provided more common ground than its predecessors. Signed by the socialist leaders, including Smith, in Brussels on 5–6 November 1993, it contained less waffle and fewer weasel words. Of the seven fields covered by the proposed action programme for the Community,
Making the Change 189
only two caused difficulty for Labour.39 The French in particular had long favoured a basic 35-hour week, an aim adopted in the PES manifesto, though without a firm commitment. Labour’s wording in its own Euro-manifesto was categorical: ‘. . .we will not introduce legislation to enforce a 35-hour week’. The PES draft wanted the EP ‘to have a right of initiative, for codecision between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, and majority voting in the Council to be the rule’. To Conservative assertions that Labour had signed up to ‘a vast job-destruction package’, were added charges that Labour would do away with Britain’s veto. It gave Major a minor coup in labelling Smith ‘Monsieur Oui, the poodle of Brussels’ – an echo of Wilson’s likening Heath to a spaniel in 1966.40 It was easy for the Conservatives to make mischief about Labour’s continental allies: during the campaign they distanced themselves from the Christian Democrat dominated and strongly federalist European People’s Party with which they had had at best an always-uneasy association. Smith and Michel Rocard, the French socialist leader, addressed a fund-raising dinner in London on 11 May, four days before the campaign was due to start and a week before a planned European socialist summit. The following morning Smith died of a heart attack. Election campaigning was suspended until after his funeral. Deputy Leader Margaret Becket temporarily assumed the leadership. Speculation about the outcome of the leadership contest preoccupied the press (and the party) quite as much as the Euro-election, or even the council elections and the five by-elections also arranged for 9 June. In all three fields the result was gratifying. Against the 1989 Euroelection vote share of 38.7 per cent and the 1992 general election share of 34.4 per cent, the party won 44.2 per cent, its highest score in any nation-wide poll since 1966 (though in a low poll). The Conservatives’ share fell to 27.9 per cent. The size of the constituencies exaggerated the swing: Labour’s 44 per cent of the votes gave it three-quarters of the seats; the Conservatives’ 28 per cent popular support gave them one-fifth of the seats. The Liberals’ 16 per cent yielded them no seats at all. The two parties reversed their 1979 position: against 60 Conservatives and 17 Labour then, there were now to be 62 Labour and 18 Conservatives in Strasbourg. (On reunification Germany’s MEPs had been raised to 99, and the UK, France and Italy were each given six more seats.) In the election for party leader on 21 July there was a choice between Blair, Becket and Prescott. Gordon Brown, the Shadow Chancellor, stood
190 Labour’s European Dilemmas
back for Blair, whose victory was much less convincing than Smith’s two years earlier. In all three sections (now on a par with one-third of the electoral college votes) he won a majority, but not a resounding one, with 57 per cent overall, compared with Smith’s 91 per cent. Prescott got 24 per cent – and was also elected deputy leader – and Becket 19 per cent. At conference in Blackpool in October the new leader made no reference to European policy. He laid the ground for the constitutional changes that he sought, including the wording of Clause IV, over which Gaitskell had stumbled 35 years earlier. Blair was not explicit, but his meaning was clear enough for conference two days later to vote very narrowly to affirm the clause. Undeterred, he achieved the victory he wanted at a special conference on 29 April 1995. The individual members – now numbering over 300 000 – voted by some 85 per cent for removing the words ‘public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’, inscribed since 1918 in the party’s constitution and carved on the hearts of many members. OMOV had arrived with a vengeance. The unions opposed to change threw in their hands, however many block votes their cards bore.41 The MEPs had contributed to the debate on Clause IV in a way not at all to their advantage. On 10 January 1995, a front-page advertisement appeared in The Guardian defending the retention of Clause IV.42 It claimed the support of 32 Labour MEPs, although the paper listed only 31 – half the EPLP’s strength. The date was not accidental: Blair was visiting Brussels to give a keynote speech to businessmen, the content of which was lost in the uproar. ‘Angry Blair slaps down rebel MEPs’, the same paper reported two days later, when it also published a letter from 36 MEPs – including five who had supported the advertisement – seeking to protest loyalty though welcoming the ‘lively democratic debate’ on the issue.43 Former party General Secretary Larry Whitty, appointed the previous autumn to coordinate policy within the PES, had coordination work to do closer to home. Was this just mischief making or political ineptitude on the part of some MEPs, or was Old Labour alive and well and living in Strasbourg? Partly. It was also an expression of the new leader’s determination to put an end to the self-destructive party’s internal battles which had characterised the years of his political apprenticeship. But the issue had deeper significance than this: there were now two authorities, one national and one European, both of which could claim electoral and political legitimacy. The episode foreshadowed the party and constitutional difficulties the subsequent Blair government was to face when power was devolved to Scotland, Wales and London. A political culture
Making the Change 191
based on a highly centralised party structure and one of the most centralised constitutional and administrative orders in any democracy had difficulty in adapting to the consequences of its own policies. In the Brussels instance the national authority prevailed by the party’s constitution and greater political and electoral power. It fell ill for the MEPs. Together with a meeting with shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw, when the MEPs showed a rare unity in criticising his views on civil liberties, free movement and asylum rights, the occasion confirmed the leader’s will to bring the MEPs under control. Coordination with the EPLP was beefed up. Trying to transport a PLP style to Strasbourg did not work.44 The upshot was the ‘closed’ regional list system for the 1999 Euro-elections and the centralised manner in which Labour candidates were selected for those lists. At Westminster the defections from the Left weakened the antiEuropeans still further, their numbers having fallen steadily from the mid-eighties. In May 1995 they relaunched as the Labour EuroSafeguards Campaign, with Peter Shore as chairman and John Mills as secretary. The change brought new life and significant new funds. ‘There would be no escape route out of a single currency, like there was from the ERM. Britain would be truly trapped; and the Labour Party, in any remotely socialist form, redundant. We would not be able to function as a democratic socialist party.’45 The EMU issue spurred the pros to greater activity too. Jim Cattermole, well into his eighties, was active on behalf of the LME as since 1972. The LME produced booklets on the environment, education, enlargement and monetary union, and held seminars in London and Birmingham. Europe Left, revived in 1990 under Anne Symonds’ editorship, came out as a quarterly bulletin.
How European was the new leader? When Kinnock had voted against and Smith for EC membership in October 1971, Blair had been an apolitical student. At 22 he had voted ‘yes’ in the 1975 referendum, as did two out of three voters and most Labour voters, if not most party members. That was the year he joined the party. In the Beaconsfield by-election in 1982, he made withdrawal one of his main themes.46 The following year he told Sedgefield CLP that he was pro-European, and won the nomination and the seat. Nonetheless his election address stated: ‘We’ll negotiate withdrawal from the EEC, which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs.’ Rentoul found it ‘slightly curious that he should have so enthusiastically endorsed the
192 Labour’s European Dilemmas
party’s European stance in public’.47 However, Hugo Young suggested that Europe ‘was something on which hardly any sensible young Labour person would dare to challenge the orthodoxy’. But it did mean that later, ‘Like every other Labour leader before him . . . [Blair] had to account for the fact that he had apparently changed his mind on Europe’.48 Smith had started out pro-European and finessed his way through the difficult days in the early eighties until the party came round to his point of view. To Young it was an example of ‘the confusion that has been the mode in which the British political class chose, times without number, to present its views on Europe to the people’.49 Although Smith had opposed a referendum on Maastricht, he had favoured one on a single currency. Blair, in his first Question Time round with Major on 18 October 1994, goaded the Prime Minister on his position. Three weeks later he firmed up his own position: in the event ‘of a major and fundamental constitutional change, there is clearly a case for ensuring that the decision can be very clearly taken by the British people’.50 The new leader expressed firm views on EU policy, even when, in favouring the extension of qualified majority voting in the Council to the social, environmental, regional and industrial fields, he gave ammunition to the Conservatives, who could briefly forget their own Euro-agonies. But on foreign affairs, defence, security and immigration there would be no question of giving up the ‘veto’. On the Continent the prospect of a New Labour government was welcomed widely, and not just on the left – if it would live up to its promise. Not since Edward Heath’s brief year in 1973 as head of a British government within the EC had there been a time when Britain had not been ‘an awkward partner’. In the winter of 1995–96 Austin Mitchell, undauntedly anti, summed up the evolution of Labour’s attitude: ‘By 1984 we were not for withdrawal any longer but for renegotiating the Treaty of Rome. . . . The drift was quite gradual: in 1987 we were pro-Europe, by 1992 we were enthusiastic about Europe, and [now] positively bubbling with enthusiasm.’51 How ‘European’ was the 1992–97 PLP and the 1994–99 EPLP? Mitchell was responding to a survey which brought responses from about one-third of the 272 PLP members and nearly half the 45 Labour MEPs. Assuming the 110 respondents were an accurate crosssection there was residual anti-European sentiment: only 10 per cent of MPs and 7 per cent of MEPs wanted Britain to withdraw from the EU. But there was little enthusiasm: scant majorities – 52 per cent and 59 per cent – agreed that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages.
Making the Change 193
Nonetheless, 88 per cent of MPs and 86 per cent of MEPs agreed that globalisation made the EU more necessary. Grudging pragmatism prevailed. EMU caused surprisingly little worry: four out of five did not believe that a single currency would mean ‘the end of the UK as a sovereign nation’. A generational change was clear. Opposition to the EU was more marked among MPs elected between 1950 and 1987: 15 per cent of them favoured withdrawal, compared with none of those elected after 1987. After this survey was undertaken another general election took place – fought on a Labour manifesto of unequalled clarity and confidence on Europe – and another generation moved into the Commons. The 1997 House had only two Labour members who were first elected in the fifties (one of them Benn) and ten elected in the sixties. Of the 69 Labour pro-Market rebels in October 1971 only Dalyell, Robert Sheldon and Robert MacLennan (now a Liberal Democrat) were still MPs by 2000, eleven were peers (six Liberal Democrats) and one an MEP. As the century turned, a generalised anti-European sentiment was rare in the Labour Party. Like other passions of yesteryear – Clause IV, nationalisation, the AES, mandatory reselection of MPs, the electoral college, OMOV and unilateral nuclear disarmament – membership of the European Union does not now exercise either would-be candidates or selection panels. EMU poses difficult problems but its opponents purs et durs are few. The 1994–95 survey echoed the last beat of the antiEuropean drum. The size, the youthfulness and the social and sexual composition of the 1997 election intake consolidated the change in the Commons, while the selection process for the 1999 European election ensured that Labour MEPs follow the party line even more closely than do their Westminster colleagues.52
12 New Labour, New Europe?
Nicholas Garland, Daily Telegraph, 11 December 1998 Personality: Tony Blair
‘What we need is a combination of practical thoughts and idealistic aspirations’ – Willy Brandt1 Scornful of continental concepts of ‘European union’ in the late forties and affronted by and dismissive of the Schuman Plan in 1950, the Labour Party in opposition in the fifties added nothing to the process of European integration. The Eden government’s indifference to the Messina conference in 1955 was mirrored by Labour. So the European Community emerged as a real if unpalatable fact without any British input to its form or aims. For the next 30 years the Labour Party 194
New Labour, New Europe? 195
writhed in indecision. It was against membership of the Community when in opposition in 1961–63; for membership when in government in 1966–70; against membership once more when back in opposition in 1970–74; for membership again when in government in 1974–79; against membership once again when in opposition after 1979. So swung the party’s pendulum until finally, by the late eighties, the issue exhausted itself. The pro-membership cause won by the march of events. Ideological oscillation by a political party when in and when out of power is a commonplace of democratic politics. For Labour it was not confined to Europe. Since 1945 many issues have aroused passionate dispute, sometimes lasting years, spanning times in government and times in opposition, and then effectively settled by common decision or by external circumstance. Europe, along with Clause IV and nuclear disarmament, caused dissension for a generation. The three were intertwined though not coterminous. By and large, where anyone stood on one issue showed where he or she stood on another, except that on Europe the Left could reach out at times to allies in the Centre and on the Right. The place and extent of economic planning and public ownership were matters of debate from the fifties onwards. After 1973 they became essentially subsidiary to Europe, for national and regional planning and the policies pursued by publicly owned industries were subject to EC rules. All three disputes contributed to the party’s long absences from government and to its weakness when there. Labour opponents of British membership of the European Community argued in the sixties and seventies that it was not the party that wanted to join or, after 1973, to remain in. The party, as represented by the constituencies (or at least by the activists) and by many unions (or at least their leaders), was fairly consistently against membership, though going reluctantly along with it when the Wilson and Callaghan governments endorsed it. Europe was a major element in the breakaway to form the Social Democratic Party in 1981. Compared with ‘the march towards socialism’ under the Attlee governments, the Wilson and Callaghan administrations disappointed. Despite improvements in education, increased social housing and better social services, the abandonment of the economic planning and the extension of state ownership foreseen in the 1974 manifesto, the acceptance of the IMF loan and budgetary restrictions in 1976 were dispiriting. There was, in the words of that manifesto, no ‘fundamental and irreversible shift of power and wealth in favour of working
196 Labour’s European Dilemmas
people and their families’. So the campaign for changes in party structure and policies evoked a response among grassroots members of the party ranging from disillusioned acquiescence to enthusiastic endorsement. Blame was placed on the structure of authority in the party and parliament. Europe was seen as a prime example of the leadership failing to follow party policy as voted by conference. Until the election of Michael Foot as leader, membership of the Community was an issue on which most of those who led the party, and intermittently the government of the country, had concluded that it was of such importance that the views of the wider party and of the unions could justifiably be overruled. But for the Left any deviation from conference resolutions – despite being carried by the thoroughly undemocratic means of the union block vote – was a betrayal by the parliamentarians and in particular by the parliamentary leadership. Hence the demand for ‘accountability’. But it was not accountability to the electorate that was sought, nor indeed to the general membership of the party. One Member, One Vote was no more an aim of the Left than it had been of the Right when the block votes had been in their favour. Driven by the anxiety that Labour could never again win a general election, Foot’s successors Neil Kinnock and John Smith successively adopted a softly-softly-catchee-monkey approach to structural and policy change. The former moved by sliding out from under policies that had proved electorally unprofitable, withdrawal from the Community among them. The latter eased the way towards further party reform by cutting back the power of the block vote and constituency activists. The Social Charter and Conservative disarray over Maastricht helped Smith to reaffirm the European cause that he had supported since first elected to Parliament. Tony Blair, of a new generation and one who had never even been a backbencher when Labour was in office, took the party by the ears and – for better or for worse – further shook it out of other long-established and beloved habits.
