Britain and European Integration since 1945

On the Sidelines

David Gowland, Arthur Turner, Alex Wright

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415322126
• eBook ISBN: 9781134354511
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie politique

This book provides both a comprehensive introduction and a perceptive examination of Britain's relations with the European Community and the European Union since 1945, combining an historical account with political analysis to illustrate the changing and multifaceted nature of British and European politics.

Few issues in British politics since 1945 have generated such heated controversy as Britain's approach to the process of European integration associated with the European Union. The long-running debate on the subject has not only played a major part in the downfall of prime ministers and other leading political figures but has also exposed major fault-lines within governments and caused deep and rancorous divisions within and between the major political parties. This highly contested issue has given rise to bitter campaigning in the press and between pressure groups, and it has bemused, confused and divided the public at large.

Key questions addressed include:

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• Why has Europe had such an explosive impact on British politics?
• What impelled British policymakers to join the European Community and to undertake one of the radical, if not the most radical, changes in modern British history?
• What have been the perceived advantages and disadvantages of British membership of the European Union?
• Why has British membership of the European Union rarely attracted a national consensus?

Engaging with both academic and public debates about Britain and the European Union, this volume is essential reading for all students of British history, British politics, and European politics.

1
Limited liability, 1945–55

This chapter focuses on key episodes in the evolution of British policy and attitudes towards the idea of European unity in the first decade after the Second World War. The analysis concentrates on three periods that were of critical importance in determining the nature and extent of British involvement in the formative stages of post-war European organizations. The first period, January 1948–January 1949, began with a ringing endorsement of an expansive view of European unity expressed by British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in his Western Union speech of January 1948. It terminated, however, with a more circumscribed, official definition of the limits of British involvement in the post-war reconstruction and organization of western Europe. The second period, May–June 1950, included the unveiling of a plan for a coal and steel community by Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, and subsequent British aloofness from the negotiations resulting in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), comprising Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany (thereafter known as ‘the Six’). The third period, June–November 1955, opened with a decision by the Six to consider plans for a common market. It ended with the British refusal to participate in negotiations resulting in the signing of the Treaties of Rome (March 1957) and the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC).

The principal aims of this chapter are to identify the distinctive features of the British approach to these developments, to assess the main and especially long-standing determinants of policy, and to identify, where appropriate, different explanations for the course of events in the immediate post-war decade. The concept of limited liability, frequently employed to characterize Britain’s minimal military commitment to the defence of Europe in the inter-war period, gradually emerged as the benchmark of British policy towards the reconstruction and integration of mainland Europe in the immediate post-war decade. It first figured prominently in January 1949 among the conclusions of a paper by senior Whitehall officials. Their advice on the essentials of Brit-ain’s European policy was subsequently endorsed by the Cabinet of the Labour government under the leadership of Clement Attlee:

Our policy should be to assist Europe to recover as far as we can … But the concept must be one of limited liability. In no circumstances must we assist them [the Europeans] beyond the point at which the assistance leaves us too weak to be a worth-while ally for U.S.A. if Europe collapses … Nor can we embark upon measures of “cooperation” which surrender our sovereignty and which lead us down paths along which there is no return.

(Cairncross 1982: 209)

This general conclusion was most immediately shaped by wartime experiences and early post-war conditions.

The Second World War had a profound and lasting impact on the post-war attitudes of British policymakers and public towards involvement in mainland Europe. Wartime experiences reinforced a deep-seated sense of insularity and detachment from the continent. This experience was famously captured in the David Low cartoon of 1940 with a British Tommy waving his fist at German bombers and yelling defiantly ‘Very well, alone!’. It was also equally well conveyed by the no doubt apocryphal comment of the London taxi driver who, on hearing news of the defeat of France by Nazi Germany (June 1940), commented: ‘Thank God we’re playing the final at home’. Popular and entrenched British perceptions of Europe as a source of war, disorder and undemocratic politics together with contempt for the weaknesses of individual European countries and widespread Germanophobia, created a pathological distrust of Europe and strengthened the case against mainland European entanglements. Furthermore, Britain had escaped the mainland European wartime trauma of invasion, defeat and occupation. There was thus a far greater inclination in Britain than among the mainland European states to regard the wartime record, especially the landmark events of 1940 like the Dunkirk evacuation and the Battle of Britain, as a matter of perpetual celebration maintained by a memory bank of wartime exploits, myths and prejudices; Britain’s future seemed to lie in its past.

