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HISTORY - Title : - Title : - Title : When the six founding members of the European My own party, in a statement endorsed by an overwhelming As far as the functioning and the development of CS1 Britain joining the EEC: La- Economic Community (France, West Germany, majority at our party conference in 1962 said: “The Labour the Community are concerned, the communiqué bour-Tory consensus 1960-1975 Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) Party regards the European Community as a great and imagi- […] reported a ‘complete identity of views’ in this signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and asked native conception. It believes that the coming together of the regard. In the words of Mr Pompidou, this agree- Britain whether it fancied hanging out to see what six nations which have in the past so often been torn by war ment concerns the idea of ‘a Europe composed of Why was it so difficult for the UK to might happen, Britain said thanks, but no thanks. and economic rivalry is, in the context of Western Europe, a nations concerned with maintaining their identity join the EEC? […] step of great significance.” but having decided to work together to attain true By the early 1960s, though, Harold Macmillan, the Ten weeks ago […] I said to the House of Commons: “I unity.’ […] The French also welcomed the ac- Structure prime minister, had realised the mistake (it’s the want the House, the country and our friends abroad to know ceptance by the British of the ‘Community prefer- Applying to join the EEC 1961- trade, stupid) and started making overtures to- that the Government are approaching the discussions I have ence’ in agriculture […]. […] 1973 wards Brussels. […] foreshadowed with the clear intention and determination to These talks could not and were not intended to - But this time the brush-off came from Europe, or enter the European Economic Community if, as we hope, our replace the negotiations that will be held between more specifically France. In 1963, Charles de essential British and Commonwealth interests can be safe- the Community and the United Kingdom. However, - Gaulle said “non”. Britain had “very special, very guarded. We mean business.” there has been a particularly firm and unequivocal original habits and traditions”, he said, and was That, Mr. President, is our position. We mean business. assertion of the desire for and the possibility of - “very different from continentals” – it would prove Harold Wilson, speech to the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 23 success, notably on the British contribution to the an Anglo-Saxon trojan horse in a European stable. January 1967. financing of Community expenditure. Entering and staying in the EEC ‘Britain and the EU: the story of a very rocky marriage’, 'The final round : the main outcomes of the May meeting 1973-1975 John Henley, The Guardian, 23 June 2016. “I suspect you of driving under the influence of America”. Nor- between Edward Heath and Georges Pompidou', 30 jours - man Mansbridge, Punch cartoon, 11 October 1967. d'Europe, June 1971. President De Gaulle’s veto. Michael Cummings, - The Daily Express, 30 July 1962. The conclusion to the negotiations into the Eu- ropean Community. Michael Cummings, The Daily - Express, 28 January 1972. Notions Vocabulary HISTORY - Title : Londoners read newspapers headlines, 1 January 1973. Source: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis/Getty Images, TIME Magazine, April 11, 2019. Yesterday the latest opinion poll suggested that 38 per cent were happy CS1 Britain joining the EEC: La- about embarking on what Mr Heath depicted as an exciting adventure, bour-Tory consensus 1960-1975 while 39 per cent would prefer to get off. Twenty three per cent had no opinion at all. […] Mr Wilson, however, saw nothing to celebrate when we were going in Why was it so difficult for the UK to without that full-hearted consent of the British people, which Mr Heath join the EEC? had made a condition of entry and when the price of admission was "utterly crippling." […] Mr Enoch Powell, the Conservative most fa- Structure mous rebel said “The new year merely marks the commencement of a Applying to join the EEC 1961-1973 further and more vigorous phase of the campaign to ensure that in the - matter of Britain and the European Community, the preponderant wish of the British people that Britain should not be a member on present - terms should be heeded. ‘We're in - but without the fireworks’, David McKie & Dennis Barker, The Guardi- - Entering and staying in the EEC 1973-1975 Peter Shore (right), Labour trade secretary, campaigns against membership of the - Title : - EEC. Photograph: J. Wilds/Getty Images The Prime Minister had to rely more on its political opponents than on - its alleged political friends to secure the decision on Europe which he