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William Wallace How the Liberal Party Became Committed to European Union

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William Wallace How the Liberal Party Became Committed to European Union William Wallace How the Liberal Party Became Committed to European Union t was not inevitable that the Liberal Party retrenchment in military spending. Protection should have become identified with sup- and economic nationalism, he and others argued, port for European unity. Throughout the made for war. The party later split both on Ire- Ipost-war years until the 1960 Liberal Assem- land and on free trade, with Joseph Chamberlain bly, a significant minority within the party opting in the 1890s for Imperial Preference. Many saw European integration as incompatible with Liberals did not distinguish between their eco- free trade, not as a step towards economic and nomic interest (often as businessmen or mill-own- political cooperation. When the 1961 Assem- ers) and their idealist commitment to peace and bly committed the party unequivocally to sup- international harmony. The impact of John May- port Macmillan’s first application to join the nard Keynes on Liberal Party thinking between European Communities there was near civil the wars, and the support that Lloyd George and war in France over Algeria, Italy was governed others gave to his commitment to a more active by Christian Democrats supported by the CIA state role in managing the economy, led to the against a Communist opposition, and West Ger- party giving out confused – even contradictory – many still had a number of judges and officials messages about free trade and the size of the state who had also held office in the 1930s: plenty of in the interwar years. reasons to be wary of commitment, only six- In the immediate aftermath of the First World teen years after the Second World War. A num- War, what Roy Douglas describes as ‘the Lib- ber of leading Liberals had been involved in the eral civil war’ revolved around how to respond to Council of Europe in the late 1940s, supporting unemployment and industrial adjustment; Lib- transatlantic cooperation and West European erals in parliament split three ways on issues of integration as steps towards a democratic world temporary protection and the ‘safeguarding of order; Clement Davies praised the Schuman industries’.3 Lloyd George’s establishment in the Plan of 1950 for a European Coal and Steel Com- 1920s of ‘a wide range of Inquiries, which were at munity as ‘the greatest step towards peace in the least as well staffed and financed as Royal Com- annals of European history.’1 Yet even for many missions’, deepened the contradictions between party members, the European continent seemed the Cobdenite commitment to free trade and remote and insecure; for all except those who retrenchment and the emerging Keynesian sup- had fought from Italy or Normandy through to port for an active and interventionist state. The Germany, it remained much more foreign than Beveridge Report, and Sir William Beveridge’s Canada, Australia or New Zealand. The conver- welcome into the Liberal Party, and entry into sion of a party of local activists and enthusiasts parliament in the Berwick by-election of 1944, for the distant goal of world government into strengthened the image of a Keynesian social an active supporter of European integration was liberal party. During the Second World War, above all due to the charismatic persuasiveness of however, commitment to international institu- Jo Grimond as leader, with the support of a small tions and open borders for both Keynesians and group of key advisers.2 Cobdenites remained global, as against regional Free trade was a fundamental tenet of political – partly because Liberals resisted a return to Brit- liberalism in the late nineteenth century and the ish ‘imperial preference.’ Sir Percy Harris, then first half of the twentieth century. Richard Cob- one of the party’s longest-serving MPs, warned in den had committed the infant Liberal Party to 1944 that regional economic federations ‘in pro- free trade and open borders, as making for peace portion as they are exclusive in character must and international cooperation, and permitting contain a threat to international harmony.’4 38 Journal of Liberal History 98 Spring 2018 How the Liberal Party Became Committed to European Union Top: Clement Davies, Oliver Smedley Bottom: Walter Layton, Jo Grimond Journal of Liberal History 98 Spring 2018 39 How the Liberal Party became committed to European Union The Liberal Party after 1945 and for close British engagement in the political The war had provided divergent lessons for Liber- and economic reconstruction of Western Europe: als, and for others who joined as peace returned. Denis Healey, Lord Carrington, Edward Heath, The distinction between liberals and libertarians against Enoch Powell, Hugh Gaitskell, Harold was not then as evident as today. Exiles from the Wilson and others who spent the war in Africa and continent such as Friedrich von Hayek, who had India or in economic and transatlantic