The origin of Labour’s agony lay in its history. From its inception the party had two souls in its breast: the socialist soul and the social democratic soul. The one wished to create a society based on new principles, the other to improve immediate social and economic conditions. This division has been more closely defined as between ‘Socialists, committed to the transformation of property relationships,
New Labour, New Europe? 197
and social democrats, committed to the modification of property relationships’.2 Socialists fundamentally do not want a market. Social democrats accept a capitalist economy (perhaps with some publicly owned elements) but want to deploy nationally determined (and, now, internationally determined) instruments to limit the anti-social and more irrational operations of the market. The conflict has been not only between individual party members and between groups within the party, or between its political and industrial wings, or between its middle-class and working-class components. Many individual party and trade union members have been torn between conflicting and contradictory ideas and emotions. Many who did not at heart accept the implications of the term ‘socialism’, nonetheless readily used it, and confused themselves and others besides. It was a mantra to repeat. ‘Socialism’ appeared radical; ‘social democracy’ wishy-washy and compromising. By 1979 the uneasy coexistence of the two souls could not be contained. ‘Keynesian social democracy’, a component of the post-war consensus in British politics, was under acute stress. Unable to provide a stable economy with rising living standards it was attacked from all sides. Kinnock preferred the term ‘socialism by plod’, but that did not alter its failure.3 ‘Socialism by prescription’ was rejected both by the party’s Centre and Right, and by the voters. To the Left the Alternative Economic Strategy promised a solution, but only by trying to lock Britain into a tight little island economy. It looked back to ‘war socialism’ and post-war planning in a time of shortage. If the party was to survive as a political movement in the late twentieth century it had to adapt to the condition of Britain, of Europe and of the world. Internationalism had always been a fundamental tenet of the party, but variously interpreted. Brivati observed that ‘the language of Messina was a language of internationalism directed at democratic consolidation, but that Labour’s discourse on internationalism did not match that of the European movement’.4 The European Community was the wrong sort of internationalism: it was ‘a rich man’s club’. But EFTA was equally so, as would be also any North Atlantic Free Trade Area. Only the Commonwealth escaped that charge, but its character as an economic grouping largely ended with direct British rule over the dependencies. Some leftwingers professed that, in the cause of internationalism, they were ready to yield sovereignty to the United Nations. This was an empty gesture that conveniently postponed abandoning any state sovereignty at all, for state sovereignty was the very basis of that organisation. Besides, most of its member states’ governments
198 Labour’s European Dilemmas
were thoroughly undemocratic, with change occurring by force not consent. The argument that the Community was the economic arm of NATO was at most a quarter-truth. It was certainly part of the consolidation of the west that Bevin had sought, if not in a way he would have wanted. That it cemented the division in Europe was a back-to-front argument: Stalin did that. By the time of Messina in 1955 there was opportunity to ease the east–west divide in Europe. But his successors dared not allow ‘The Thaw’ to go very far either at home or abroad. So the Left refused to risk failure by seizing what internationalism was on offer in the European Community. As Kinnock wrote – and with his background he should know – it was ‘all say and no do, all plans and no power’.5 The capitalist nature of the Rome treaty provided the Left with further justification for standing aside. But western Europe in 1955 was no less capitalist then than in 1947–48 when the Keep Lefters went through their federalist phase. In successive decades it became more capitalist. The argument was based also on the assumption that the Rome treaty had set the Community’s objectives and its structure in stone. The Six were certainly reluctant to alter the fundamental tradeoffs in their pact drawn up in the fifties and insisted that newcomers accept the aquis communautaire. As the pioneers that was their prerogative, although in the long term they paid a political price. Successive enlargements in the seventies and eighties changed the Community, as did both internal and external political, social and economic forces. International agreements sharply reduced tariffs, eliminated quota restrictions and freed capital movements. Even agricultural protection was cut back. By 1990 the Community was more capitalist than ever, not only because of the international concentration of capital in large corporations, but because the move to the single market (and globalisation) increased pressure to limit national regional aids and industrial subsidies and obliged publicly owned enterprises to compete in the open market. State ownership and state intervention were being cut back. Although state enterprises could raise capital on the international markets for major services and infrastructural projects they lacked the managerial flexibility and always the political freedom to place economic success first. Yet, paradoxically, it was at this stage that much of the Left became passionately reconciled to the Community, demanding a degree of federalism too great for the party leadership. The Community had certainly changed, but the Left had changed a great deal more. Those
New Labour, New Europe? 199
near three decades of resistance to integration not only prevented the Labour Party playing a constructive part in European politics, they ensured that socialism and, arguably, social democracy were banished from Britain. Since the sixties those who had found ideological grounds to oppose European integration allowed themselves to be dominated by the instinctual emotions of the nationalists. By default, the Left fathered not only the Social Democrats but New Labour too.
The Attlee government’s refusal to take part in European integration had several sources: the belief that Britain was (or should again be) a great power, distrust of continental ‘unreliability’, condescension to ‘airy-fairy’ integrationist schemes, refusal to contemplate surrender of sovereignty to a supranational body (though accepting the functional surrender of military sovereignty to US command in NATO), belief in the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, popular gratitude to the Commonwealth for wartime support, the hope that the emergence of a multiracial Commonwealth could be an effective force in the world, and pride in the achievements of the first Labour government with a majority to pursue its social and economic goals. James Callaghan summed up this British pride: ‘The mistake we made was to think we had won the war.’6 ‘Britain’, as Monnet noted, ‘had not been conquered or invaded. She felt no need to exorcise history.’7 Western Europeans benefited from Britain’s functional approach in the late forties but they wanted more than material recovery from war. They wanted psychological and constitutional barriers against its recurrence. They had faith in integration and, aided by shrewd politics, they did move the mountain; they did breach the ramparts of national sovereignty. Britain, and Labour in particular, was out of ‘sync’.8 In 1962 the Labour Party recognised the European Community as ‘a great and imaginative concept’. Unfortunately it was not itself great or imaginative enough to see the Community as other than a threat. To Gaitskell the Commonwealth mattered more, and he thought it would be damaged by British entry. Yet only five years later the Wilson bid for membership showed the Commonwealth interest to be confined to a few trade arrangements. Membership of both the Community and the Commonwealth proved to be quite compatible. By the time of the 1975 referendum developing Commonwealth leaders wanted Britain to remain in the Community. At the end of the century the
200 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Commonwealth had over five times as many independent member states as in Gaitskell’s day. It was opening its doors to states which had never been British dependencies, and also trying to ensure that all its members followed the democratic path. Nor is Britain alone with its extra-European links. Spain and Portugal bred daughter states where their languages are more widely spoken than at home. France and the Netherlands marked other continents with their languages and culture. The former strongly promotes Francophonie, the association of Frenchspeaking states that includes seven Commonwealth countries where French is widely spoken. Those who argued that Europe was too small a stage for Britain were correct in that its imperial experience had set it apart from other European states, but only in scale, not by the nature of that experience. England, and later Britain, laid the basis for new societies across the world. One of these became the United States, which in the past halfcentury has extended and confirmed global dominance for the English language for the foreseeable future. In the same period that cringemaking phrase ‘special relationship’ provided – and still does – many within Britain an alibi to evade the facts of geography and to see in the transatlantic connection an alternative to Europe. Just as Commonwealth and European Union have proved to be complementary, not alternative, so Atlanticism and Europeanism have been complementary, not alternative. For most Labour pro-Marketeers Atlanticism and Europeanism were quite compatible; indeed as they were for most continentals. Britain’s Three Circles of Bevin’s day still exist although their natures, roles and relative sizes have altered. Despite wavering at times, and periodically irritated by commercial and political tiffs with the Europeans, US administrations have seen general advantage in European integration and in British involvement in it. A new sort of Atlanticist exclusivity is currently promoted by those Conservatives for whom Europe still appears to threaten ‘socialism by the back door’. It attracts those who laud unfettered global capitalism, such as the North American-owned media in Britain. It appeals to those who would prefer to see Britain subsumed into the ‘Anglosphere’ rather than face the undoubted complexities and difficulties of European politics. Conrad Black is one eager advocate, content to see Britain, like his native Canada, sink into the American economic and cultural embrace.9 The lure to some rightwing Eurosceptics is clear: they reject moderate capitalism with a sense of social responsibility. But this is a dangerous illusion, implying that culture and language (and perhaps ‘blood’) should be the overwhelming determinants of
New Labour, New Europe? 201
politics. It is a policy of passivity and despair. The paradox is that the maintenance of a British national identity, which the Eurosceptics proclaim as their aim, can perhaps only be achieved within the European Union, in clear counterpoint with the identities of France, Germany and the other member nations. The alternative is gradually to become an economic, social, cultural and political satellite and a pallid imitation of the United States. Of course Britain has profound cultural and many personal links with the rest of the English-speaking world. Britain created it, as it mothered its parliaments and provided the basis of its laws. This does not preclude Britain drawing benefit from its continental links. It is easy for British politicians, academics, journalists and holidaymakers to visit the USA and to communicate with the inhabitants. American media dominate our large and, increasingly, our small screens. Communication is less easy within Europe, in part because of inadequate language teaching in British schools. Few books are translated into English and few foreignlanguage films seen on our screens. That does not mean that American social values are in every respect closer to ours, nor that its society should be a model. Nor, conversely, does it mean that continental social structures and values are alien. America’s brutal individualism, fundamentalist extremism and the cult of the gun have no place here. Is it possible to avoid these when adopting America’s more positive qualities of openness and enterprise? As a long-settled society Britain has quite as much in common with the other deeply-rooted neighbouring societies as with English-speaking USA and the old White Dominions, which are themselves rapidly embracing multiculturalism and multiethnicity. Again, there does not have to be an exclusive choice: we can play football with continental teams and cricket with Commonwealth teams (and even occasionally win).
One area where British and much of continental experience has differed in some respects is in commercial structures. In Britain (and in the other common law lands) corporate and industrial development took place under law but largely apart from the state. In France and Germany, at different times, the state took a direct hand in commercial and industrial development. Hence the differences between so-called ‘AngloSaxon’ capitalism and the ‘Rhineland model’. The former is presented favourably by its partisans as the fount of vibrant free enterprise, the latter unfavourably as beset by state regulation. Yet compared with Britain’s dismal ‘stop and start’ economic record under both parties
202 Labour’s European Dilemmas
since the fifties, continental western Europe has provided growth, wealth and economic stability that are the envy of any British Chancellor, businessman or worker. It has drawn the workforce into constructive cooperation with management, and also made the latter aware of its own responsibility to society. In turn, the Rhineland model can learn from the Anglo-Saxon model: labour mobility is too rigid in some EU countries, corporate governance too secretive and welfare systems deeply in debt. There is no room to be smug: the British state health, pensions and educational systems are far from perfect. In Britain, hiring and firing is easy and cheap, as former employees of Ford, Vauxhall, BMW and Corus know well. Presenting AngloSaxon/Rhineland differences as antithetical is oversimple. Intelligent British employers recognise the advantages of consensual operations and continental concerns are rapidly adapting to the global market. Changes in German company tax laws under the SDP-Green coalition will have a major impact on commercial structures. Even French companies, long sheltered by a benevolent state and with close ties to government, are breaking out into the marketplace.
As a putative socialist (or even social democratic) party Labour never had easy relationships with private business. In office Labour worked with and encouraged business, but pretended not to, concerned that backbench and constituency opinion accuse it of ‘class collaboration’. In turn, businessmen were suspicious of Labour, wondering at what stage the objectives named in Clause IV might be extended to their sector or company. The advent of Blair gave the party a leader who dared to speak approvingly of ‘democracy and free enterprise’ as hand-in-hand concepts.10 He is indeed more favourable to the market than are some continental rightwing politicians, his government pursues privatisation in fields where even the Conservatives feared to tread. There is no more socialism in the Labour Party. There is now not even a whisper of ‘the socialist transformation of society’, no hope of a radical change in the power relationships in society or in the economy, little recognition that although the incompetence of much state enterprise and the evils of communism have been revealed, capitalism has its own inefficiencies and injustices, more on the global than national level.
Had even social democracy survived under New Labour? The ‘Third Way’ championed by New Labour for the first two years or so after it
New Labour, New Europe? 203
came to power placed itself between ‘unbridled individualism and laissez-faire’ and ‘old-style Government intervention, the corporatism of 1960s social democracy’, in Blair’s words.11 Much ink and emotion were expended on analysing how the ‘Third Way’ differed from the SPD’s Neue Mitte or the ‘modern socialism’ of the French. Perhaps the three major constituent members of the Party of European Socialists do still have more in common than their rhetoric suggests.12 Others were less sanguine. Lionel Jospin was clear about the French party: ‘We are socialists. And to be a socialist is to affirm that the political should take precedence over the economic.’13 He called for a market economy but not a ‘market society’. As Clement Attlee wrote 60 years ago: ‘Continental Socialists are often puzzled by the attitudes of British Labour representatives’.14 Many still are. More important than this pinhead disputation is the content of policy. At home, New Labour initially adopted severely limited fiscal redistributive policies, though broadening out after the first two years of budgetary caution. From the Blair government’s approach to Europe it was still easier in its first three years, as with preceding governments, to see more easily what it did not want than what it did want. It accepted the Maastricht Social Chapter, as it had agreed to do under Kinnock’s leadership, although with reservations. It cheerfully signed the Amsterdam treaty, which pushed forward a number of measures for improving social and working conditions, extended codecision of the Council and the European Parliament and laid the basis for eastward enlargement. The Blair government made many practical contributions to the Union: on drug trafficking, terrorism and other crime, on industrial and scientific research, on helping the developing countries and Russia, on bringing Europe into the age of the internet and e-commerce (notably at the Lisbon summit15), on searching out the inefficiencies in the member countries’ economies, on military procurement and cooperation, and in other fields. These were valuable on their own merits and also because, at long last, Britain had a government able to take a positive role in both the national and the European interests without having constantly to look over its shoulder to see how it played on the backbenches and in constituency and trade union committee rooms. Where Blair failed at this stage was in his inability to try to satisfy the need of many continentals for vision. Bevin in the forties despised this approach, and Britain has paid the penalty ever since. Latins thrive on rhetoric; the British and Scandinavians do not; the Germans come somewhere in between; and the Dutch (as they first showed over the
204 Labour’s European Dilemmas
Schuman Plan) can go along with it in and interpret it in a down-toearth manner. Conflicting emotions about the course of European integration are not confined to Britain. In all member countries there is tension between the conscious acceptance of the desirability of unity and a tenacious adherence to traditional habits and sentiments. The European Union has not abolished the laws of political behaviour: the member countries have different attitudes, cultures, histories and interests, and these remain essential factors in the politics of the Union. In the extreme, to paraphrase Clausewitz, European integration is war carried on by other means. It is Britain’s misfortune that it has a political culture and a media that revels in the simplicities of the games field, where those who do not win all lose all. For historical and cultural reasons ‘Europe’ is not as inspiring a concept to the British islanders as to many on the mainland. Blair only slowly grasped this nettle. When accepting the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen on 13 May 1999 he seemed to make a step forward; in Ghent nine months later he stumbled.16 President George Bush I once confessed to being not good at ‘the vision thing’. Nor is Blair: ‘The British on the whole are too pragmatic to believe in visions’, he said in Ghent.17 This speech, intended as an overall statement of Britain’s approach (and a riposte to a speech by a previous prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in the nearby town of Bruges 12 years earlier) was oddly negative, larded with constant reiteration of the need for ‘reform’, but with little specific content. Did his verbal body language reveal his true feelings about Europe, as did his instinctive support for President Clinton on several occasions when Britain’s European partners hesitated – justifiably or not? In Warsaw eight months later he was less woolly.18 A month later again, addressing a City audience, he was firmer still: ‘Stronger in Europe means stronger outside Europe. Less influence in Europe means less influence: period.’19 He had by then abandoned any hope that the European issue could be kept out of the forthcoming general election campaign. But patriotism should not be the first refuge of the Eurosceptics: being pro-European, Blair tried to argue, was the truly patriotic path. The British generally do have difficulty in looking beyond practical ideas, in accepting a statement of principle and then filling in the details, in adopting the French ‘en principe, mais . . .’ approach. So for 50 years they have always appeared caught out by events in Europe and thrown off course when one or other member government, or even a single continental minister or a commissioner thinking aloud, makes a suggestion that the Eurosceptic press and politicians can label as ‘federalist’ or
New Labour, New Europe? 205
leading to a ‘superstate’. The inability – or unwillingness – to look ahead has handicapped British policy for two generations. Worse, the temptation to use Britain’s long-term interest as a plaything of the Westminster game has proved irresistible to both major parties. For 30 years Labour’s contribution to this paralysis of national aims was either to look into the mists of a far socialist future or to concern itself with short-term and often self-serving issues.