This wartime record was viewed as affirming rather than calling into question the strength of British national culture, institutions and sovereignty. In addition, the ‘standing alone’ imagery of Britain as the sole bulwark against Nazi Germany in 1940 instilled into policymakers and public alike a strong sense of moral superiority and of unequalled leadership qualities in Europe. Meanwhile, Britain’s status as one of the three major victorious allies alongside the USA and the USSR combined with its widespread overseas ties through the Commonwealth and Empire seemed, outwardly at least, to confirm the country’s position as a global power. There was limited appreciation, in effect, of the extent to which, since the deceptive independence of 1940–41, Britain had entered a phase displaying the characteristics of a second class power: military dependence on a powerful ally, persistent economic vulnerability, imperial overstretch and a narrowing range of options in international affairs. This condition was further underlined by the extent to which, as compared with the USA and the USSR, Britain emerged from the war with few material rewards for its sacrifice and virtual bankruptcy

The impact of the war and of immediate post-war conditions on Britain’s global standing and resources also greatly influenced the handling of mainland European affairs. Several factors shaped British policy towards mainland Europe in the early post-war years and eventually determined how and why policymakers alighted upon the concept of limited liability, which in turn governed policy towards post-war European organizations. One important factor was the marked difference in resources between Britain and much of mainland Europe in the early post-war years. Britain had its own post-war national strategy or ‘special’ path to post-war recovery that was assisted by assets and short-term advantages denied to or only partially available to most European states. The list of assets most immediately included such advantages as Commonwealth markets, colonial resources, London’s position as a financial centre and large armed forces, all of which were soon to be joined by a close peacetime alliance with the US and the acquisition of nuclear weapons.¹ These advantages indicated that Britain’s standing as a world power had substance and also meant that Europe was not a crucial or necessary element in Britain’s post-war economic recovery. This position was highlighted by British involvement in the European response to the US (Marshall) offer of aid in 1947. Ideally, the British government wanted dollar aid without any strings attached in terms of European cooperation by all recipients of this aid. The government also wanted recognition by the Americans of Britain’s special global standing as compared with the position of the other states. US policymakers rejected both views from the outset. British policymakers, however, continued to impress on the US Truman administration the distinctive features of Britain’s standing as a major player in the world economy.

A further defining and recurring factor in the making of British policy was the belief that Europe could not be separated from the global dimensions of British foreign policy and that the European continent did not represent the major, exclusive area of British strategic interest. The complex interaction and changing importance of a number of factors that shaped British policy towards Europe in the early post-war years first became apparent in the making and outcome of the Western Union initiative. This project was formally launched by Bevin in January 1948 with a call for some form of union in Western Europe including Britain. During the next two years, however, and in a way that was to be characteristic of the tortuous course of British policy towards European integration over the next sixty years, this positive endorsement of the principle of west European union was relegated in importance. By April 1950 Bevin was convinced that it was necessary ‘to get away from talk about Europe’, to recognize that Europe did not constitute a separate self-contained unit, and to accept that the original conception of Western Union had to give way to the wider conception of the Atlantic Community.²

The origins and significance of this initiative have attracted different assessments at the hands of historians and commentators ever since. Some have viewed it as an integral part of Bevin’seffort to lure the USA into giving military backing to western Europe in the face of deteriorating relations between the Western Powers and the USSR (Cold War) with heightened west European fears about Soviet intentions in Europe. According to this explanation, the Western Union was primarily designed to demonstrate that the west European states were prepared to make collective defence arrangements but clearly required US backing to make these effective. Bevin’s underlying purpose was thus fulfilled in the Atlantic Pact of 1949 and the subsequent formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the crowning achievement of his foreign secretaryship according to this account. Other commentators, however, have argued that Western Union was not initially conceived as a first step in this direction but was in fact part of a general, long-term design to reassert British power and influence via a British-led western Europe extending to and utilizing western Europe’s overseas colonies and links. In effect, Bevin aimed to organize the ‘middle of the planet’ and thus create a ‘Third Force’ in the international system that was on a par with, and independent of, the USA and the USSR. Still other commentators have maintained that this idea of Britain organizing the ‘middle of the planet’ was a fanciful notion reflecting illusions of grandeur and offering an insubstantial basis for dealing with the pressing problems of western Europe’s economic weakness and defencelessness.³

