1 The Revival and Success of Britain’s Second Application for Membership of the European Community, 1968-71 Daniel Edwin Furby Submitted for PhD in History Queen Mary, University of London 2 Abstract On 19 December 1967, France formally imposed a veto on British entry to the European Community. The Labour government of Harold Wilson had applied for membership of the Community in May of that year, but the French, in accordance with the views of their President, Charles de Gaulle, implacably opposed enlargement negotiations. Yet just three and a half years later, in June 1971, accession negotiations between Britain and the Community recorded agreement on the critical issues, thereby removing the major diplomatic obstacles to British membership. Why this turnaround in fortunes occurred, and what contribution the governments of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath made to it, are the questions at the heart of this thesis. In its analysis of these historic events, this thesis provides numerous new findings. It re-interprets British actions in relation to the controversial ‘Soames affair’ of February 1969. It demonstrates the impact of The Hague summit upon the cost of British membership, and shows how this influenced internal debate about the case for joining the Community. Fresh light is shed upon the critical phase of the accession negotiations between January and June 1971, both in regard to Pompidou’s actions and motivations, and the role of the May 1971 Heath-Pompidou summit in the successful outcome. The thesis is based primarily upon British governmental sources held at the National Archives. The private papers of key participants have also been consulted, as well as parliamentary debates, political diaries, memoirs, and 3 newspapers. In addition, the papers for the presidency of Georges Pompidou, deposited at the Archives Nationales , are employed to illuminate French actions at the two pivotal moments of the accession negotiations: the impasse of March 1971; and the Heath-Pompidou summit two months later. 4 Contents Acknowledgements 5 List of Abbreviations 7 Introduction 8 1. ‘Poker with the General’: Britain, Europe and de Gaulle, January 1968 to April 1969 31 2. The Price of Success: Britain, Pompidou and The Hague Summit, May to December 1969 80 3. Public Equivocation and Private Determination: Wilson’s Domestic Balancing Act, January to June 1970 122 4. The Arrival of Heath: the Conservative Government and the Second Application, June to December 1970 156 5. Enlargement Enigma: Britain, the Élysée and the Accession Negotiations, January to June 1971 193 6. A High-Political Package Deal: the Heath-Pompidou Summit and the Climax of the Accession Negotiations, May to June 1971 232 Conclusions 289 Bibliography 304 5 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Queen Mary History Department for awarding me the three year studentship that enabled me to carry out my research, and for giving me the opportunity to teach and lecture on ‘Britain and Europe’. The Queen Mary Stretton Fund financed one of my research trips, and the European University Institute in Florence provided me with the opportunity to escape London for six months as a Visiting Student in their unique environment. My supervisor, Dr James Ellison, has my gratitude for more reasons than I will try to mention here. Above all, his careful reading and detailed comments upon draft chapters have consistently challenged me to better my work, as well as steering me away from the many pitfalls which might otherwise have caught me out. Professor Peter Hennessy read and commented upon the thesis at late notice, and I would like to extend a special thanks to him for that, in addition to his feedback on earlier drafts. For their important contributions to my progress from undergraduate study to doctoral research, my thanks go to Professors Nigel Ashton, David Dutton, Michael Hughes and Robert Lee. Professors Julian Jackson and Kiran Patel gave valuable advice on particular sections of the thesis, and Graham Avery and Veera Nisonen also made helpful comments. Eirini Karamouzi deserves special mention for her assistance at the Archives Nationales in Paris. My 6 thanks to other friends that have helped in numerous ways: Emma de Angelis, Marie Julie Chenard, Paul Gunn, Henry Miller and Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement over many years. My decision to start a PhD I know came as a surprise; I hope that they will feel it was worth the hours. I dedicate this thesis to them. 7 List of Abbreviations AE/AEO Ministerial Committee on the Approach to Europe/Official Committee on the Approach to Europe, June 1970 onwards AN Archives Nationales, Paris CAB Cabinet Office Files CAP Common Agricultural Policy CCAC Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge CFP Common Fisheries Policy COREPER Committee of Permanent Representatives DNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography DOP Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, June 1970 onwards EC European Community ECSC European Coal and Steel Community EEC European Economic