This text analyzes British official thinking behind the UK's standing aloof from the moves after 1945 towards European economic collaboration, leading to the establishment of ECSC and the EEC in the 1950s. It deals with the later change of tack (1961), covers the organization in Whitehall for the negotiations with the Communities, and the major problem areas - the Commonwealth, British agriculture, financial implications of British membership, sovereignty, and the future of EFTA.
This text analyses British official thinking behind the UK's standing aloof from the moves after 1945 towards European economic collaboration. The volume ends with General de Gaulle's veto of 1963.
The main purpose of the book is to introduce the work of Alan S. Milward and to acknowledge the full magnitude of his scientific contribution to contemporary British and European history. The book is a collection of essays which provide a better understanding of Alan Milward’s extensive intellectual work for future scholars and facilitate the knowledge and transmission of his published work to present and future generations of students, scholars in the various disciplines concerned, and the general public. The series of original contributions which this book contains are related to or reflect critically upon Milward’s own contributions to the fields of political, diplomatic, and socio-economic history, political science, economics, international relations, and European Studies in general. This book honors Alan Milward through a better understanding of his many pioneering contributions in the fields of contemporary European history in general, and the history of European integration in particular. Although the volume does not aim to be a substitute for Milward’s work itself, it illuminates and assesses his creative process along fifty years of continued and intense work, as well as the impact of his main work, and the continuing relevance of his main theses today.
This book questions conventional accounts of the history of European integration and British business. Integration accounts normally focus on the nation-state, while Neil Rollings focuses on business and its role in the development of European integration, which business historians have previously overlooked. Business provided a key link between economic integration, political integration, and the process of Europeanization. British businessmen perceived early on that European integration meant much more than the removal of tariffs and access to new markets. Indeed, British entry into the European community would alter the whole landscape of the European working environment. Consideration of European integration is revealed as a complex, relative, and dynamic issue, covering many issues such as competition policy, taxation, and company law. Based on extensive archival research, this book uses the case of business to emphasize the need to blend national histories with the history of European integration.
Harold Wilson’s apparent volte-face on European Community membership in the autumn of 1966 has long puzzled commentators and Wilson’s colleagues alike. Based on interviews, private papers and recently released evidence from the National Archives, this book provides a fresh interpretation of Wilson’s policy towards the European Community. Studying the development of Britain’s policy between 1964 when Harold Wilson took office, and 1967 when the French President General de Gaulle vetoed Britain’s membership application for a second time, this book examines the rationale behind the British approach, explaining why Wilson launched an initiative for membership when the French seemed certain to obstruct. Also discussing Wilson’s handling of the Cabinet, and shedding light on Britain’s diplomacy towards the Six, this work places British policy towards Europe within the context of its foreign policy transition from a global to a regional role. Examining an important event in Anglo-European relations, this is essential reading for students of post-war British history, and for those interested in Britain’s historical relationship with Europe.
Focusing not just on the great events but on the smaller incremental developments too, this work gives an in-depth look at developments in European Union history.
Volume III of The Official History of Britain and the European Community covers the divisions over Europe of the Labour Government (1975–79) and the controversies surrounding Britain’s relations with her EEC partners under Margaret Thatcher. As the UK prepares to leave the European Union, this book is the story of the stresses, quarrels, compromises and ambitions which contributed to an unhappy relationship between the United Kingdom and her European partners. Immediately after the 1975 referendum, when the British people voted by a large majority to stay in the European Community, the divisions in the Labour Party over Europe, which had caused the referendum in the first place, resurfaced as if nothing had changed. They dogged the beleaguered Government of James Callaghan and contributed to the defeat of the Labour Party in the General Election of 1979. Margaret Thatcher proclaimed herself a pro-European Prime Minister but her premiership, too, was governed by a succession of crises in Britain’s relations with her partners as Thatcher fought to redress the unfair budget deal Britain had been forced to accept on accession, and then to secure her vision of a reformed, outward-looking, economically liberal Europe. This is also the story of personal relationships between Thatcher and the successive leaders of Germany, France and the United States. It is told through the contemporary accounts of the period, in the words, ideas and emotions of politicians and officials at the heart of Government. This work will be of much interest to students of British politics, European Union history, diplomacy and International Relations in general.
?Though Britain’s descent from global imperial power began in World War II and continued over the subsequent decades with decolonization, military withdrawal, and integration into the European Union, its foreign policy has remained that of a Great Power. David M. McCourt maintains that the lack of a fundamental reorientation of Britain’s foreign policy cannot be explained only by material or economic factors, or even by an essential British international “identity.” Rather, he argues, the persistence of Britain’s place in world affairs can best be explained by the prominent international role that Britain assumed and into which it was thrust by other nations, notably France and the United States, over these years. Using a role-based theory of state action in international politics based on symbolic interactionism and the work of George Herbert Mead, Britain and World Power since 1945 puts forward a novel interpretation of Britain’s engagement in four key international episodes: the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Skybolt Crisis of 1962, Britain’s second application to the European Economic Council in 1966–67, and Britain’s reinvasion of the Falklands in 1982. McCourt concludes with a discussion of international affairs since the end of the Cold War and the implications for the future of British foreign policy.
This book examines Britain and Norway in Europe from 1945 through to the former's departure from the European Union in 2020. It compares their European relations and investigates their bilateral relationship within the contexts of security, trade and, above all, European integration. Britain and Norway are outsiders in Europe, and they have both been sceptical of the continental federalist approach to European integration. The question of membership itself has been highly controversial in both countries: the public has been divided on the issue; it has plagued political parties and governments; and prime ministers have resigned over European issues. This book explores why these countries have struggled so deeply with the idea of Europe since 1945, and looks ahead to how the relationship between Britain and Norway might develop after Brexit.
Based on fresh archival research and interviews this book offers a new look at the history of this distinct era of European integration. Chapters from leading scholars include subjects ranging from European law to EC expansion, and from the European Currency System to the application of Greece to join the Community. Overall, the book provides a fresh interpretation of the period - as one not simply of crisis and stagnation.