In the wake of the Western Union initiative, the nature and extent of Brit-ish interest in some form of union in western Europe was tested in the military, economic and political fields. The most immediate consequence of the initiative was the signing of the Brussels Treaty (March 1948) by Britain, France and the Benelux states (Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands). By this mutual assistance pact, the five states agreed to provide military and other aid in the event of a military attack on a member state and to collaborate in economic, social and cultural matters via the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO). In its origins and early workings the BTO suggested a well-considered, positive British approach to the idea of European unity in the form of a west European bloc under British leadership. Several features of this undertaking soon became clearly defined and reflected both the immediate and longer-term limits of British interest in the organization of western Europe.

First, there was a strong determination to ensure that the Brussels Treaty commitment did not involve the commitment of British military forces to mainland Europe: ‘We do not want any more Dunkirks’, declared Bevin. At this time the main pillars of British defence policy, were the defence of the UK mainland, control of the lines of sea communication and defence commitments in the Middle East. These took priority over any possible peacetime undertaking to the defence of mainland Europe.⁴

Second, British policymakers, as in the inter-war period, were intent on resisting French requests for a strong British military commitment to the continent and for the closest possible form of military cooperation between London and Paris. Such resistance was symptomatic of the ambivalent attitudes of the policymakers towards France in these early post-war years. They believed that any form of west European cooperation had to be based on a UK/France axis, and yet they feared that France’s political, economic and military weaknesses offered no sound basis for cooperation.

Third, it became clear shortly after the signing of the Brussels Treaty that the BTO in the British view was not an instrument for furthering European unity as an end in itself. It was instead a staging post to the Atlantic Alliance and the revival of the wartime ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the USA. This process was set in motion by the Pentagon talks involving Britain, Canada and the USA (22 March–1 April 1948) which raised the possibility of involvement by the USA in a Western defence system and culminated in the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (April 1949). If the growing involvement of the USA in western Europe at this time was a case of ‘empire by invita-tion’, Britain was to the fore in issuing the invitation. Thereafter, Cold War politics and the acquisition of nuclear weapons became the dominant elements in British foreign and defence policy and reinforced the illusion of British power and influence at the top table of international politics. Most importantly and significantly in the European context, these developments further sealed in British eyes at least the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the USA. In particular, they gave practical expression to the idea of using US power, as a wartime Foreign Office paper presciently summarized the ideal ‘special relationship’ in peacetime, ‘for purposes which we regard as good’ or what has been described as ‘power-by-proxy’.⁵

The alliance with the USA now became the sheet anchor of British foreign policy. It served several manifest and latent functions in the immediate and longer term. British political leaders perceived a wide variety of advantages in cultivating the idea of a ‘special relationship’. Most immediately, and in the face of the Soviet presence in eastern Europe, it protected post-war British governments from a repetition of the fearful pre-war charge of appeasement. In the longer term, the ‘special relationship’ helped to obscure Britain’s declining role and status; it offered an emotional comfort blanket for a declining power; it concealed the imbalance of power between Britain and the USA; it provided privileged contacts with the US government especially for example in the intelligence-gathering field, on the money markets as a support for sterling, and (later) for gaining preferential access to US military technology; it sought to harness US power to serve British interests within and beyond Europe;⁶ and finally it perpetuated the image of Britain as a bridge or pivot in relations between Europe and the USA. All in all, it was assumed that the US government could be persuaded to act in Britain’s best interests, partly because the USA required the experience, knowledge and moral support of a worldly-wise guide like Britain in international affairs and partly because, as in the ‘bases for destroyers deal’ of 1941, Britain could trade military bases at home and abroad for material assistance from the USA.⁷ A particularly important implication of the British view of this ‘special relationship’ was that this relationship became the single major external stumbling block to closer relations between Britain and the Six in the 1950s. Any suggestion of a closer relationship with the Six, that went beyond forms of association between Britain and the emerging EEC, invariably collapsed in the face of the prevailing argument that such moves would jeopardize or undermine relations with the US. It was in this European context that the British-manufactured myth of a special relationship was most in evidence, particularly since the USA was a keen supporter of full British involvement in the process of European integration.⁸

