Subscriptions
In Part One of his look back at Britain’s journey with the EU, Otto English charts the UK’s pivotal role in its formation, initial British reluctance at the project and the 1975 referendum which seemed to provide hope for a happy future in the bloc
In September 2016, three months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, Nigel Farage sat down with journalist Stephen Sackur of BBC’s HardTalk to discuss what would happen next.
In the course of a wide-ranging conversation, discussion turned to what Brexit actually meant and Farage, sporting an unseasonal remembrance poppy, was happy to clarify.
“To me, Brexit’s easy,” he said. “You know, we get back British passports, we have control of our fishing waters and our companies are not subject to EU law through the single market. Those are my three tests.”
This, then, was the vision as spelled out by the architect of Brexit. Britain’s future course would be built upon the tripartite principles of: nostalgia for old travel documents, the self-interests of our tiny fishing industry, and full control over the permutations of domestically produced root vegetables.
It was, in many ways, the summation of the narrative that Farage and his fellow travellers had been peddling for more than a decade. Great Britain and its impractical passports had no place in ‘the failing EU project’. This was a ‘global nation’. It would be ‘easy’ to leave. Life would go on as before. Britain – prior to 1973 when it joined then European Economic Community (EEC) – had been a thriving country, trading with Commonwealth partners. We could do all that again. The people had been conned into joining a ‘trade organisation’ and, over time, that economic community had been forged into something else. All we had to do was to reset the controls and let our fishermen catch more fish and all would be well.
This narrative is now so embedded that even once sensible politicians trot it out. But how true is it? And if life was so good in the UK before we joined the EU/EEC, why did we sign up in the first place?
As we prepare to leave the EU on 31 January, I thought I’d try to find out and separate out the truth from the Farrago.
Britain’s Founding Father
To understand Britain’s place in Europe, we need to travel back to the end of the Second World War and to a speech Winston Churchill gave in Zurich in September 1946.
With the continent still reeling from six years of carnage, he chose that moment to call for the creation of a “United States of Europe”. This union, the former Prime Minister suggested, could ensure that the devastation twice visited on the continent in the 20th Century would not happen again.
To that end, France and Germany needed to “take the lead together” and work with smaller neighbours in a spirit of cooperation and good will.
Churchill’s vision explicitly excluded Great Britain. The country may have been bludgeoned by six years of war, but it was still – just – at the head of an extensive Empire and its interests lay beyond Europe. It would, however, assist and partner this new venture and benefit from it and the peace it would secure.
The speech caused a sensation. Churchill went on to be one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Council of Europe and there is little doubt that our most famous 20th Century Prime Minister – beloved of nationalists and self-professed patriots – was one of the founding fathers of the European project.
Five years later, in 1951, Britain looked on as then European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established between Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, West Germany and the Netherlands. The Treaty of Paris which had formalised the ECSC was a first step in regional integration and sought to create a common market for coal and steel. It was also the first example in history of voluntary supranationalism – a pooling of sovereignty by member states to another authority.
The UK declined an invitation to join. The country still saw its destiny at the head of the Commonwealth and the Labour Government was wary of the technocratic nature of the venture. So, as its European neighbours moved forward together, the UK held the Festival of Britain instead, while feeding rations to its children.
In truth, the early 1950s was a raw moment for Britain. Still pockmarked with bombsites and struggling to find a role as her Empire fell apart, it was becoming increasingly obvious that this once powerful nation’s power had waned. The debacle at Suez in 1956 signalled a final, humiliating end to Britain’s pretentions of being a global superpower.
Slowly, however, the country began to pull itself together. Much needed migration from the West Indies and elsewhere brought new cultures into our previously homogeneous cities. Affordable appliances and cheap plastic products altered the nature of domestic life. Teenagers embraced rock and roll and bubble gum. And the economy choked slowly back to life as Britain enjoyed a mini post-war boom.
In July 1957, the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan delivered his famous “you’ve never had it so good” speech to the Conservative Party conference. It was true that Britain was finally enjoying an economic renaissance, but it was a growth that was lagging behind our European neighbours.
That same year, the Treaty of Rome created the European Economic Community (EEC) out of the ESCS. The EEC was to be a primarily economic partnership, but the preamble to the treaty made clear that the goal of the organisation was to work towards “ever closer union”. Britain declined to take part in negotiations. The EEC states ploughed ahead regardless and soon their populations were benefiting from tariff-free trade and all that came with it.
Back in Britain, “never had it so good” had given way to ‘declinism’.
Third Time Lucky
As Europe boomed, the UK went the other way and, as the 1960s dawned, British politicians began to look at the continent with increasing envy.
For those of us who grew up in the decades following the 1960s, it is easy to get lulled into the false notion that the era was all Beatlemania, E-type jags, King’s Road, mini coopers, Carnaby Street, mini-skirts and hippies. That Britain was at the centre of the world and that London was swinging every step of the way.
In fact, life remained hard for most people and, economically speaking, Britain had fallen back into a tortuous decline. It was obvious to those venturing abroad that the UK was being outperformed by our neighbours in the EEC. The populations of France and West Germany in particular enjoyed a better standard of living, with higher disposable income and more domestic products per head of population. And the food was much better and cheaper as well.
British industry by comparison was in the doldrums. The monopoly the country had once enjoyed in consumer markets of the former Empire had gone and British products were deemed inferior to those being produced in other industrialised nations. The country was stagnating.
By 1961, the British were hammering on the door of the EEC and trying to get in. Unfortunately, having twice rejected an invitation, the Europeans – particularly the French – were suspicious of the UK’s new overtures of friendship and said ‘non’ and, a few years later, ‘non’ once more.
It was only with the fall of the French President Charles De Gaulle, in 1969, that Britain was finally allowed to join the club – on its third attempt.
The UK would have to agree to pool sovereignty and make its currency comprehensible, but the country’s leaders calculated that the gains of membership far outweighed other considerations. Britain could regain lost influence and reinvent itself alongside its European partners. The Treaty of Accession was signed in January 1972 by Edward Heath, the arch Europhile British Prime Minister and, following a transition period, the UK joined the EEC on 1 January 1973.
The Round One Referendum
Despi