There is a real British – not just New Labour – ‘third way’ for Europe. This is to apply Britain’s strengths: a global experience, outlook and language and a strongly individualistic and democratic tradition wary of authority and of the regulation of social activity, and sceptical (in the best sense) about dogma. The European Union in the new century exists in a world much different from that faced by the founding fathers of 1950: in the post-Cold War age of the internet and the global market the tight defensive entity for which some continentals still long has no future. Doubling the number of member countries will bring more diversity, which will demand, on the one hand, greater flexibility of structure – and perhaps ‘variable geometry’, pick’n mix, multiple cores, two tiers or concentric circles, according to the preferred metaphor – but on the other hand, a framework firm enough to ensure that Union policy is effectively agreed and Union law effectively implemented. Within the United Kingdom the long-established asymmetrical relationships between its component nations and regions have been made more formal through devolution. The inner boundaries of governance of the United Kingdom are being redefined. No doubt, from time to time, as in formal federal states such as the USA, Canada and Germany, there will be disputes about those boundaries (the ‘West Lothian question’ is but one). Spain, Italy and, to some extent Germany, also have asymmetrical constitutional structures that give some of their regions different juridical, political and administrative powers from others. Among the larger European states, it is France that is out of step. Beyond the folklore level some degree of cultural and linguistic diversity has been conceded in recent years. But the summer 2000 proposal that Corsica have modestly greater autonomy than France’s mainland departments provoked bitter dispute and the resignation of a leading socialist minister. Deep in the French psyche and culture is a need for symmetry and a fear of ambivalence. British ease in this field can better meet Europe’s needs.
206 Labour’s European Dilemmas
The British government could get much diplomatic support from a more imaginative approach to European development. Many in the smaller countries would welcome a change from the German–French duumvirate that always seems to make the running. Many in those two countries would welcome the move. The reaction in eastern Europe would be favourable: after generations of foreign domination those nations do not wish to see their freedom of action or sense of identity too curtailed. The British government might be surprised, if it explains its ideas with care, how much domestic public support it could gain. It should challenge the xenophobes to offer an alternative policy, not just to repeat slogans. Instead of constantly being worried about being in a second tier of member states, it should square up to the issue. At the Union level it should challenge its partners who talk glibly of ‘Europe’ to define their terms, make them face their responsibilities. In the environmental field it is clearly the Europeans who are more alert than the Americans to the dangers from climatic change and overhasty intervention in food and crop technology. As the inventor of BSE Britain should be cautious. These issues tip over into trade relations with the USA, where the European farm protection clashes with the eager advance of American genetic engineering. American commercial drive again comes up against the need of less-developed countries for sales outlets in Europe, for bananas among other products. This reflects Britain’s historical leaning towards free trade, while its championing of the EU’s enlargement to the east bears the same stamp. Because of its small agricultural interest it can of course also champion enlargement more easily than some other countries who fear the end of the CAP in its present form. In defence matters Britain – so far virtually alone – in Europe can field reasonably effective though small modern armed services, and has taken concrete steps with its partners in the European rapid reaction force while maintaining the NATO link. The other member states need to professionalise and streamline their forces. Britain could more generally help clarify and balance Europe’s transatlantic relationships instead of too often appearing to be Washington’s faithful hound. It could persuade President Bush II that National Missile Defence may not only be a will’o the wisp but also could incur major risks for both Europe and the USA. But extending security cooperation within Europe without hindering UK–US intelligence links will need a delicate touch.20 This is Britain’s strategic dilemma.
New Labour, New Europe? 207
The fight against international crime and terrorism justifies growing cooperation between the EU states and on a wider basis still. Britain still resists passport-free movement to and from the continent so long as the eastern and southern borders of the Union remain unsecure. All west European countries will need to re-examine their immigration policies in the coming years as their labour needs expand and as the gulf between the rich and the poor states widens. The oppressed and the poor from south and east seek freedom and opportunity in western Europe. This is Britain’s – and Europe’s – moral dilemma. Britain remains wary of EMU and of subjecting personal and company taxation and social security to any common element (as the Nice summit in December 2000 confirmed). Early in the nineties Kinnock and Smith brought Labour round to the concept of EMU. In office in 1997 Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown laid down five conditions for Britain accepting the euro: that there was a sustainable convergence between the economies of Britain and of the single currency countries; that there is sufficient flexibility in the eurozone to cope with economic change; that the effect on investment was not adverse; that the impact on the financial services industry was positive; and whether it would be good for employment. Such conditions, like those other famous ‘five conditions’ Labour laid down in 1962 for entry to the EC, will doubtless be interpreted flexibly should the need be. But, as long as the euro remains weak any move by Britain is unlikely, more from domestic political considerations than economic ones, although the high level of the pound threatens both manufacturing industry and agriculture. A referendum in 2002 or 2003 appears likely. Once again Britain sat out the early stages of a major advance to European integration and now wrestles with the consequences, and unable from its past and its present power and ambitions to follow the path of Europe’s smaller states and simply fall in with the French and – increasingly powerful – German leaders. Yet outside the monetary core of the Union, Britain cannot be at ‘the heart of Europe’. This is Britain’s economic dilemma. The ‘European constitution’ some on the continent demand not only raises domestic political worries in Britain but goes against a long historic wariness of legally entrenched political structures, although devolution is sapping this attitude. Even a declaration of basic human rights at the Nice summit of December 2000 invoked Eurosceptic outrage. But a constitution is really a formalised list of dos and don’ts, a definition of the relationship or a contract between a political unit
208 Labour’s European Dilemmas
and its citizens, or, this case, between the Union, and its member states and their citizens. Those who bewail ‘rule from Brussels’ would do better to drop the slogans and fight for the relationship they wish to see. Can Britain pursue its major policy interests if some other states push on to form a hard central core that threatens those outside with long-term exclusion? This comes back to the heart of British relations with its continental neighbours since joining the EC: the difference between formal and effective sovereignty.21 Both pro- and antiEuropeans of all parties in Britain have refused to face this issue squarely, the former seeking to evade it,22 the latter prefering to wield it as a slogan. This is Britain’s political dilemma. Ambivalence over Europe is a part of this nation’s fate from its history and from its nature. But Britain could, as Tawney wrote 50 years ago, show that reason is on the side of European unity, and it could defy those natural human egotisms of interest and emotion, of loyalty, class and occupation, of regional loyalties and national pride, however they rally to resist it. Britain could be a leader in Europe, if in Willy Brandt’s words, it adds some idealistic aspiration to its practical ideas.
Appendix: Biographical Notes on Labour MPs, MEPs and Peers Abbreviations hp hereditary peer LBLG Leader, British Labour Group LEPLP Leader, European Parliamentary Labour Party LLP Leader of the Labour Party lp life peer MP Member of Parliament MEP Member of the European Parliament (elected since 1979) mep Member of the Commons or Lords delegated to the European Parliament before 1979 PM Prime Minister Albu, Austen (1903–93) Archer, Peter (1926–) Ardwick, John (Beavan) (1910–94) Ashton, Joe (1933–) Attlee, Clement (1883–1967) Balfe, Richard (1944–) Barnes, Michael (1932–) Barnett, Joel (1923–) Becket, Margaret (1943–) Benn, Tony (1925–) Berry, Roger (1948–) Bevan, Aneurin (1897–1960) Bevin, Ernest (1881–1951) Bidwell, Sidney (1917–97) Blair, Tony (1953–) Boothroyd, Betty (1929–) Bradley, Tom (1926–) Brown, George (1914–85) Brown, Gordon (1951–) Brown, Ron (1921–) Bruce, Donald (1912–) Caborn, Richard (1943–) Callaghan, James (1912–) Castle, Barbara (1910–) Castle, Ted (1907–79) Clinton Davis, Stanley (1928–) Clwyd, Anne (1937–) Coates, Ken (1930–) Collins, Ken (1939–)
MP 48–74 MP 66–92; lp 92 lp 70; mep 75–79 MP 68–01 MP 22–55; LLP 35–55; PM 45–51; hp 55 MEP 79– MP 66–74 MP 64–83; lp 83 MP 83– MP 50–60, 63–83, 84–01 MP 92– MP 29–60 MP 40–51 MP 66–92 MP 83–; LLP 94–; PM 97– MP 73–2000; mep 75–77 MP 62–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83) MP 45–70; lp 70 MP 83– MP 64–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83) MP 45–50; lp 1974–; mep 75–79 MEP 79–84; MP 83– MP 45–87; LLP 76–81; PM 76–79; lp 87 MP 45–79; MEP 79–94; LBLG 79–85; lp 79 lp 74; mep 75–79 MP 70–83; EC 85–88; lp 90 MEP 79–84; MP 84– MEP 89–99 (Lab –98;Ind Lab –99) MEP 79–99 209
210 Appendix: Biographical Notes on Labour MPs, MEPs and Peers Cook, Robin (1946–) Corbett, Freda (1900–93) Corbett, Richard (1955–) Cousins, Frank (1904–86) Cripps, Sir Stafford (1889–1952) Crosland, Anthony (1918–77) Crossman, RHS (1907–74) Cryer, Robert (1934–94) Cunningham, George (1931–) Dalton, Hugh (1887–1962) Dalyell, Tam (1932–) De Freitas, Sir Geoffrey (1913–82) Delargy, Hugh (1908–76) Dell, Edmund (1921–99) Diamond, John (1907–) Douglas Mann, Bruce (1927–2000) Driberg, Tom (1905–76) Dunwoody, Gwyneth (1930–) Edelman, Maurice (1911–75) Edwards, Robert (1905–90) Ellis, Tom (1928–) Ennals, David (1922–95) Enright, Derek (1935–96) Evans, John (1930–) Faulds, Andrew (1923–2000) Foley, Maurice (1925–) Foot, Michael (1913–) Foulkes, George (1942–) Ford, Glyn (1950–) Freeman, John (1915–) Gaitskell, Dora (1901–89) Gaitskell, Hugh (1906–63) Gallagher, Michael (1934–) Gardner, Gerald (1900–90) Gordon Walker, Patrick (1907–80) Gould, Bryan (1939–) Green, Pauline (1948–) Greenwood, Antony (1911–82) Griffiths, Winston (1943–) Gunter, Ray (1909–77) Hain, Peter (1950–) Hale, Leslie (1902–85) Hamilton, Willie (1917–99) Harris, John (1930–01) Hart, Judith (1924–91) Hattersley, Roy (1932–) Healey, Denis (1917–) Heffer, Eric (1922–91) Henig, Stanley (1939–)
MP 83– MP 45–74 MEP 99– MP 65–66 MP 31–50 MP 50–55, 59–77 MP 45–74 MP 74–83; MEP 84–89; MP 87–94 MP 70–83 (Lab –81; Ind 81; SDP 82–83) MP 24–31, 35–59; lp 60 MP 62–; mep 75–79 MP 45–61, 64–79; mep 75–79 MP 45–76 MP 64–79 MP 45–51, 57–70; lp 70 MP 70–82 (Lab –81; Ind –82; SDP –83) MP 42–55, 59–74; lp 75 MP 66–70, 83–; mep 75–79 MP 45–75 MP 55–87; mep 77–79 MP 70–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83) MP 64–83; lp 83 MEP 79–84; MP 91–96 MP 74–97; lp 97 MP 66–97 MP 63–73 MP 45–55, 60–92; LLP 81–83 MP 79– MEP 84–; LEPLP 89–93 MP 45–55 lp 63 MP 45–63; LLP 55–63 MEP 79–84 lp 64 MP 45–64, 66–74; lp 74; mep 75–77 MP 74–79, 83–94 MEP 89–99; LEPLP 93–94; LPES 94–99 MP 46–70; lp 70 MEP 79–84; MP 83– MP 45–72 MP 91– MP 45–68; lp 72 MP 50–87; mep 75–79 lp 74 MP 59–87; lp 88 MP 64–97; lp 97 MP 52–92; lp 92 MP 64–91 MP 66–70
Appendix: Biographical Notes on Labour MPs, MEPs and Peers 211 Herbison, Margaret (1907–97) Holland, Stuart (1940–) Hoon, Geoff (1953–) Houghton, Douglas (1898–1996) Howell, Denis (1924–98) Hoyle, Doug (1930–) Huckfield, Leslie (1942–) Hughes, Cledwyn (1916–2001) Hynd, Harry (1900–85) Hynd, John (1902–71) Irvine, Arthur (1909–78) Jay, Douglas (1907–96) Jenkins, Roy (1920–) Johnson, Carol (1903–2000) Jowitt, William (1885–1957) Kaufman, Gerald (1930–) Kerr, Hugh (1945–) Key, Brian (1947–) Kinnock, Neil (1942–) Lansbury, George (1859–1940) Lawson, George (1906–78) Lea, David (1937–) Leighton, Ron (1930–94) Leonard, Dick (1930–) Lestor, Joan (1931–98) Lever, Harold (1914–95) Lipton, Marcus (1900–78) Livingstone, Ken (1945–) Lomas, Alf (1928–) Luard, Evan (1926–91) MacDonald, J. Ramsay (1866–1937) Mackintosh, John (1929–78) MacLennan, Robert (1936–) McNamara, Kevin (1934–) MacShane, Dennis (1948–) Mandelson, Peter (1953–) Marquand, David (1934–) Marsh, Richard (1928–) Martin, David (1954–) Mason, Roy (1924–) Mayhew, Christopher (1915–97) Meacher, Michael (1939–) Mellish, Bob (1913–98) Mikardo, Ian (1908–93) Millan, Bruce (1927–) Mitchell, Austin (1934–)
MP 45–70 MP 79–89 MEP 84–94; MP 92– MP 49–74; lp 74 MP 66–97; lp 97 MP 74–79, 81–97; lp 97 MP 67–83; MEP 84–89 MP 51–79; lp 79 MP 45–66 MP 44–70 MP 47–78 MP 46–83; lp 87 MP 48–76 (Lab); 82–83 (SDP); EC 77–80; lp 87 MP 59–74 MP 22–24, 29–31, 39–45; hp 45 MP 70– MEP 94–99 MEP 79–84 MP 70–95; LLP 83–92; EC 95– MP 10–12, 22–40; LLP 31–35 MP 54–74 lp 99 MP 79–94 MP 70–74 MP 66–83, 87–89; lp 97 MP 45–79; lp 79 MP 45–78 MP 87–2001 MEP 79–99; LBLG 85–87 MP 66–70, 74–79 MP 06–18, 22–35, 36–37; LLP 10–14, 22–31; PM 24, 29–35 MP 66–Feb 74, Oct 74–78 MP 66–01 (Lab –81; SDP –88; LD 88–) MP 66– MP 94– MP 92– MP 66–77 MP 59–71; lp 81 MEP 84–; LBLG 87–88 MP 53–87; lp 87 MP 45–50, 51–74; (Lab –74; Lib 74–); lp 81 MP 70– MP 46–82 (Lab –82; Ind 82) MP 45–59, 64–87 MP 59–88; EC 89–95 MP 77–
212 Appendix: Biographical Notes on Labour MPs, MEPs and Peers Mitchell, Richard (Bob) (1927–) Morris, John (1931–) Mulley, Fred (1918–95) Murray, Albert (1930–80) Newens, Stan (1930–) Oram, Bert (1913–99) O’Hallaghan, Michael (1933–99) Owen, David (1938–) Padley, Walter (1916–84) Palmer, Arthur (1912–94) Pannell, Charles (1902–80) Peart, Fred (1914–88) Phipps, Colin (1934–) Prentice, Reg (1923–2001) Prescott, John (1938–) Price, Christopher (1932–) Price, William (1934–99) Primarolo, Dawn (1954–) Quin, Joyce (1944–) Radice, Giles (1936–) Rees, Merlyn (1920–) Richard, Ivor (1932–) Robertson, George (1946–) Rodgers, William (1928–) Roper, John (1935–) Rose, Paul (1935–) Ross, William (1911–88) Seal, Barry (1937–) Sedgemore, Brian (1937–) Shawcross, Christopher (1905–73) Sheldon, Robert (1923–) Shinwell, Emmanuel (1884–1986) Shore, Peter (1924–) Short, Edward (1912–) Silkin, Sam (1918–88) Silkin, John (1923–87) Silverman, Sydney (1895–1968) Skinner, Dennis (1932–) Smith, John (1938–94) Snowden, Philip (1864–1937) Spearing, Nigel (1930–) Stewart, Michael (1906–90) Stoddart, David (1926–) Stonehouse, John (1925–88) Strauss, George (1901–93) Straw, Jack (1946–) Summerskill, Shirley (1931–)
MP 66–70, 71–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83) MP 59– MP 50–83; lp 84 MP 64–70; lp 76; mep 76–79 MP 64–83; MEP 84–99 MP 55–74; lp 75–99 MP 69–83 (Lab –81; SDP –82; Ind Lab –83) MP 66–92 (Lab –81; SDP 81–92); lp 92 MP 50–79 MP 45–50, 52–59, 64–83 MP 49–74; lp 74 MP 45–76; lp 76 MP 74–79 MP 57–87 (Lab –77; Con –87); lp 92 MP 70–; mep 75–79 MP 66–70, 74–83; mep 77–78 MP 66–79 MP 87– MEP 79–89; MP 87– MP 73–01 MP 63–92; lp 92 MP 64–74; EC 81–84; lp 90 MP 78–99; lp 99 MP 62–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83); lp 92 MP 70–83 (Lab –81; SDP –83); lp 2000 MP 64–79 MP 46–79; lp 79 MEP 79–99; LBLG 88–89 MP 74–79, 83– MP 45–50 MP 64– MP 22–24, 28–31, 35–70; lp 70 MP 64–97; lp 97 MP 51–76; lp 77 MP 64–83; lp 85 MP 63–87 MP 35–68 MP 70– MP 70–94; LLP 92–94 MP 06–18, 22–31; hp 31 MP 70–74, 74–97 MP 45–79; mep 75–76; lp 79 MP 70–83; lp 83 MP 57–76 MP 29–31, 34–79; lp 79 MP 79– MP 64–83
Appendix: Biographical Notes on Labour MPs, MEPs and Peers 213 Taverne, Dick (1928–) Taylor, Sir Teddy (1937–) Thomson, George (1921–) Tomlinson, John (1939–) Tongue, Carole (1955–) Usborne, Henry (1909–96) Varley, Eric (1932–) Walden, Brian (1932–) Walston, Harry (1912–91) Williams, Alan Lee (1930–) Williams, Shirley (1930–) Wilson, Harold (1916–95) Wyatt, Woodrow (1918–97) Younger, Kenneth (1908–76)
MP 62–74 (Lab –72; Dem. Lab –74); lp 96 MP 64–79, 80– MP 52–72; EC 73–76; lp 77 MP 74–79; MEP 84–99; lp 98 MEP 84–99 MP 45–59 MP 64–84; lp 90 MP 64–77 lp 61; mep 75–79 MP 66–70 MP 64–79 (Lab), 81–83 (SDP); lp 93 MP 45–83; LLP 63–76; PM 64–70, 74–76; lp 83 MP 45–55, 59–70; lp 87 MP 45–59
Notes and References The source of each endnote is indicated, and if appropriate the library or archive where the document quoted is located, together with any reference or file number. The full titles of books referred to are given in the Bibliography.