The second and eventually more significant gauge of British interest in west European union was in the field of economic cooperation. The particular litmus test of British policy in this respect was the question of whether to participate in the formation of a west European customs union. A customs union was to be the centrepiece of the EEC established by the Six ten years later. This issue had come to prominence following the US offer of aid to Europe in June 1947, commonly known as Marshall Aid and formally as the European Recovery Programme (ERP). It was following the announcement of this offer of aid that there was mounting US support for a single market in western Europe and the prospective recipients of US aid including Britain established an intergovernmental study group to consider the subject (November 1947). This matter received exhaustive consideration in Whitehall where there emerged the beginnings of a longer-term division of opinion between the Foreign Office, which was receptive to the political and strategic case for British involvement in European integration, and the Treasury which took an altogether more cautious, and in this case hostile, attitude towards the idea. Why, then, as one senior British diplomat expressed the matter, did the ‘mere words “customs union” produce a shudder in the Treasury and nausea in the Board of Trade?’⁹

The Treasury case against participation in a customs union ultimately prevailed on the back of several arguments that held the high ground long into the 1950s. Much emphasis was placed on the far greater importance of Brit-ain’s trading and financial interests beyond rather than within Europe. An overriding priority in this respect was to ensure that the economic, commercial and financial ties associated with the British Empire and Commonwealth were not adversely affected by any of Britain’s European commitments. The Commonwealth, as it came to be known after 1949, though a very important distinction remained between colonies under direct rule from London and the self-governing Dominions, was viewed as a highly prized asset. It still extended to a quarter of the world’s land mass and symbolized British power and independence in the world. What became increasingly unclear in the post-war years was how far the mixture of tradition, sentiment and interest that held this enterprise together clouded judgements about the precise economic, commercial and financial value of the body to Britain. In the early post-war years, the Commonwealth and Empire attracted a disparate set of supporters ranging from enthusiasts for the Raj in India and believers in the Commonwealth ideal to adherents of the kith and kin lobby in Africa and supporters of Britain’s global strategic role (S. Howe 1993: 324). Its existence was undoubtedly of more concern to politicians and the press than to the general public whose knowledge of the subject was often limited to a general grasp of the imperial inheritance and of empire as an integral part of Britain’s status as a world power; an opinion poll in 1947 found that 75 per cent of the respondents did not know the difference between a dominion and a colony while 50 per cent could not name a single colony, and one respondent nominated Lincolnshire as a possible colony (Sandbrook 2005: 252).¹⁰

In the early post-war years of shortages of raw materials, at least, the Commonwealth provided access to scarce resources through a stranglehold on some of the colonies that amounted to unqualified economic imperialism. It also offered an assured market for British goods via the operation of the protectionist imperial preference system. At this time 50 per cent of British trade was with the rest of the Commonwealth, whereas the whole of Europe accounted for only 20 per cent of British trade. Furthermore, much of the Commonwealth made up the sterling area for which Britain acted as the central banker and thus played a prominent role in the world’s financial system as some 50 per cent of all international payments were in sterling. In the light of these considerations, British membership of a European customs union was regarded as unacceptable on a number of counts. Most notably, it would undermine the British preference for a ‘one world’ trading system including the Commonwealth, North America and Europe.¹¹ Furthermore, it would be incompatible with British involvement in the imperial preference system, while any attempt to merge this protectionist system with a European customs union would entail a net loss for British exporters and for British management of the sterling area. It was also argued that membership of a customs union would result in a loss of British trade with the rest of the Commonwealth that could not be offset by comparable gains in the more competitive European mark...

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Limited liability, 1945–55
• 2 Agonizing reappraisal, 1956–72
• 3 Adjustment to membership, 1973–84
• 4 Trench warfare, 1985–97
• 5 Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the European Community/Union 1973–98
• 6 The Blair governments and European integration 1997–2007
• 7 The European Union and Constitutional Change in the UK since 1999
• 8 Continuity and change since 1945
• Chronological Table
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index