considered right for Britain, the leader of the Opposition, Mrs Margaret - Thatcher, declared yesterday. She was opening the second day’s de- bate on the Government’s recommendation to stay in the EEC. “It has been suggested in some quarter that my party might find it Notions tempting to withdraw support to embarrass the Prime Minister, but we have consistently voted in favour of Europe […]”. Mr Neil Marten (Conservative, Banbury) said that laws were finalised by “wheeling and dealing in secret in Brussels.” In that way the House of Commons has lost its sovereignty […]. He hoped that the British public would vote for self-rule and self-government and not rule by Brussels. ‘Case for staying in by Mrs Thatcher’, a report on the debate in the House of Commons, The Guardian, 9 April 1975. After the referendum (65,5% YES to 35.5% NO). - Title : Michael Cummings, The Daily Express, 18 June 1975. The champagne corks of the pro-Marketeers were still popping last Vocabulary night as Mr Wilson returned to Downing Street to face a double crisis involving the menacing economic situation but also the continuing unity of his Government and his party. The homecoming was nevertheless a unique and historic triumph for a Prime Minister who had secured the backing of the country over the head of a majority of his own party. He celebrated it with a brief state- ment declaring the formal end of the 14-year controversy over Europe and calling on the anti-Marketeers to join wholeheartedly in working inside Europe to solve the economic crisis. Shortly afterwards a group of the dissenting Ministers who fought hard but unsuccessfully to win a No majority in the referendum de- clared formally that they accepted the democratic verdict of the people. ‘Now Wilson has to tackle Left’, Ian Aitken, The Guardian, 7 June 1975. HISTORY The UK within the EEC. Cummings, the Daily Express, 30 April 1988. - Title : It was the moment when the Iron Lady showed she was a mighty wielder of the handbag, establishing her reputation as CS2 The Conservative New an uncompromising prime minister. In the summer of 1984, Right and Europe 1979-1997 the grocer's daughter from Grantham marched into the former French royal palace at Fontainebleau to demand, as she had put it earlier, "our money back" from the European How did the Conservative party show Community. Thatcher fans regard the European Council of its ambivalence towards Europe? June 1984 as one of their heroine's finest hours when she forced the French and Germans to reverse an unfair budget Structure deal to establish the multi-billion pound "British rebate". […] 1979-1984 Margaret Thatcher set- Under the terms of its entry to the EEC in 1973, Britain re- ting things right: “We want our ceived back from Brussels £1 for every £2 it paid over […]. money back” At Fontainebleau Thatcher won a rebate of 66% of the gap - between what it paid in and what was paid back. ‘Margaret Thatcher's European rebate demand was defeat’, Nicholas - Watt, The Guardian, Sat 4 Jul 2009. 1985-1990 Margaret Thatcher and - Title : Rebate and CAP. Keith Waite, Daily Mirror, 6 January 1984. further integration: “No, no, no” but... - Title : - The rebate will cut British payments, though by less than Mrs Thatcher said the EEC should remain committed to a free market - Mrs Thatcher had hoped […]. economy. "The basic framework is there: the Treaty of Rome itself was The armistice was described as intended as a charter for economic liberty," she said. "But that is not 1990-1997 John Major, a pro- a famous victory by the Prime how it has always been read, still less applied." Although the British European PM against his own party Minister: "This is a good deal Government supported the goal of freer trade and movement within the - for Britain." […] President EEC as part of the 1992 internal market, Mrs Thatcher said there was no Mitterrand […] was more re- question of totally abolishing frontier controls, although this was one of - strained […] [and] insisted that the objectives of the Single European Act agreed last year. the agreement was not so good Directly contradicting those who argue that internal border controls are Notions for Mrs Thatcher as the deal bureaucratic irrelevances in the fight against crime and terrorism, Mrs she was offered, and turned Thatcher said they would still be necessary "to protect our citizens and down, at the Brussels summit stop the movement of drugs, of terrorists, of illegal immigrants". in March. ‘Thatcher sets face against united Europe’, John Palmer, The Guardian, Wednesday Mrs Thatcher […] now has September 21, 1988 ever more reason to block further rises in revenue. […] The Delors Plan for more integration. Cummings, The Daily Express, 28 June Mrs Thatcher remains especial- 1989. ly keen to rein in the growth of the Common Agriculture Policy costs, which now account for more than two-thirds of all EEC spending.