Acknowledgements 1. See respectively Contemporary Record, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Autumn 1993), 386–416; Vol. 10, No. 3 (Autumn 1996), 82–105; Contemporary British History, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 1997), 98–122; and Broad and Preston (eds), Moored to the Continent?
Introduction: Socialism and European Unity 1. Attlee, Labour’s Peace Aims (The Labour Party, 1939). 2. Quoted by George Thomson in Europe Left, Vol. 2, No. 5 (July 1971). 3. Articles in Nashe Slovo, 1915–16, quoted in Le Monde Diplomatique, July 1999. 4. See André Maurois on the mutual lack of understanding in 1930 between, on the one side, Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden and, on the other, Léon Blum (Call No Man Happy, p. 193, London, Heinemann, 1943). 5. Tawney, The Western Political Tradition, p. 24. 6. Quoted in New Left Review, No. 47 (January–February 1968). 7. Attlee, The Labour Party in Perspective, p. 200. 8. G.D.H. Cole, Europe, Russia and the Future, pp. 20 and 129.
1 Bevin and the Three Circles 1. HC, Vol. 446, Col. 407–8, 22 January 1948. 2. Statistical Material presented during the Washington Negotiations (London, HMSO, Cmnd. 6707, 1945). 3. Attlee, The Labour Party in Perspective, p. 226. 4. Quoted in Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary 1945–51, pp. 64–5. 5. Attlee, As It Happened, p. 169. 6. New Statesman, 25 August 1945. 7. See, for example, Crossman in Round Table (October 1971), 586. 8. Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945–51, p. 234. 214
Notes and References 215 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48.
49. 50.
PRO, CP (46) 186, 3 May 1946; (CAB 128/5), 7 May 1946. PRO, FO 800/493 /PLT/47/8, quoted by Hennessey, p. 335. HC, Vol. 430, col. 9–12, 12 November 1946. EDM 8, 30 January 1947. Castle, Fighting All The Way, p. 159. Crossman (ed.), New Fabian Essays, p. 12. ‘Why I disagree’, Tribune, 20 May 1949. Mackay papers, group 7, file 2, document 13. Undated, but before the Schuman Declaration. NMLH, File 328.51. Interview with Lord Mayhew, 19 November 1990. Jonathan Schneer, ‘Hopes Deferred or Shattered: The British Labour Left and the Third Force Movement, 1945–49’, Journal of Modern History, No. 56 (1984), 2. See Charlton, p. 52. Quoted by Bullock, op. cit., p. 488. Bullock, op. cit., p. 520. Hennessy, Never Again, p. 350. Mikardo, Backbencher, p. 92. LSE, Mackay papers, group 13, folder 1, document 12. LSE, Mackay papers, group 8, file 3, document marked 323388. Bullock, op. cit., p. 486. HC, Vol. 446, col. 407–8, 22 January 1948; also Mayhew, Time to Explain, p. 112. Spaak, The Continuing Battle, p. 143. Spaak, op. cit., p. 145. EDM 33, 16 March 1948. Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 103. LPCR, 1948, pp. 222–31; also NMLH file 328.51. Mackay papers, group 9, file 1, document D. Men of Responsibility; a Memoir (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), quoted by Dell, Schuman Plan, p. 102. Manchester Guardian, 8 May 1948. R. J. Aldrich in Deighton, Building Postwar Europe, p. 159. LPCR, 1948, p. 117. LPCR, 1948, p. 175. Text in Healey, When Shrimps Learn to Whistle, pp. 70–84. Sassoon, p. 170. Interview with Lord Mayhew, 19 November 1990. Quoted by Sir Roderick Barclay in Charlton, The Price of Victory, p. 75. Donoughue and Jones, p. 482. Quoted by Harris, op. cit., p. 315. Quoted by Kitzinger, Diplomacy and Persuasion, p. 225. For the origin of this phrase see Mayne and Pinder, p. 103. The Listener, 13 January 1949, quoted by Shirley Williams in The Common Market: and its Forerunners (Fabian International Bureau, Research Series No. 201, 1958). Interview with Lord Ardwick, 6 March 1990. For the origins of this dictum see Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell, p. 146.
216 Notes and References
2 Into the Breach? 1. Bevan, p. 170. 2. Mackay papers, group 22, file 2, unnumbered document. 3. Healey, The Challenge of Unity (Canadian Institute of International Affairs, January 1950), NMLH 328.51 4. Charlton, The Price of Victory, p. 86; Hennessy, Never Again, pp. 359–64. 5. Charlton, op. cit., p. 86. 6. See Dell, The Schuman Plan, in particular; also John Young, Morgan and Warner (in Ovendale). 7. Callaghan, Time and Chance, p. 79. 8. See Donoughue and Jones, Herbert Morrison, p. 481. At the end of the fifties Sam Watson, the Durham miners’ leader, was a leading member of the European Movement. 9. Quoted by Warner, in Ovendale, p. 73. 10. Monnet, Memoirs (tr. Mayne), p. 296. 11. Healey, The Time of My Life, pp. 116–17. 12. The full text is printed in Kitzinger, The Second Try. 13. Healey, op. cit., p. 117. 14. LPCR, 1950, p. 166. 15. TUCR, 1950, pp. 400–1. 16. Keeping Left, June 1950, p. 25. 17. Healey, op. cit., p. 76 18. Quoted by Bullock, Ernest Bevin, Vol. III, p. 783. 19. New Statesman, 10 June 1950. 20. New Statesman, 17 June 1950. 21. CAB 128/18, CM(50)52nd, 1 August 1950. 22. Quoted by Antony Lester, Public Law (Spring 1984) 51. 23. HC, Vol. 480, Col. 1503, 13 November 1950. 24. HC, Vol. 473, Col. 324, 28 March 1950. 25. Robins, The Reluctant Party, pp. 18–20. 26. Castle, Fighting All the Way, p. 221. 27. Quoted by Sanders, Losing an Empire, Finding a Role, p. 73. 28. F. Hirsch, M. W. Doyle, Edward L. Morse, Alternatives to Monetary Disorder, p. 49 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977), quoted by William Wallace in International Affairs, Vol. 62, No. 3 (1986). 29. New Fabian Essays, p. 30. 30. Essays, op. cit., p. 168. 31. Essays, op. cit., p. 170. 32. Healey, op. cit, p. 115. The ECSC Treaty was signed in Paris. In 1594 Henri of Navarre, hitherto the champion of the Protestant cause in France, converted to Catholicism on being offered the crown. ‘Paris vaut bien une messe’, he is reputed to have said. 33. Charlton, op. cit., quoting Bretherton, p. 180. 34. Holland, Uncommon Market, p. 13. 35. See Bullock, p. 784; Dell, p. 5. 36. Hennessy, op. cit., p. 390. 37. Charlton, op. cit., p. 184.
Notes and References 217 38. On Messina, see Ellison, Macmillan’s Fear of Little Europe and Threatening Europe; also Kaiser, Ch. 2. 39. EDM 105, 17 July 1956. 40. TUC, Statement of Policy 1956, p. 6. 41. TUC, op. cit., p. 10. 42. HC, Vol. 561, col. 108, 26 November 1956. 43. Bevan, In Place of Fear, pp. 170–1. 44. Attlee, As It Happened, p. 172. 45. World Affairs, No. 246 (Spring 1959), quoted by Mayne and Pinder, p. 153. 46. Harris, Attlee, p. 568. 47. Charlton, op. cit., p. 114. 48. Jenkins, The Labour Case, p. 10.
3 Gaitskell and de Gaulle 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
23.
LPCR, 1962, p. 159. PRO, CAB 129/102, C(60) 107, 13 July 1960. HC, Vol. 627, col. 1120, 25 July 1960. Ibid., col. 1116. Ibid., col. 1191. Commonwealth and Common Market, Fabian Research Series 230, September 1962. Newman, Socialism and European Unity, pp. 164–6. Britain and Europe, Fabian Tract 330, January 1961. Robins, The Reluctant Party, p. 24. See Mayne and Pinder, Federal Union: the Pioneers. A Manifesto Addressed to the Labour Movement, CDS, 1960. On CDS, see ICBH witness seminar recorded in Contemporary Record, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Autumn 1993) 417–64. HC, Vol. 643, col. 519, 28 June 1961. NMLH, 240 LCPR, 1961, pp. 213–14. LPCR, pp. 215–16. LPCR, p. 211. Newsbrief, No. 1, November 1961. See some issues of Newsbrief and other LCMC material on Primary Source Media. This writer. Fabian Tract 336, April 1962. But linguistic ability was no guide to political attitudes: compare Gaitskell’s competent German, Healey’s ability in German, French and Italian, and Barbara Castle’s capable French and German with Jenkins’ hesitant French when he became President of the European Commission in 1976. Quoted by Brivati, Hugh Gaitskell, pp. 404, 412, and Williams, Hugh Gaitskell, p. 708.
218 Notes and References 24. Daily Telegraph, 9 May 1962, quoted by Philip Williams, op. cit., p. 719, note 58b. 25. The Observer, 9 September 1961. 26. Newsbrief, October 1961. 27. Brivati, op. cit., p. 411. 28. Austen Albu: unpublished memoir. 29. LCPR, 1962, pp. 154–65. 30. Williams, op. cit., p. 736 and notes 155a and 155b; and Brivati, op. cit., p. 414. 31. Nairn, p. 39. 32. Brivati, op. cit., p. 3. 33. ‘Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role. . . . The attempt to play a separate power role, that is, apart from Europe, a role based primarily on a “special relationship” with the United States, a role based on being head of the Commonwealth . . . is about played out’. In Vital Speeches of the Day, No. 6, 1 January 1963, pp. 162–3. Quoted in James Chase, Acheson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), p. 406. 34. Charles de Gaulle: ‘Si l’Angleterre a un jour à choisir entre l’Europe et le grand large, elle choisira toujours le grand large’: 24 January 1963. Discours et Messages (Paris: Plon, 1970).
4 The Second Try 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.
HC, Vol. 735, Col. 1540, 10 November 1966. Europe Left, 1, Spring 1963. This writer. Encounter, Vol. XX, No. 2, February 1963, p. 44. HC, Vol. 706, Col. 1003, 16 February 1965. HC, Vol. 717, Col. 1043, 2 August 1965. HC, op. cit., Col. 1271, 3 August 1965. PRO, PREM13/904. Interview with Gwyn Morgan, 5 June 1990. Quoted by Ziegler, Wilson, p. 192. Dickie, Inside the Foreign Office, p. 98. Benn, Diaries 1963–67, 14 January 1965, p. 204. Benn, op. cit., p. 254. The parliamentary references for the matter are: HC, Vol. 704, Col. 1052; Vol. 706, Col. 194; Vol. 711, Col. 1556; Vol. 722, Col. 235. Lord Lester of Herne Hill, Public Law (Summer 1998). PRO: FO371/184367, FO371/184368, FO371/184369, FO 371/190591 and WUC 1735/43. Lester, op. cit. Lester, op. cit. Lester, Scarman Lecture, 4 December 1990. Lester, Public Law (Spring 1984). The Times, 19 March 1966. Jay, Change and Fortune, p. 335. See Kitzinger, The Second Try, Introduction for further details.
Notes and References 219 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.
29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.
39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.
Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, p. 343. Dell, A Strange Eventful History, p. 535. Shore, Leading the Left, p. 99. Jay, op. cit., pp. 367–8. Wilson, The Labour Government 1964–70, Chapters 18, 19 and 20. For an analysis of the tactical play in hand see Wolfram Kaiser in Broad and Preston (eds), Moored to the Continent? Brown, In My Way, pp. 209–11. Brandt, p. 420. Council of Europe, 23 January 1967. See paper by John W. Young at ICBH seminar on ‘The Second Try’, 13 January 2000. Pickles, Britain and Europe: How much has changed?, pp. 42–5. At ICBH seminar on ‘Britain and Europe since 1945’, 25–26 March 1987. Crossman, 22 and 23 October 1966, pp. 81–8. Castle, Diaries 1964–70, 18 July 1966, p. 148. Pimlott, Wilson, pp. 408–32, et al. When the British party visited Luxembourg on 8 March the union flag, with prescient irony, was flying upside down – a signal of distress (author’s witness). Interview with Stan Newens, 14 March 2000. When it came to the 28 October 1971 vote, of the 20 still in the Commons, ten voted ‘no’, eight ‘yes’, and Edwards and Delargy abstained. (See Ch. 5) Kitzinger in The Second Try lists them almost in full; see also Jay’s articles in The Guardian, 20 and 21 September 1967. Newman, Socialism and European Unity, p. 217. Robins, The Reluctant Party, p. 4. The Castle Diaries 1964–70, p. 181 and p. 247. Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 211. Crossman, Diaries, Vol. 2, p. 336. Crossman, op. cit., p. 334. Gordon Walker, Political Diaries 1932–71, pp. 312–13, 30 April 1967. Benn, Diaries, 1963–67, 30 April 1967, p. 496. Jay, Change and Fortune, pp. 365–6. Crossman, Diaries, Vol. 2, 1 May 1967, p. 337. See Pimlott, Harold Wilson, pp. 432–44 et al. Cole, As It Seemed To Me, p. 95. Letter in New Statesman, 21 August 1970. See Kitzinger, Diplomacy, pp. 276–330, Robins pp. 45–75, Newman pp. 183–219 for details of the negotiations and internal manouevres. See Castle and Crossman diaries, various dates. ICBH seminar, 12 June 1990; see Contemporary Record, Vol. 7 (1993), 393. See Kitzinger, The Second Try, pp. 234–44; Robins, p. 107. It was Bruce Douglas Mann, who later joined the SPD. Young, John, Britain and European Unity 1945–92, p. 99. Crossman, Diaries, Vol. 2, 9 November 1966, p. 116. See Chapter 3, note 34. Jay, After the Common Market, pp. 125–6. For Wilson’s account see Wilson, op. cit., pp. 610–11.
