Labour’s European Dilemmas: From Bevin to Blair

271 Pages·2001·1.583 MB·English

by  Roger Broad (auth.)

Contemporary History in Context Series
General Editor: Peter Catterall, Lecturer, Department of History, Queen Mary
and Westfield College, University of London
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THE EEC CRISIS OF 1963
Kennedy, Macmillan, de Gaulle and Adenauer in Conflict
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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
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THREATENING EUROPE
Britain and the Creation of the European Community, 1955–58
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THE MYTH OF CONSENSUS
New Views on British History, 1945–64
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USING EUROPE, ABUSING THE EUROPEANS
Britain and European Integration, 1945–63
Keith Kyle
THE POLITICS OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF KENYA
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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
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THATCHER’S DIPLOMACY
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Labour’s European
Dilemmas
From Bevin to Blair
Roger Broad
© Roger Broad 2001
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-80160-4
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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.
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 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
To Sarah
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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
1 Bevin and the Three Circles 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 con-
stant 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, con-
strained 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 meet-
ings 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 neutralisa-
tion 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 commis-
sioner 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 aspi-
ration 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 democrat-
ically accountable and socially interventionist, just as their forebears
of Keep Left briefly were before the Cold War froze over the conti-
nent, 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 seven-
ties and early eighties. This, and his huge majority, has given Blair
advantages in his dealings with Europe denied to many of his predeces-
sors. Broad in this work provides a detailed explanation of how Labour