roles. Few moved to the London School of Economics at the of the leading figures in the post-war Liberal Party invitation of Lionel Robbins in 1931, had revolted had witnessed conflict on the continent; but many against the corporatist states of interwar Europe, of those who formed the core group around Jo Gri- and saw the only way to protect The Constitu- mond had. Grimond himself had been a staff officer tion of Liberty (the title of one of Hayek’s works in the 53rd division as it fought its way from Nor- on political economy) as paring back the role of mandy to Hamburg, Desmond Banks a colonel in government and taxation in the economy, leav- the artillery, Frank Byers a colonel on Montgom- ing private enterprise free to flourish. Beveridge ery’s staff. Mark Bonham Carter had been captured had been one of the leading members of the Aca- by the Italians in Tunisia, escaped from an Italian demic Assistance Council in the 1930s, formed to prison camp when Italy surrendered and joined help professors from Germany and other Central the Guards Armoured Division as it fought its way European countries who had fled to Britain; some into Germany; the experience, including the emo- of these came to see Britain as a model free society tion of liberating a concentration camp, made him in contrast to what they saw as a naturally author- ‘a passionate European’.6 Richard Wainwright itarian continent, and taught their students to had been a conscientious objector in the Friends share their view of an exceptional free England.5 Ambulance Unit, who had been with the unit as it With a Labour government in power, strengthen- followed the army from Normandy through Ant- ing the grip of the central state over the economy, werp to Germany as it collapsed.7 over local authorities and over individual citizens, There was also an age difference in attitudes to Liberalism and anti-socialism overlapped as moti- regional cooperation. Older Liberals held more vating instincts within the party. often to the view that global free trade, with the Attitudes to cooperation with our European distant objective of world government, was supe- neighbours did not stand alone. They were mostly rior to regional schemes. Young Liberals, particu- part of contrasting mindsets – as they still are. larly in university societies, were more attracted Opponents of state intervention were often also by the idea of ‘federal union’ to unite a war-torn committed to the British Empire and Common- Europe. The 1948 Liberal Assembly, meeting wealth (as they then were) as forces for good in a month before the Hague Congress on Euro- world politics, alongside the Anglo-Saxon USA. pean Union, supported the creation of ‘a political Commitment to free trade meant opposition to union strong enough to save European democracy agricultural protection and the arguments for and the values of Western civilization’, although Clement Davies food security which marked continental agri- accepting an amendment pressed by Lord Sam- as party leader cultural policies; cheap food for Britain came uel, Lady Violet Bonham Carter and others to from Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand insist that this should not conflict with Com- insisted that and our African and Caribbean colonies. Global monwealth, UN or transatlantic links. Clement defence commitments kept open ‘the sea lanes’ Davies as party leader insisted that there was no there was no for British trade; so free traders were often strong contradiction between European integration and supporters of Britain’s global status and high the goal of world government; he was repeatedly contradiction defence spending. Proponents of Keynesian inter- critical of what he called ‘the imperial mind’ that ventionism were more open to cooperation with governed British foreign policy.8 between Euro- the continent, recognising the benefits of cooper- One of the older generation of Liberals was ation between employers and workers that conti- much more directly in touch with those who pean integration nental partnership brought. And they were often were designing the institutions of West Euro- and the goal of much more critical of British imperial policy in pean cooperation. Walter Layton, who became Malaya, Africa and Cyprus in the post-war years. a Liberal peer in 1946 and served as the group’s world govern- These opposing mindsets ran across all of the deputy leader from 1952 to 1955, had been an eco- political parties – linking support for nuclear nomics lecturer in Cambridge alongside Keynes ment; he was deterrence to the concept of a ‘global Britain’ when they and others were called into govern- with an exceptional role derived from its partner- ment in the First World War. During that war repeatedly critical ship with the USA and its leadership of the Com- he worked in allied economic planning in Lon- monwealth, and conversely linking opposition to don, Paris and Washington; ‘one of several life- of what he called nuclear deterrence to opposition to the ‘illusions’ long partnerships formed then was with a young of global status.
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