220 Notes and References 64. Jay, op. cit., pp. 431–3. 65. LPCR, 1969, p. 310. 66. LPCR, 1969, p. 313.
5 ‘No Entry on Tory Terms’ 1. Round Table, October 1971, 586. 2. Britain and the European Communities: an Economic Assessment (Cmnd. 4289), 1970. 3. Speech at London University on 23 February 1970. 4. Crossman, Diaries, Vol. 3, p. 812. 5. Owen, Time to Decide, p. 162. 6. New Statesman, 7 August 1970. 7. New Statesman, 17 April 1970. 8. Tribune Group minutes, Jo Richardson papers, NMLH. 9. For a guide to this evolution see the table in Robins, p. 4. 10. LPCR, 1970, p. 200. 11. Benn, Diaries, 14 May 1971 p. 344. 12. Castle, Fighting All the Way, p. 446. 13. The Labour Case against entry into the Common Market (Labour Common Market Safeguards Committee, September 1971). 14. EDM 225, 21 January 1971; Tribune Group minutes, 1 March 1970: Jo Richardson papers, NMLH. 15. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, p. 318. 16. Owen, Time to Decide, p. 175. 17. Interview with Ernest Wistrich, 16 February 2000. 18. Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 359. 19. Daily Mirror, 26 May 1971. 20. Kitzinger, Diplomacy and Persuasion, p. 302. 21. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 316; 22. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 320. 23. The Observer, 27 June 1971. 24. Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 359. 25. Morgan, Callaghan, p. 252. 26. Morgan, op. cit., p. 395. 27. Daily Mirror, 16 July 1971. 28. The Times, 16 July 1971. 29. Dell, A Strange Eventful History, p. 416. 30. The Common Market – Why we should keep out (London Cooperative Political Committee, 1970). 31. Round Table, October 1971, p. 586. 32. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 320. 33. Pimlott, Harold Wilson, p. 582. 34. For Thomson’s explanation of his view see Contemporary Record, Vol. 7 (1993), 395. 35. Tribune Group minutes for 26 July 1971, Richardson papers, NMLH. 36. Speech to Franco–British Chamber of Commerce, 5 May 1970; the words are attributed to his political aide Douglas Hurd.
Notes and References 221 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.
LPCR, 1971, p. 121. Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 329. Financial Times, 22 October 1971. Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 106. Nairn, The Left Against Europe, p. 74n. Kitzinger, op. cit., pp. 400–5. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 329. Sunday Times, 31 October 1971. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 337. Quoted by Hoggart and Leigh, Michael Foot, p. 163.
6 Staying or Going? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.
Speech on 11 March 1972, quoted in A Life at the Centre, p. 339. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, p. 338. Interview with Michael Barnes, 18 December 1990. Healey, The Time of My Life, p. 360. The Times, 17 January 1972. The Times, 14 February 1972. Mervyn Jones, Michael Foot, pp. 302, 329, 335. The Guardian, 27 January 1972. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, pp. 340–1. The Times, 11 April 1972. Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 109. Quoted by David Watt, Financial Times, 13 April 1972. Roger Jowell and Gerard Hoinville, The Guardian, 19 April 1972. Discussion on 13 January 2000 with Keith Kyle, then a prospective candidate who took this view. Written by Colin Sweet and published in mid-1972 by Trade Unions Against the Common Market. LPCR, 1972, p. 206. LCPR, p. 207. LCPR, p. 212. LCPR, appendix, p. 383. Wilson, Final Term, p. 51. Fabian Tract 425, Europe: the Way Back (October 1973). Nairn, The Left Against Europe, p. 37. Nairn, op. cit., p. 48. Callaghan, Time and Chance, p. 303. Hattersley, Fifty Years On, p. 230. Hatfield, The House the Left Built, p. 244; Cole, As It Seemed To Me, p. 125. Castle, Diaries, p. 68, 4 April 1974, and p. 107, 9 June 1974. ICBH seminar, 5 June 1975. See British Contemporary History, Vol. 10 (1996), 89. Callaghan, p. 306. Butler and Kitzinger, The 1975 Referendum, p. 34. LPCR, 1974, pp. 249–60.
222 Notes and References 32. Benn, Against the Tide, 29 November 1974, p. 277; Castle, Diaries, 29 November 1974, p. 241. 33. The Times, 11 December 1974.
7 The Public’s Opinion 1. Callaghan, Time and Chance, p. 309. Quoted by Benn as ‘a little life raft which we’ll be glad of’: Diaries 1968–72, p. 316. 2. Benn, Diaries, pp. 288–90. 3. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, p. 492. 4. Morgan, Callaghan, p. 428. 5. Wilson, Final Term, pp. 103–9; see also Callaghan, pp. 324–6.; Benn, Against the Tide, pp. 341–56; Castle, Diaries, pp. 340–8; Jenkins, Centre, pp. 403–4. 6. Pimlott, Harold Wilson, p. 658. 7. Haines, The Politics of Power, p. 14. 8. Wilson, Final Term, p. 106. 9. Butler and Kitzinger, The 1975 Referendum, p. 52. 10. ‘Document’ programme, BBC Radio 4, 3 February 2000. 11. LP, Special Conference Report 1975, pp. 113–14. 12. Robert Worcestor at ICBH seminar, 5 June 1975. See ‘The 1975 British Referendum on Europe’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1996), 87. 13. Benn, Against the Tide, p. 285, 17 December 1974. 14. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 105. 15. Interview with John Mills, 9 December 1999. 16. Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 158. 17. The Guardian, 13 March 1975. 18. Falkender, Downing Street in Perspective, p. 182. 19. ICBH, note 12, supra: Sean Stephen, 87–8. 20. Final Term, p. 107. 21. Jowell and Hoinville, Britain into Europe, p. 17. 22. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., pp. 263–9. 23. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., pp. 272, quoting The Economist of 14 June 1975. 24. Martin Collins, in Jowell and Hoinville, op. cit., p. 103. 25. Tribune, 20 June 1975. 26. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 271. 27. Castle, op. cit., p. 305. 28. TUCR, 1974, p. 492. 29. Cmnd. 6251. 30. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 86 and p. 110. 31. ICBH, note 12, supra, 82–105. 32. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 59. 33. Jay, Change and Fortune, p. 489. He quotes Evans, pp. 101–2, who claims that the Commission spent £1m annually on information in or for Britain in the sixties and that in 1975 the Commission’s budget for information was £7m. In fact the EC information budget for all countries in 1970 was £916 000 and in 1975 was £3m: see Journal Officiel des Communautés
Notes and References 223
34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.
Européennes, L60, 16 mars 1970, and Official Journal of the European Communities, L66, 15 March 1976. Evans’ figure for the UK is exaggerated by ten to 15 times, according to the year. On broadcasting, see Anthony Smith in Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., pp. 190–213. See Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 256; Goodhart, p. 152. ICBH, note 12, supra, 102. Interview with Alf Lomas, 30 March 2000. Hatfield, op. cit., p. 247. Butler and Kitzinger, op. cit., p. 280.
8 Not Taking Yes for an Answer 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.
The Times, 7 June 1975. Crosland, Tony Crosland, p. 293. Quoted by Wilson, Final Term, p. 109. The Times, 7 June 1975. Wilson, op. cit., p. 109. Pimlott, Wilson, p. 654. Harris, Owen, p. 106. Cole, As It Seemed To Me, p. 126. ICBH seminar, 12 June 1990; see Contemporary Record, Vol. 7 (1993), 397. Cole, op. cit., p. 127. The Times, 7 June 1975. Castle, Fighting All the Way, p. 477. Jenkins, A Life at the Centre, p. 418. The Guardian, 7 June 1975. Cole, op. cit., p. 126. Financial Times, 6 June 1975. Labour Weekly, 10 June 1977. BLG Report, 1977–78. See Kevin Featherstone, p. 82, in Herman and van Schendelen. EEC Treaty 108, 3; ECSC Treaty 21, 3. Benn, Against the Tide, p. 282 summary note. Castle, Diaries, p. 436, 26 June 1975. TUCR, 1975, p. 492. Benn, op. cit.,18 March 1975, p. 343. Benn, op. cit., 24 November 1975, p. 465. Castle, op. cit., p. 650, 12 February 1976. Cmnd. 6399. HC papers 489 and 462–1–1x, 15 June; HC papers 515 and 515-I, 3 August; see also HC paper 715, 9 November 1976. See EC Bulletin, 12–1974, p. 8. See Giddings and Drewry. LPCR, 1976, pp. 241–55, and annexe pp. 369–71. For an analysis of the AES see John Callaghan, ‘Rise and Fall of the Alternative Economic Strategy: From Internationalism of Capital to
224 Notes and References
33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.
“Globalisation” ’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn 2000), 105–31. David Coates, Labour in Power?, p. 254. Holland, The Socialist Challenge, p. 133. See Chapter 6, text and note 22. Callaghan, Time and Chance, pp. 455–6. Steel, The Observer, 8 April 1979. Mayhew, Time to Explain, p. 208. Interview with Lord Mayhew, 19 November 1990. Cmnd. 6708. Quoted by Butler and Marquand, European Elections and British Politics, p. 48. Benn, op. cit., 7 July 1977, p. 188. For an assessment of Britain’s role in the EC see Théo Junker in Broad and Preston. Benn, op. cit., 29 July 1977, p. 205. Owen, Time to Declare, pp. 330–1. On p. 177 he criticised Roy Jenkins as having been a ‘closet federalist’, and continued: ‘The dubious tactic of the federalists throughout was to deny that they wanted a single Executive European President, a European Cabinet or unauthoritative European Parliament but to quietly push in that direction over a whole series of small decisions. In this sense the anti-Europeans were right – there was a secret agenda. Yet many of the pro-Europeans were, like me, deeply suspicious of a federal Europe.’ Jenkins, op. cit., p. 463. Jenkins, op. cit., p. 469. Healey, The Time of My Life, pp. 438–40. Callaghan, Time and Chance, p. 493. LPCR, 1978, p.308. TUCR, 1978, p. 312. Confed document PS/CE/40/77. Published as Labour Party document B/078/11/78. Financial Times, 25 January 1979. Butler and Marquand, op. cit., p. 51. Daily Telegraph, 14 March 1979. Butler and Marquand, op. cit., p. 64. Alan Osborn, Daily Telegraph, 24 May 1979.
9 Withdrawal Pains 1. 2. 3. 4.
LPCR, 1980, p. 130. LCPR, 1979, p. 324. LCPR, 1979, p. 331. Confederation of Socialist Parties in the European Community. In other languages terms implying closer association were used, viz. Union in French and Bund in German. 5. Benn, The End of an Era, 1 October 1980, p. 31. 6. Hattersley, Who Goes Home?, p. 227.
Notes and References 225 7. Crewe and King, SDP, p. 74. 8. Peter Rose, then political correspodent for The Sun, confirmed this from talks with potential defectors in summer 1980. 9. Crewe and King, op. cit., pp. 106–7. 10. LCE files in HM 240, NMLH. 11. Information from Peter Stephenson and Jim Cattermole. 12. Interview with Lord Hattersley, 5 March 2000. 13. Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, p. 40. 14. LPCR, 1980, p. 130. 15. Withdrawal from the EEC (Labour Party, 1981). 16. LPCR, 1981, p. 245. 17. LP papers, RD 1174/December 1981 and ID/1981–82/39. 18. LP papers, RD 2152/March 1982 and ID/1981–82/94. 19. New Socialist, ‘Socialist Europe’, No. 3 (January–February 1982). 20. New Socialist, op. cit. 21. New Statesman, 19 February 1982. 22. The Common Market: a Guide to Withdrawal (LCMSC, 1982). 23. Bob Rowthorn and John Grahl, ‘Europe or Bust’, New Socialist, No. 5 (May–June 1982). 24. Francis Cripps and Terry Ward, ‘Labour and the Economy’, New Socialist, No. 6 (July–August 1982). 25. John Palmer, ‘Common People, not Common Market’, New Socialist, No. 9 (January–February 1983). 26. For an analysis of the AES see John Callaghan, ‘Rise and Fall of the Alternative Economic Strategy: From Internationalism of Capital to “Globalisation” ’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn 2000), 105–31. 27. Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism, p. 695. 28. Castle, Fighting All the Way, p. 532. 29. Castle, op. cit. 30. New Statesman, 17 and 24 September, 1 and 8 October 1982. 31. Castle, op. cit., p. 533. 32. Benn, The End of an Era, 25 September 1982, p. 242. 33. New Statesman, 8 October 1982. 34. For manifesto text, New Hope for Britain, see F.W.S. Craig. 35. John Grahl and Paul Teague, ‘The British Labour Party and the EEC’, PQ, Vol. 58 (1988), 74.
10 Osmosis 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
TUC Annual Report 1988, p. 570. LPCR, 1983, annexe. Interview with Richard Balfe, 2 March 2000. Kinnock, A Summary of Views (London: The Labour Party, 1983). Kinnock, ‘Which Way Should Labour Go?’, PQ, Vol. 51 (1980) 411–13. Kinnock, ‘New Deal for Europe’, in Curran, p. 240; and in New Socialist, No. 16 (March–April 1984). 7. Radice, Offshore, p. 166.
226 Notes and References 8. ICBH seminar, December 1993, Contemporary Record, Vol. 8 (1994) 536. 9. Interview on ‘This Week’, Thames TV; reported in The Guardian, 3 April 1992. 10. LP papers: RD 2939/Feb.1984. 11. Interview with Joyce Quin, 21 March 2000. 12. Radice, op. cit., p. 167. 13. LCPR, 1987, p. 113. 14. Teague and Grahl, Industrial Relations and European Integration, p. 196. 15. For overall accounts of British union attitudes see Teague and Grahl; also Ben Rosamund, in Baker and Seawright. 16. Denis MacShane, ‘The Trade Unions and Europe’, PQ, Vol. 62 (1991) 352. 17. Grahl and Teague, ‘The British Labour Party and the European Community’, PQ, op. cit., 74. 18. Interview with Roy Grantham, 29 May 2000. 19. Information from Edward Barber, 23 May 2000. 20. See Denis MacShane, French Lessons for Labour?, Fabian Tract No. 512, 1986. 21. Interview with Lord Lea of Crondall, 15 March 2000. 22. Information from Ken Munro, 21 May 2000. 23. Grant, p. 154 et seq. 24. Commission White Paper, ‘Completing the Internal Market’. 25. David Buchan, ‘The Constraints of the European Community’, PQ, Vol. 62 (1991) 186. 26. David Judge, ‘Incomplete Sovereignty: the British House of Commons and the Completion of the Internal Market of the European Communities’, Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 41, No. 4 (1988) 448. 27. See, for example, The Guardian, 12 June 1986. 28. HC, Vol. 100, col. 543, 26 June 1986. 29. D. Judge, op. cit., p. 453. 30. Shore, HC, Vol. 100, col. 937, 29 June 1986. 31. Interview with Lord Hattersley, 4 April 2000. 32. Interview with Lord Clinton-Davis, 6 April 2000. 33. Benn, p. 545, 25 May 1988. 34. Hattersley, op. cit. 35. Published as Morell, ‘Beyond One-Nation Socialism’, PQ, Vol. 59 (1988) 300–10. 36. Wainwright, Labour: the Tale of Two Parties, p. 265. 37. Bringing Common Sense to the Common Market: a Left Agenda for Europe, Fabian Tract 525, March 1988. 38. Interview with Ken Collins, 3 May 2000. 39. Ross, Jacques Delors, p. 43. 40. TUCR, 1988, p. 368. 41. TUCR, p. 370. 42. Lea, op. cit. 43. TUCR, 1988, p. 372. 44. Financial Times, 9 September 1988. 45. Denis MacShane, PQ, ‘Europe’s Next Challenge to British Politics’, Vol. 66 (1995) 31. 46. LPCR, 1988, p. 157. 47. Clive Jenkins, All Against the Collar, p. 130.