Community EFTA European Free Trade Association EID European Integration Department, Foreign Office EURATOM European Atomic Energy Community EUR(M)/EURO Ministerial Committee on the Approach to Europe/Official Committee on the Approach to Europe, until June 1970 ES Ministerial Committee on Economic Strategy FEOGA Fonds Européen d’Orientation et de Garantie Agricole FO/FCO Foreign Office/Foreign and Commonwealth Office HMG Her Majesty’s Government HCD/HCP House of Commons Debates/House of Commons Papers IMF International Monetary Fund MISC Miscellaneous Committees NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation OPD Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, until June 1970 OEEC Organisation for European Economic Cooperation OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PREM Prime Minister’s Office files PUS Permanent Under-Secretary T Treasury files TNA The National Archives, London TUC Trades Union Congress WEU Western European Union WGE Working Group on Europe 8 Introduction On 8 May 1967, Harold Wilson began a three day debate in the House of Commons on his government’s decision to apply for membership of the European Communities. 1 His speech was an 85 minute tour d’horizon of the potential consequences of British accession. Reaching his peroration, Wilson declared that, in asking the House to endorse the application, he was asking it ‘to take an historic decision’. 2 Sitting opposite Wilson was the man who, until recently, had been perhaps the most recognised champion of a British future in Europe, Edward Heath, leader of the Conservative Party. Just six years earlier, Heath had been the head of the British negotiating team during the first attempt to join the Community between 1961 and 1963. For this very reason, he questioned the proposition that Labour’s application was ‘historic’, and suggested that British membership should be seen as a ‘part of the wide sweep of European history’. 3 To Heath, it was both natural and logical that Britain should be at the centre of the movement towards greater unity in Europe. In the coming years, as the 1967 application met with short-term failure, was then revived and finally brought to a successful conclusion, both men would seek to denigrate the value of the other’s contribution. 4 Such 1 Hansard, House of Commons Debates (hereafter HCD ), vol.746, 8 May 1967, col.1061; Time Magazine , ‘The Possibility of an Instant Jump’, 12 May 1967 (page number unspecified), available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843728,00.html?artId=843728?contType= article?chn=us , accessed on 16 July 2010. Hereafter, the European Communities will be referred to in the singular, European Community or EC. 2 Hansard, HCD , vol.746, 8 May 1967, col.1097. 3 Hansard, HCD, vol.746, 9 May 1967, col.1282. 4 For example: E. Heath, Old World, New Horizons: The Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, 1967 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp.2-3; and Wilson, Hansard, HCD , 5 th series, vol.823, 28 October 1971, esp. col.2081. 9 politicking was purely superficial; one of the most important factors in the ultimate success of the application was the consistency of purpose to that end shown by successive Labour and Conservative governments, for which Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are primarily responsible. Wilson’s pursuit of early British entry to European Community was to be curtailed by a French veto in December 1967. Three and a half years later, however, in the summer of 1971, it became clear that accession negotiations between Britain and the Community were heading for a successful outcome. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the roles played by the governments of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath respectively in securing the ultimate success of the application. This Introduction will briefly review the development of Britain’s relationship with the European Community from its origins in the early 1950s, through to 1967. It will then go on to explain the contribution of the thesis to the existing literature and the methodology which has guided the research upon which it is based. Britain and the European Community, 1950-67 The European Community of the late 1960s and early 1970s was based upon three Communities formed during the 1950s. The first, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), was the product of an initiative in June 1950 by the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman. He proposed an organisation which would pool Europe’s coal and steel industries within a supranational framework (one where national powers of decision are 10 transferred to shared international institutions). Schuman’s plan was principally targeted at the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), but four other countries - Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands – also participated and the ECSC came into being in July 1952.5 The same six countries (hereafter referred to as ‘the Six’) went on to prepare a Treaty establishing a European Defence Community (EDC).