Notes and References 227 48. 49. 50. 51.
LPCR, 1988, p. 131. Interview with Lord Tomlinson, 2 March 2000. Interview with Carole Tongue, 28 February 2000. Ben Rosamund, in Baker and Seawright, p. 143, quoting European Labour Forum, Winter 1990–91.
11 Making the Change 1. Quoted in: ‘Labour Parliamentarians and European Integration’ Survey, ESRC/Nottingham Trent University, 1995–96: ‘A “Rosy” Map of Europe?’, in Baker and Seawright, pp. 57–87. Also Baker et al. in ‘Labour and Europe: a Survey of MPs and MEPs’, PQ, Vol. 67 (1996) 354. 2. Quoted by Peter Brown Pappamikail, in Baker and Seawright, p. 209. 3. William B. Messmer, ‘The Labour Party and its MEPs: a Changing Relationship’ (
[email protected], 2000), quoting Dianne Hayter. 4. The Independent, 29 April 1989, quoted by Smith and Spear, p. 173. 5. Rentoul, Tony Blair, p. 220. 6. New Socialist, February–March 1990. 7. Interview with Lord Hattersley, 4 April 2000. 8. Labour Party document, GS:6/11/90, 29 November 1990. 9. Rentoul, op. cit., p. 221. 10. Speech at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 29 January 1991. 11. NEC statement of 30 October 1991. 12. David Buchan, ‘The Constraints of the European Community’, PQ, Vol. 62 (1991) 189. 13. Financial Times, 19 June 1990. 14. Stephen Tindale, ‘Learning to Love the Market: Labour and the European Community’, PQ, Vol. 63 (1992) 282. 15. Seyd and Whiteley, pp. 32–3. 16. Seyd and Whiteley, op. cit., pp. 47, 125 et al. 17. Nigel Williamson, ‘Euro-phoria Rules UK?’, New Socialist, June–July 1989. 18. HC, Vol. 174, col. 592–602, 15 June 1990. 19. The Independent, 23 October 1990. 20. Letter in The Times, 5 December 1990. 21. The Independent, 23 October 1990. 22. The Economist, 2 June 1990. 23. HC, EDM 193, 19 November 1991. 24. See Chapter 10 text and note 33. 25. Michael Barratt Brown, European Union: Fortress Europe or Democracy?, p. 55. 26. Shortly before his death Smith told Scottish Labour MEPs that: ‘The Conservative Party has become afflicted with the same virus as afflicted the Labour Party in the early eighties. The only thing you can do with a virus is to go into a darkened room and wait for it to go away. It is for the Labour Party to take advantage of the Conservatives’ virus.’ Recounted by Ken Collins, 3 May 2000. 27. The Guardian, 3 April 1992. 28. Tribune, 22 May 1992. 29. The Guardian, 25 June 1992.
228 Notes and References 30. Shore, Leading the Left, p. 185. 31. MORI poll reported in The Times, 7 December 1991. 32. R.K. Alderton and Neil Carter, ‘The Labour Party Leadership and Deputy Leadership Election of 1992’, PQ, Vol. 46 (1993) 58. 33. LCPR, 1992, annexe, shows the voting breakdown. 34. LPCR, 1992, p. 39. 35. Geddes, Britain and the European Community, p. 79. 36. Corbett, The European Parliament’s Role in Closer EU Integration, p. 76. 37. LPCR, 1991, constitutional amendments, pp. vii–xiii. 38. For an analysis of this see Westlake, Britain’s Emerging Euro-Elite?, i.a., pp. 79, 83, 136, 270; also Corbett, op. cit., p. 69. 39. See Butler and Westlake, British Politics and European Elections 1994, pp. 126–34. 40. HC, Vol. 240, col. 134, 22 March 1994. 41. Rentoul, op. cit., p. 425. 42. The Guardian, 10 January 1994. 43. The Guardian, 12 January 1995. 44. Messmer, op. cit. 45. LESC Bulletin, 72 (1995). 46. Rentoul, op. cit., p. 83. 47. Rentoul, op. cit., p. 134. 48. Hugo Young, p. 481. 49. Young, op. cit., p. 483. 50. Sunday Telegraph, 11 December 1994. 51. See note 1 above. 52. In May 2000 the Labour Movement for Europe listed as supporters 127 MPs, 39 peers and 14 MEPs. The Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign mustered 21 MPs, 13 peers and no MEPs.
12 New Labour, New Europe? 1. ‘Was wir brauchen, ist die Synthese von praktischem Denken und idealistischem Streben.’ Quoted by Tony Blair, Bonn, 18 June 1996. 2. Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left, p. 2. 3. Kinnock, ‘Which Way Should Labour Go?’, PQ, Vol. 51 (1980) 411–13. 4. Brivati, in Broad and Preston (eds), Moored to the Continent? 5. Kinnock, op. cit. 6. Quoted by Bullock, Bevin, Vol. 3, p. 51. 7. Monnet, Memoirs, p. 306. 8. Brivati, op. cit. 9. Conrad Black, ‘Britain’s Atlantic Option’, The National Interest, No. 55 (Spring 1999); and John Lloyd, ‘The Anglosphere Project’, New Statesman, 13 March 2000, 10. Blair, Ghent speech, 23 February 2000. 11. Blair, speech, ‘Change: a Modern Britain in a Modern Europe’, The Hague, 20 January 1998. 12. Donald Sassoon, ‘Shared Convictions’, Fabian Review, Vol. 111, No. 3 (Autumn 1999).
Notes and References 229 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.
Modern Socialism, Fabian pamphlet 592, November 1999. See Introduction. 23–24 March 2000. See Ian Davidson, Financial Times, 18–19 March 2000. Blair, Ghent speech, op. cit. Blair, Polish Stock Exchange, Warsaw, 6 October 2000. Blair, Mansion House speech, 13 November 2000. See Charles Grant, Intimate Relations, a working paper for the Centre for European Reform (London, April 2000), and his booklet EU 2010 (October 2000). 21. See Chapter 2 text and note 27. 22. ‘Joining the European Community involved loss of significant sovereignty, but by telling the British people that was not involved, I think the . . . argument was prejudiced for the next 30 years.’ Lord Hattersley, on ‘Document’ programme, BBC Radio 4, 3 February 2000.
Bibliography Archive sources Sources quoted are detailed in the endnotes. They include: documents in the Public Record Office; House of Commons debates and early day motions; the Mackay archive at the London School of Economics and Political Science; the Crossman and other documents at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; minutes of the Labour Party National Executive Committeee, other Labour Party documents; the Mikardo/Richardson and Foot archives, the archives of the Labour Common Market Committee and successor bodies, archives of the Labour Committee for Safeguards on the Common Market and successor bodies, and other sources at the National Museum of Labour History, Manchester; Labour Party and Trades Union Congress annual reports and other documents in the Trades Union Congress Collections at the University of North London; Fabian Society tracts and pamphlets.
Autobiographies, diaries and memoirs Albu, Austen, unpublished memoirs. Attlee, Clement, As it Happened (London: Heinemann, 1954) Benn, Tony, Out of the Wilderness: Diaries 1963–67 (London: Hutchinson, 1987) Benn, Tony, Office without Power: Diaries 1968–72 (London: Hutchinson, 1988) Benn, Tony, Against the Tide: Diaries 1973–76 (London: Hutchinson, 1989) Benn, Tony, Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80 (London: Hutchinson, 1990) Benn, Tony, End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90 (London: Hutchinson, 1992) Brandt, Willy, My Life in Politics (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992) Brown, George, In My Way: the Political Memoirs of Lord George-Brown (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980) Callaghan, James, Time and Chance (London, Collins, 1987) Castle, Barbara, The Castle Diaries 1964–70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984) Castle, Barbara, The Castle Diaries 1974–76 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980) Castle, Barbara, Fighting All the Way (London: Macmillan, 1993) Cole, John, As It Seemed To Me (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995) Crossman, R. H. S., The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, Vols 1–3 (London: Hamish Hamilton & Jonathan Cape, 1975, 1976 and 1977) Falkender, Marcia, Downing Street in Perspective (London: New English Library, 1975) Gordon Walker, Patrick, Political Diaries 1932–71 (London: The Historians’ Press, 1991) 230
Bibliography 231 Haines, Joseph, The Politics of Power (London: Jonathan Cape, 1977) Hattersley, Roy, Who Goes Home? (London: Little, Brown, 1995) Healey, Denis, The Time of My Life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989) Jay, Douglas, Change and Fortune (London: Hutchinson, 1980) Jenkins, Clive, All Against the Collar (London: Methuen, 1990) Jenkins, Roy, European Diary 1977–81 (London: Collins, 1989) Jenkins, Roy, A Life at the Centre (London: Macmillan, 1991) Marjolin, Robert, Memoirs 1911–86 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989) Mikardo, Ian, Backbencher (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) Monnet, Jean, Memoirs (London: Collins, 1978) Owen, David, Time to Declare (London: Michael Joseph, 1991) Rose, Paul, Backbencher’s Dilemma (London: Muller, 1981) Shore, Peter, Leading the Left (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993) Spaak, Paul-Henri, The Continuing Battle (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971) Wilson, Harold, The Labour Government 1964–70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Michael Joseph, 1971) Wilson, Harold, Final Term: the Labour Government 1974–76 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1979)
Secondary sources Attlee, Clement, The Labour Party in Perspective (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937) Baker, David and Seawright, David, Britain: For and Against Europe (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1998) Bange, Oliver, The EEC Crisis of 1963 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000) Barratt Brown, Michael, European Union: Fortress or Democracy? (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1991) Beever, R. Colin, European Unity and the Trade Union Movement (Leyden: Seythoff-Leyden, 1960) Bevan, Aneurin, In Place of Fear (London: Heinemann, 1952) Blair, Tony, New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country (London: Fourth Estate, 1996) Brivati, Brian, Hugh Gaitskell (London: Richard Cohen Books, 1996) Brivati, Brian and Bale, Tim (eds), New Labour in Power: Precedents and Prospects (London: Routledge, 1997) Brivati, Brian and Jones, Harriet, From Reconstruction to Integration: Britain and Europe since 1945 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993) Broad, Roger and Preston, Virginia (eds), Moored to the Continent? Britain and European Integration since 1945 (London: London University Press, 2001) Bullock, Alan, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin, Vol. 3 (London: Heinemann, 1983) Butler, David and Kitzinger, Uwe, The 1975 Referendum (London: Macmillan, 1976) Butler, David and Marquand, David, European Elections and British Politics (London and New York: Longman, 1981)
232 Bibliography Butler, David and Westlake, Martin, British Politics and European Elections 1994 (London: Macmillan, 1995) Butler, David and Westlake, Martin, British Politics and Eurtopean Elections 1999 (London: Macmillan, 2000) Charlton, Michael, The Price of Victory (London: BBC, 1983) Coates, David, Labour in Power? A Study of the Labour Government 1974–79 (London: Longman, 1980) Cole, G. D. H., Europe, Russia and the Future (London: Gollancz, 1941) Corbett, Richard, The European Parliament’s Role in Closer EU Integration (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998) Crewe, Ivor and King, Anthony, SDP: the Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Crosland, Susan, Tony Crosland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982) Crossman, R. H. S. (ed.), New Fabian Essays (London: Turnstile Press, 1952) Crossman, R. H. S., Foot, Michael and Mikardo, Ian, Keep Left (London: New Statesman, 1947) Crossman, R. H. S., Foot, Michael and Mikardo, Ian, Keeping Left (London: New Statesman, 1950) Curran, James (ed.), The Future of the Left (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984) Dalyell, Tam, Dick Crossman: a Portrait (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989) Deighton, Anne (ed.), Building Postwar Europe: National Decisionmakers and European Institutions (London, Macmillan, 1995) Dell, Edmund, The Schuman Plan and the Abdication of British Leadership in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) Dell, Edmund, A Strange Eventful History: Democratic Socialism in Britain (London: HarperCollins, 2000) Dickie, John, Inside the Foreign Office (London: Chapman, 1992) Dockrill, Michael and Young, J.W. (eds), British Foreign Policy 1945–56 (London: Macmillan, 1989) Donoughue, Bernard and Jones, G.W., Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973) Duchêne, François, Jean Monnet (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1994) Drewry, Gavin, see Giddings, Philip Edwards, Robert, see Ridley, F.A. Elliott, Gregory, Labourism and the English Genius (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983) Ellison, James, Harold Macmillan’s Fear of Little Europe (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1995) Ellison, James, Threatening Europe: Britain and the Creation of the European Community (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000) Evans, Douglas, While Britain Slept: the Selling of the Common Market (London: Gollancz, 1975) Featherstone, Keith, Socialist Parties and European Integration (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988) Foot, Michael, Aneurin Bevan: a Biography (London: Davis-Poynter, 1973) Geddes, Andrew, Britain and the European Community (Manchester: Baseline Books, 1993) George, Stephen, An Awkward Partner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Bibliography 233 George, Stephen (ed.), The Politics of Semi-Detachment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) Giddings, Philip and Drewry, Gavin, Westminster and Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996) Goodhart, Philip, Full-hearted Consent (London: Davis-Poynter, 1976) Grahl. J., see Teague, P. Grant, Charles, Delors: Inside the House that Jacques Built (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1994) Grant, Charles, Can Britain Lead in Europe? (London: Centre for European Reform, 1998) Greenwood, Sean, Britain and European Cooperation Since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) Harris, Kenneth, Attlee (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982) Harris, Kenneth, David Owen: Personally Speaking to Kenneth Harris (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987) Hatfield, Michael, The House the Left Built 1970–75 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1978) Healey, Denis, If Shrimps could Whistle (London: Penguin, 1991) Hennessy, Peter, Never Again: Britain 1945–1951 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992) Hennessy, Peter, The Prime Minister: the Office and its Holders since 1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2000) Herman, Valentine and van Schendeler, R. (eds), The European Parliament and the National Parliaments (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1979) Hoggart, Simon and Leigh, David, Michael Foot: a Portrait (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981) Hoinville, Gerard, see Jowell, Roger Holland, Stuart, UnCommon Market (London, Macmillan, 1980) Jay, Douglas, After the Common Market (London: Penguin, 1968) Jenkins, Roy, The Labour Case (London: Penguin, 1959) Jones, Mervyn, Michael Foot (London: Victor Gollancz, 1994) Jowell, Roger and Hoinville, Gerard (eds), Britain into Europe: Public Opinion and the EEC 1961–75 (London: Social & Community Planning Research, 1976) Kaiser, Wolfram, Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945–63 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999) Kinnock, Neil, Our Way: Investing in Britain’s Future (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) Kitzinger, Uwe, see Butler, David Kitzinger, Uwe, The Second Try: Labour and the EEC (Oxford: Pergamon, 1968) Kitzinger, Uwe, Diplomacy and Persuasion (London: Thames & Hudson, 1973) Lee Williams, Geoffrey and Lee Williams, Alan, Labour’s Decline and the Social Democrats’ Fall (London: Macmillan, 1989) Leonard, Richard (ed.), Crosland and New Labour (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999) Mackay, R. W. G., Heads in the Sand (Oxford: Blackwell, 1950) Mackay, R. W. G., Towards the United States of Europe (London: Hutchinson, 1961) Mayhew, Christopher, Time to Explain (London: Hutchinson, 1987) Mayne, Richard and Pinder, John, Federal Union: the Pioneers (London: Macmillan, 1990) Milward, Alan S. (with Brennan, George and Romero, Federico), The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge, 1984)
234 Bibliography Moon, Jeremy, European Integration and British Politics 1950–63 (Aldershot: Gower, 1985) Morgan, Kenneth O., Labour in Power 1945–51 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1984) Morgan, Kenneth O., Callaghan: a Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) Nairn, Tom, The Left against Europe (London: Penguin, 1973); also in New Left Review, No. 75 (September–October 1972) Newman, Michael, Socialism and European Unity: the Dilemma of the Left in Britain and France (London: Junction Books, 1983) Ovendale, Ritchie (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments, 1945–51 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984) Owen, David, see Harris, Kenneth. Pelling, Henry, A Short History of the Labour Party (London: Macmillan, 1985) Pickles, William, Britain and Europe: How much has Changed? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967) Pimlott, Ben, Hugh Dalton (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985) Pimlott, Ben, Harold Wilson (London: HarperCollins, 1992) Pinder, John, see Mayne, Richard Radice, Giles, Offshore: Britain and the European Idea (London: I. Tauris, 1992) Rentoul, John, Tony Blair (London: Little, Brown, 1995) Rhodes James, Robert, Ambitions and Realities: British Politics 1964–70 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1972) Ridley, F. A. and Edwards, Robert, The United Socialist States of Europe (London: National Labour Press, 1944) Robins, L. J., The Reluctant Party: Labour and the EEC (Ormskirk: G.W. & A. Hesketh, 1979) Ross, George, Jacques Delors and European Integration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995) Sanders, David, Losing an Empire; Finding a Role (London: Macmillan, 1990) Sassoon, Donald, One Hundred Years of Socialism: the West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London: I. B. Tauris, Publishers, 1996) Shlaim, A., Britain and the Origins of European Unity (Reading: University of Reading, 1978) Seyd, Patrick, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left (London: Macmillan, 1987) Seyd, Patrick and Whiteley, Paul, Labour’s Grass Roots: the Politics of Party Membership (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) Smith, Martin J. and Spear, Joanna (eds), The Changing Labour Party (London: Routledge, 1992) Tawney, R. H., The Western Political Tradition (London: SCM Press, 1949) Teague, P. and Grahl, J., Industrial Relations and European Integration (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1992) Wainwright, Hilary, Labour: the Tale of Two Parties (London: Hogarth Press, 1987) Westlake, Martin, Britain’s Emerging Euro-Elite? (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1994) Whiteley, Paul, see Seyd, Patrick Williams, Philip, Hugh Gaitskell (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979) Young, Hugo, This Blessed Plot (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998) Young, J. W., Britain and European Unity, 1945–92 (London: Macmillan, 1993)
Bibliography 235 Young, J. W., Britain, France and the Unity of Europe 1945–51 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984) Young, J. W., see Dockrill, Michael Ziegler, Philip, Wilson (London: HarperCollins, 1995)
Index Acheson, Dean, 20, 53 Action Committee for the United States of Europe, 70 Adam, Gordon, 141 Adenauer, Konrad, 24, 26, 36, 46 Aitken, Ian, 67, 112 Albu, Austen, 38, 43, 57, 89 Aldrich, R.J., 14 Alternative Economic Strategy (AES), 128–9, 153, 160, 179, 183, 193, 197 Amendola, Giorgio, 76 American Committee on United Europe, 14 Amsterdam treaty, 203 ‘Anglo-Saxon’ capitalism, 201, 202 ‘Anglosphere’, 200 Ardwick (Lord), see Beavan, John Arnold-Forster, Mark, 91 Ashton, Joe, 106 Attlee (Lord), Clement, 1, 2, 5, 6, 20, 22, 24, 34, 35, 74, 141, 195, 199, 203 Balfe, Richard, 141, 153 Balogh, Thomas, 40 Barber, Edward, 163 Barnes, Michael, 89–90, 137 Barnett (Lord), Joel, 66 Barón, Enrique, 176 Barratt Brown, Michael, 50, 184 Beavan, John (Lord Ardwick), 17, 124 Becket, Margaret, 189 Beever, R. Colin, 34, 43, 47, 48, 55 Benn, Hilary, 111 Benn, Tony, 59, 67, 75–7, 84, 91–3, 95, 98–9, 100–2, 104–6, 112, 115, 117, 119, 120, 122, 125, 129, 131, 136, 138, 139, 142, 146, 155, 168, 169, 173, 186, 187, 193 Bevan, Aneurin, 18, 26, 32, 33, 168
Bevin, Ernest, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 26 Bevins, Antony, 148 Bidwell, Sidney, 66, 74 Bish, Geoff, 107, 159 Black, Conrad, 200 Blair, Tony, 185, 189–92, 196, 202–4 Body, Sir Richard, 112, 118 Boothroyd (Baroness), Betty, 123, 144 Bowyer, John, 34, 43, 55 Bradley, Tom, 57, 110, 143 Brandt, Willy, 63, 77, 99, 194, 208 Bretherton, Russell, 30, 31 Briand, Aristide, 2, 24 Briginshaw, Richard, 50 Britain in Europe (see also European Movement), 110, 112–14, 116 British Anti-Common Market Campaign, 166 British Commonwealth/Empire, see Commonwealth British Labour Group, see European Parliament Brivati, Brian, 52, 197 Broad, Roger, 45, 55 Brockway, Fenner, 8, 15 Brown (Lord George-Brown), George, 16, 52, 55, 58, 62–3, 65, 67–8, 74, 85 Brown, Gordon, 189, 207 Brown, Ron, 85 Bruce, Donald (Lord), 124 Brussels treaty, 11, 15, 27, 30 Buchan, David, 165 Buchan, Janey, 141 Bullock, Alan, 9 Bush, George I, 204 Bush, George II, 206 Butler, David, 115, 119, 137 Butler (Lord), R.A., 30
236
Index 237 Caborn, Richard, 141, 188 Callaghan (Lord), James, 16, 20, 55, 64, 67–8, 70, 77, 79, 81, 83–4, 87, 92, 99–101, 104–5, 112, 121–3, 129–30, 133, 135, 137, 139, 142, 146, 178, 182, 195, 199 Campaign for a European Political Community, 157 Campaign for a Labour Victory, 144 Campaign for Democratic Socialism, 42–3, 51, 82 Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, 146 Campaign for Nuclear Disarament (CND), see nuclear disarmament Campaign Group, 160, 177, 183 CAP, see Common Agricultural Policy Castle (Baroness), Barbara, 7, 27, 50, 61, 63, 66–7, 69, 76, 84, 100, 102, 105–6, 112–13, 115, 117, 122, 124–5, 127, 137, 140, 153, 160 Castle (Lord), Ted, 124 Cattermole, Jim, 113, 191 Charter 88, 182 Churchill, Sir Winston, 5, 7, 10, 12 Clark, John, 55 Clause IV, 41–2, 45, 50, 52, 54–5, 190, 195, 202 Clinton Davis (Lord), Stanley, 85, 167 Clinton, William, 204 Clwyd, Anne, 150 Coates, David, 129 Coates, Ken, 177 Cockfield (Lord), Arthur, 165, 167 Cole, G.D.H., 2, 7 Cole, John, 67, 100, 122–4 Collins, Ken, 141, 144, 170 Collins, Martin, 115 common agricultural policy (CAP), 64, 80, 94, 96, 125, 131, 206 Common Market, see European Community Common Market Campaign, 42–3 Common Market Safeguards Campaign, 69, 111 Commonwealth, the, 3–6, 9, 13–15, 18, 22, 28, 31, 37, 39–41, 43, 44, 46, 50–2, 57, 59, 62, 70, 76, 79,
94, 96, 102, 113–14, 197, 199, 200 Communist Party of Britain (MarxistLeninist), 98 Communist Party of Great Britain, 99 Confed (Confederation of Socialist Parties in the European Community) (see also Party of European Socialists), 136, 141, 149, 159–61, 176, 188 Cook, Robin, 177 Cooper, Duff (Lord Norwich), 9 Corbett, Freda, 89 Corbett, Richard, 188 Coreper, 127 Council of Europe, see Europe, Council of Cousins, Frank, 57–8 Crane, Peggy, 113 Crewe, Ivor, 143 Cripps, Francis, 152–3 Cripps, Sir Stafford, 20 Crosland, Anthony, 16, 67, 78–9, 85, 105, 113, 121, 128, 131 Crosland, Susan, 120 Crossman, R.H.S., 7–10, 13, 17, 29, 64, 67, 69, 72–4, 81, 109 Cryer, Robert, 160 Cunningham, George, 85, 144 Curran, Sir Charles, 117 Daily Express, 93 Daily Herald, 52–3 Daily Mirror, 63, 77, 79 Daily Telegraph, 49, 120 Dalton (Lord), Hugh, 11, 15, 21–2, 27 Dalyell, Tam, 66, 123, 186, 193 De Freitas, Sir Geoffrey, 16, 137 de Gasperi, Alcide, 24 de Gaulle, Charles, 9, 36, 46, 53–5, 58, 63, 68, 70–1, 124, 173 Deakin (Lord), Arthur, 23 Delargy, Hugh, 13, 44, 47, 66 Dell, Edmund, 57, 62, 80, 132 Delors, Jacques, 156, 164, 167, 170–3, 175–6, 178, 180–1 Deutscher, Isaac, 2 Diamond (Lord), John, 43, 52 Dickie, John, 59
238 Index Donovan, William, 14 Douglas Mann, Bruce, 85, 144 Drain, Geoffrey, 44 Dulles, Allen, 14 Dunkirk treaty, 9, 11 Dunwoody, Gwyneth, 57, 123 Early Day Motion, see House of Commons EC, see European Community economic and monetary union (EMU), 132–3, 160, 178–9, 183–5, 187, 191–3, 207 Economic and Social Committee (ESC), 94–5, 123, 162–3, 176 ECSC, see European Coal and Steel Community Edelman, Maurice, 22 Eden, Sir Anthony (Lord Avon), 6, 30 Edmonds, John, 162 Edwards, Robert, 8, 22–3, 41, 44, 66 EEC, see European Community EFTA, see European Free Trade Association elections, European, 56, 124–6, 128, 130–1 1979, 136–8 1984, 157, 159 1989, 161, 176, 183 1994, 189 1999, 193 manifestos: 1979, 136–7, 140, 142; 1984, 160, 175; 1989, 175 elections, general, 1959, 35 1964, 63 1966, 57, 61 1970, 73 1974 (Feb.), 99 1974 (Oct.), 102, 114 1979, 136, 138 1983, 151, 155, 156 1987, 168 1992, 185 1997, 193 manifestos: 1974 (Feb.), 99, 100, 106; 1974 (Oct.), 102, 106–7, 195; 1978, 135–7; 1983, 145, 154; 1987, 160, 168, 175
Ellis, Tom, 143 Empire, British, see Commonwealth EMU, see Economic and Monetary Union Encounter, 14, 56 Enright, Derek, 141, 144 Erhard, Ludwig, 38 Europe, Council of (see also European Human Rights), 11, 16–18, 24–5, 27–8, 60–1 Europe Left, 55–6, 113, 191 European Central Bank (ECB), 179–80, 186 European Coal and Steel Community (see also Schuman Plan), 24–8, 30–1, 34, 64, 163, 167 European Commission, 116–17, 186 European Committee of the Regions, 187–8 European Communities Bill/Act 1972 (see also European Community/Union, withdrawal from), 88, 96, 134, 147–8, 162, 168, 173, 184, 191, 193 European Community/Union, general, 33, 38–9, 63–4, 66, 69, 76, 80, 82, 90, 100–1, 107, 135, 185, 200 budget, 94–6, 103, 125, 135, 147, 150, 163, 201, 205 withdrawal from (see also European Communities Bill/Act 1972), 142, 145–7, 155, 157, 160, 166, 168, 173, 175, 180, 185, 191–3 European Convention on Human Rights, see European Human Rights European Court of Justice, 126, 185 European Defence Community, 27, 30–1 European elections, see elections, European European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 33, 38, 40, 48, 52, 57, 62, 65–6, 69, 82, 97, 135, 148, 197 European Human Rights Commission, 60–1 Convention, 25, 27, 60–1, 182 Court, 25, 60–1
Index 239 European Investment Bank, 64 European Labour Forum, 174, 177 European League for Economic Cooperation, 110 European Movement (see also Britain in Europe), 13, 34, 41, 110, 116, 144, 157 European Parliament, general, 56, 95, 116, 123, 125–6, 137, 140–1, 153, 165, 176, 184, 185, 203 British Labour Group, 124, 141, 159–61, 177, 183 European Parliamentary Labour Party, 177, 187–8, 190 Socialist Group, 124, 138, 141, 149, 161 European Political Community, 27 European Recovery Programme, see Marshall Plan European Regional Fund, see regional policy European Social Fund, 64 European Trades Union Congress, 162, 170 European Union, see European Community Evans (Lord), John, 123 exchange rate mechanism (ERM), see economic and monetary union Fabian Society, 39, 41, 42, 96, 145, 158, 170, 177 Faulds, Andrew, 186 Feather, Vic, 73, 113 Federal Trust, 157 Federal Union, 34, 42 federalism/federation, 6–7, 10, 13–19, 25–6, 30, 43, 35, 37, 45, 52–6, 76, 101–2, 125, 131, 136, 150, 173, 176, 183–4, 186, 204 Financial Times, 108, 180 Foley, Maurice, 34, 57 Foot, Michael, 7–8, 10, 46, 80, 84, 87, 90–3, 98, 105, 109, 124, 127, 132, 142–3, 146, 148–9, 154–5, 167, 169, 182, 196 Ford, Glyn, 177, 187 Forward Britain Movement, 50, 68
Francophonie, 200 Freeman, John, 26 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 161 Fulford, Roger, 35 Gaitskell (Baroness), Dora, 52 Gaitskell, Hugh, 30, 32, 36, 38, 41, 48–9, 51–2, 86, 104, 146, 181, 199 Gallagher, Michael, 141, 144 Gang of Three, 142 Gardiner (Lord), Gerald, 60 Gauche Europeénne, 55 general elections, see elections, general George, Stephen, 131 Get Britain Out, 96, 110–11, 116 Gill, Ken, 94 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry, 99, 102, 132 Gladwyn, Lord, 6, 9, 42 Glenamara, Lord, see Short, Edward Gollan, John, 99 Gonzalez, Felipe, 161 Gordon Walker (Lord), Patrick, 34, 57, 67 Gould, Bryan, 137, 166, 170, 179, 186, 187 Grahl, John, 152, 155 Grant, Charles, 178 Grantham, Roy, 113, 171, 173 Green, Pauline, 188 Griffiths, Winston, 141 Guardian, The, 13, 17, 45, 77, 85, 91, 112, 123, 142, 144, 150, 153, 190 Gunter, Ray, 67 Hailsham, Lord, 35 Hain, Peter, 186 Hale, Leslie, 10 Hallstein, Walter, 65, 176 Hamilton, Willie, 95, 123 Hardie, Keir, 1 Harris, Geoff, 113 Harris (Lord), John, 110, 112 Harris, Kenneth, 34 Harrison, Bob, 111, 115 Hart (Baroness), Judith, 99, 148 Hart, Norman, 34, 43, 55
240 Index Hatfield, Michael, 100, 118 Hattersley (Lord), Roy, 43, 57, 85, 92, 99, 105, 108, 113, 142, 144–6, 156–7, 167, 169, 179, 186 Hayter, Dianne, 177 Hayward, Ron, 92, 106, 122, 130 Healey (Lord), Denis, 5, 9, 10–11, 16, 18–19, 21–3, 29, 57, 66, 77–9, 84–5, 87, 117, 128, 132, 143, 146, 148 Heath, Edward, 48, 62, 63, 73, 74, 82, 84, 87, 92, 94, 99, 106, 112, 117, 146, 189, 192 Heffer, Eric, 8, 41, 57, 65–6, 74, 80, 83, 106, 148–9, 156 Henderson, Sir Nicholas, 28 Henig, Stanley, 55 Hennessy, Peter, 9, 31 Herbison, Margaret, 16 Higgins (Lord), Terence, 60 Hoffman, Paul, 13 Holland, Stuart, 31, 64, 129 Hoon, Geoff, 188 Houghton (Lord), Douglas, 84, 87 House of Commons, committees, 126–7 debates, general, 37, 67, 84, 196 Early Day Motions, 7–8, 11, 31, 42, 65, 77, 106 votes, 5, 67, 77, 85, 88–9, 106–7, 188 House of Lords, 127 Howard, Anthony, 78 Howell (Lord), Denis, 144 Hoyle (Lord), Doug, 183 Huckfield, Leslie, 85, 160 Hughes (Lord Cledwyn), Cledwyn, 67 Human Rights, see European Human Rights Hynd, Harry, 14 Hynd, John, 10, 22 Independent Labour Party, 8, 47 Independent, The, 183 Institute of Contemporary British History (ICBH), 113, 118 International Marxist Group, 98 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 128–9, 195
International Socialism, 99 International Socialists, 99 Jarrett, Bob, 34, 42–3, 55 Javits, Jacob, 69, 97 Jay (Lord), Douglas, 35, 41, 46, 57–8, 61, 63, 67, 69–71, 74–5, 84, 97–8, 111–12, 116, 166, 183 Jebb, Gladwyn, see Gladwyn, Lord Jenkins, Clive, 43, 53, 69, 98, 111–12, 115–16, 123–4, 146, 154, 170, 172–3 Jenkins, Peter, 123 Jenkins (Lord), Roy, 16, 31–2, 34–5, 40–3, 47, 49, 52, 56–8, 61, 73–4, 78, 81, 85–9, 91–3, 99, 105, 109–10, 117, 122, 144 Johnson, Carol, 89 Johnson, L.B.J., 59, 70 Jones, Ernest, 42 Jones, Jack, 69, 71, 79, 111, 122, 132 Jordan, Bill, 162, 173 Jospin, Lionel, 203 Jowitt (Lord), William, 25 Judge, D., 166 Kaldor, Nicholas, 40–1 Kaufman, Gerald, 146, 155, 168, 187 Keep Britain Out, 96 Keep Left, 7–9, 42, 65–6, 124, 149, 184, 198 Keeping Left, 23 Kellner, Peter, 154 Kellner, Sally, 111 Kennedy, John F., 69 Kerr, Hugh, 177 Key, Brian, 141 Kiesinger, Kurt Georg, 70–1 King, Anthony, 143 Kinnock, Neil, 80, 85, 146, 148, 156, 158, 161, 168–9, 176, 178, 185, 191, 196–7, 198, 203, 207 Kitson, Alex, 78 Kitzinger, Uwe, 45, 78, 115, 119 Kohl, Helmut, 187 Labour Campaign for Britain in Europe (see also Labour Committee for Europe), 112–13
Index 241 Labour Committee for Europe (see also Labour Common Market Committee, Labour Movement in/for Europe), 55, 69, 75, 77–8, 82, 112–13, 116, 143–4, 157 Labour Committee for (the Five) Safeguards on the Common Market, see Labour Common Market Safeguards Committee Labour Common Market Committee, 43–4, 51, 55 Labour Common Market Safeguards Campaign/Committee (see also Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign), 50, 68, 84, 125–6, 141–2, 151–2, 163, 179, 184 Labour Coordinating Committee, 137 Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign, 191 Labour Movement in/for Europe, 144, 191 Labour Party, conferences, 1945, 5 1948, 14 1950, 22 1954, 27 1957, 33 1960, 38, 42 1961, 43, 44 1962, 51–3 1969, 71, 73 1970, 75, 78–81, 83–4 1972, 91, 93–6 1974, 100, 102, 195 1975, 107–9, 114 1976, 128 1978, 134–5 1979, 139, 140 1980, 141–2 1982, 153–5 1983, 157 1987, 161 1988, 172 1989, 178 1990, 179 1992, 187 1992, 187
1994, 190 1995, 190 National Executive Committee (NEC), 13–15, 21–2, 40–1, 44, 51, 53, 71, 74–5, 78, 81–3, 92, 94–6, 106, 108–9, 128, 136–7, 139–42, 145–6, 149, 154–5, 159–61, 168, 179, 183, 186–7 manifestos, see elections, European; elections, general Lansbury, George, 143 Lawson, George, 89 Lawson, Nigel, 178 Lawther, Sir Will, 42 Lea (Lord), David, 164, 171 Lee, Sir Frank, 37 Leighton, Ron, 50, 68, 76, 111, 125 Leonard, Dick, 57, 137 Lester (Lord), Antony, 60 Lestor, Joan, 148 Lever (Lord), Harold, 92, 99, 110, 121, 132 Limehouse Declaration, 142 Little, Jenny, 107 Livingstone, Ken, 168, 184, 186 Lomas, Alf, 81, 118, 140–1, 153, 160–1 London Cooperative Society, 116 Longford (Lord), Frank, 67 Luard, Evan, 41, 57 Luxembourg compromise, 58 Maastricht treaty, 185, 187, 192, 196 Mabon, J. Dickson, 113 McEwan, Douglas, 83 McGarvey, Dan, 69, 94–5 Mackay, R.W.G. (Kim), 7, 9–11, 13, 15, 22, 28, 184 Mackintosh, John, 80, 89 MacLennan, Robert, 193 Macmillan, Harold (Lord Stockton), 35, 37, 40, 49, 51, 53, 57, 184 McNair, Lord, 60 McNamara, Kevin, 66 MacShane, Dennis, 172 Major, John, 166, 184, 186, 189, 192 Manchester Guardian, see Guardian, The,
242 Index Manifesto Group, 144 Manley, Michael, 114 Margach, James, 86 Marjolin, Robert, 64 Marks and Spencer, 112 Marquand, David, 128, 137 Marsh (Lord), Richard, 67 Marshall Plan (ERP), 8–9, 12–13, 15, 27 Marten, Neil, 93, 112, 117 Martin, David, 161, 170 Marx, Karl, 56 Marxism Today, 180 Mayhew (Lord), Christopher, 9, 16, 89, 130 Meacher, Michael, 156 Megahy, Tom, 141, 154 Mellish, Bob, 105 Mendès-France, Pierre, 64 Messina conference, 30–1, 64, 194, 197–8 Mikardo, Ian, 7–8, 10, 80, 106, 154 Militant, 158, 168 Millan, Bruce, 164 Millar, Jock, 43 Mills, John, 111, 126, 137, 191 Mitchell, Austin, 175, 179, 192 Mitchell, Richard (Bob), 123–4 Mitterand, Franc[,]ois, 148, 151, 187 Mollet, Guy, 20, 77 Monnet, Jean, 19–21, 27, 31, 49, 56, 199 Morell, Frances, 137, 169 Morgan, Gwyn, 59, 92 Morgan, Kenneth, 79, 105 Morning Star, The, 111 Morris, John, 105 Morrison, Herbert, 16–17, 20, 24 Morton, Jane, 55 Nairn, Tom, 85, 98, 129 National Executive Committee (NEC), see Labour Party National Missile Defence, 206 National Plan, 57, 62 National Referendum Campaign (NRC), 110–12, 116 NATO, see North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
Neil committee, 116 Neild, Robert, 40–1 Nenni, Pietro, 77 New Left Review, 98 New Socialist, 152, 159, 178 New Statesman, 6–7, 24, 74, 145, 153–4 Newens, Stan, 65, 160 Newman, Michael, 41, 66 Newsbrief, 45, 49–50, 53, 55 Nice summit, 207 North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA), 69–70, 97, 197 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 8, 16, 27, 29, 70–1, 142, 198–9, 206 nuclear disarmament, 31, 38, 50, 52, 142, 153, 161, 193, 195 Nutting, Sir Anthony, 30 Observer, The, 78 O’Hallaghan, Michael, 144 OMOV (one member, one vote), 190, 193, 196 O’Neil, Sir Con, 110 opinion polls/surveys, 49, 75, 93, 110, 112, 114–15, 117–18, 140, 182–3, 186, 192–3 Owen (Lord), David, 73, 77, 121, 131, 143, 145 Padley, Walter, 41, 58, 85 Paisley, Ian, 112 Palmer, Arthur, 144 Palmer, John, 99, 153 Pannell (Lord), Charles, 52 Papandreou, George, 151 Paris treaty, 25, 124, Parliamentary Labour Party, 78–9, 82, 84, 87, 92–3, 95, 106, 123–4, 131, 136, 139–40, 142, 177, 185–6 Party of European Socialists (see also Confed), 188–90 PASOK, 151 Peart, Fred (Lord), 61, 67, 74, 84, 99, 105 Phillips, Morgan, 13 Phipps, Colin, 137 Pickles, William, 45, 50, 64
Index 243 Pimlott, Ben, 106, 121 Pinder, John, 48 Pleven Plan, see European Defence Community Plowden, Sir Edward, 19 PLP, see Parliamentary Labour Party Pompidou, Georges, 71, 79, 92, 99 Powell, Enoch, 112, 117, 173, 182 PR, see proportional representation Prentice (Lord), Reg, 85, 105 Prescott, John, 124, 134, 189–90 Price, Christopher, 57 proportional representation, 129–30, 191 qualified majority voting (QMV), 165–7, 184, 192 Quin, Joyce, 141, 188 Radice, Giles, 55, 144, 158, 184 Ramadier, Paul, 9 Rank and File Mobilising Committee, 146 Red Rose, 144 Rees (Lord), Merlyn, 105 referendum, 50, 75, 91–4, 96, 100, 102, 106, 109–11, 115–16, 118–19, 121, 126, 148, 186, 191–2, 199 regional policy, 64, 150, 166–7, 180, 184 Rentoul, John, 179, 191 Reuter, Paul, 21 Revolutionary Communist Party, 8 ‘Rhineland model’, 201–2 Richard (Lord), Ivor, 57, 167 Rippon (Lord), Geoffrey, 74, 82 Robertson (Lord), George, 144, 166, 180 Robins, L.J., 41, 66 Rocard, Michel, 189 Rodgers (Lord), William, 42, 51–2, 82, 112, 121, 142 Rome treaty, 7, 32, 37–8, 55–6, 100, 123–4, 126, 148–9, 151, 158, 165–6, 192, 198 Roper (Lord), John, 112 Rosamund, Ben, 174 Rose, Paul, 66, 68
Ross, William, 84, 105 Rowthorn, Bob, 152 Royall, Jan, 141 Sainsbury’s, 116 Sapper, Alan, 93 Sassoon, Donald, 62, 153 Scanlon (Lord), Hugh, 112 Schmidt, Helmut, 100, 102, 132 Schuman Plan (see also European Coal and Steel Community), 20, 24–7, 31, 194, 204 Schuman, Robert, 16, 20–1, 24 Seal, Barry, 141, 161 Sedgemore, Brian, 183–4 Servan-Schreiber, Jean-Jacques, 63 Shawcross, Christopher, 10–11, 13 Sheldon, Robert, 66, 193 Sherman, Barry, 111 Shinwell (Lord), Emmanuel, 32, 42, 58, 65, 71 Shore (Lord), Peter, 45, 59, 61, 63, 69, 76, 80, 84, 91, 96–101, 105, 117, 124–5, 131, 139, 141–2, 145–6, 154, 167, 179, 183, 186, 191 Short, Edward (Lord Glenamara), 92, 105, 131, 142 Silkin (Lord), John, 67, 77, 105, 131, 142, 146, 150 Silkin, Sam, 144 Silverman, Sydney, 42 Single European Act (SEA), 165, 166–7 Sirs, Bill, 162 Skidelsky (Lord), Robert, 55 Skinner, Dennis, 138, 186 Smith, John, 179, 186–92, 196, 207 Soames (Lord), Sir Christopher, 70, 117 Social Charter/Chapter, 176, 181, 184–5, 196, 203 Social Democratic Party, 92, 142–5, 174, 177, 195, 199 Socialist Commentary, 34, 43, 53, 55–6, 65, 76, 128, 145 Socialist International, 141, 149, 161 Socialist Labour League, 98 Socialist Workers Party, 99 Solidarity, 146 Soper, Tom, 39
244 Index sovereignty, 8, 11, 13, 16–19, 21, 26–9, 32–3, 46, 76, 98, 105, 108, 127, 129, 136, 148, 165, 178, 184, 193, 208 Spaak committee/report, 31, 64 Spaak, Paul-Henri, 10–11, 13, 50 SPD (German Social Democratic Party), 24, 55, 102, 161, 203 Spearing, Nigel, 166, 179 Spectator, The, 111 Spinelli, Altiero, 165 Stalin, Joseph, 9–10, 26, 98, 182, 198 Stanley, Brian, 83, 109 Steed, Michael, 114–15 Steel (Lord), David, 112, 129, 130 Stephenson, Peter, 76, 113, 144 Stewart (Lord), Michael, 58, 60, 67, 73, 123, 124 Stikker, Dirk, 13 Stoddart (Lord), David, 166 Strauss (Lord), George, 89 Straw, Jack, 191 Summerskill, Shirley, 85 Sunday Times, 100 Symonds, Anne, 191 Taverne (Lord), Dick, 95 Tawney, R.H., 2, 208 Taylor, Sir Teddy, 112 Teague Paul, 155 TGWU, 116, 171 Thatcher (Baroness), Margaret, 112, 117, 136, 150, 162, 164–5, 173, 175–6, 178–9, 182, 204 Thomson (Lord), George, 16, 62, 68, 70, 73, 82, 92, 110, 117, 144 Thorpe, Jeremy, 112 Times, The, 65, 79, 86, 120, 148 Tindale, Stephen, 181 Titley, Gary, 177 Todd, Ron, 171 Tomlinson (Lord), John, 161 Tongue, Carole, 177 Trades Union Alliance for Europe, 113 Trades Union Congress, see TUC Trades Unions Against the Common Market, 93 Tribune, 8, 33, 43, 66, 111, 145, 186
Tribune Group, 8, 74, 77, 83, 89, 160, 177, 185 Trotsky, Leon, 1 TUC, 22, 32, 47–8, 73–4, 83, 93, 95, 113, 115, 123, 134, 162–3, 170–1, 176 TUC, Scottish, 47, 106 TUC, Wales, 178 Tuffin, Alan, 162 Urwin, Harry, 74, 94–5, 102 Usborne, Henry, 6–7 Varley (Lord), Eric, 57, 105, 122 Victory for Socialism, 43 Wainwright, Hilary, 169 Walden, Brian, 57, 78, 85–6 Walston (Lord), Harry, 144 Warburton, David, 113 Ward, Terry, 152–3 Watson, Sam, 34, 44, 52 Watt, David, 84, 108, 123–4 Western European Union, 27, 30 White Paper, 1967, 59, 73 1970, 73 1975, 116 1976, 125–6 1977, 130 Whitelaw (Lord), William, 112 Whitty, Larry, 190 Williams, Alan Lee, 57 Williams (Baroness), Shirley, 42–3, 57, 99, 111–12, 142, 144 Wilson (Lord), Harold, 26, 37–8, 57–68, 71, 73–4, 78–81, 84, 87, 90, 92, 95, 99, 100, 105–7, 109, 112, 117, 120–4, 146, 172, 189, 195, 199 Wistrich, Ernest, 77, 110 Wood, David, 90 Wright, Sir Oliver, 59 Wyatt (Lord), Woodrow, 7 Young European Left, 55 Young, Hugo, 186, 192 Young, John, 69 Younger, Kenneth, 20, 24–5
