Was the Macmillan government's decision to apply for membership of the European Communities the product of Britain's declining global status?

Résumé du document

The fear that Britain would become, as Labour's post-war Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin put it "just another European country" , was one of the main reasons to explain the British refusal to join a European supranational organisation. The Attlee government was indeed in favour of cooperation amongst Western European countries but did not want to be one of them . The view of the Foreign Office was that 'Great Britain must be viewed as a world power of the second rank and not merely as a unit of a federated Europe'. In fact, in 1945, Britain was in a mood of triumph. It had won the war and was relatively intact. It was the only European country to have successfully defied Hitler for more than five years. It considered itself a great power, the centre of Commonwealth and an Empire covering one-fifth of the globe, and an equal of the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The British media even proudly referred to the United Kingdom as one of the Big Three, and this was confirmed by Article 23 of the United Nations Charter which named Britain as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Extraits

[...] The decisive role in the defeat of Germany was played by the red Army. See Roy Denman, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century, (London: Cassell Publishers, 1997), p Labour's post-war Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. See introduction. W. Kaiser (1993), cited in Anthony Forster and Alasdair Blair, The Making of Britain's European Foreign Policy, (London: Pearson Education, 2002), p.19. Tugendhat and Wallace (1988), cited in Anthony Forster and Alasdair Blair, The Making of Britain's European Foreign Policy, (London: Pearson Education, 2002), p.69. [...]

[...] Anthony Forster, Euroscepticism in contemporary British politics opposition to Europe in the British conservative and labour parties since 1945, (London: Routledge, 2002), chapter 2. From Forster, 2002: 16. Report of an interdepartmental committee presided by Sir Frank Lee, recently translated from the Board of Trade and Treasury. See note 15. Cited in Lord Beloff, Britain and European Union: Dialogue of the deaf, (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), p.62. William Wallace, “What Price Interdependence? Sovereignty and Interdependence in British Politics,” International Affairs, (Summer, 1986), Vol. [...]

[...] The USA was becoming increasingly frustrated with British non-membership of the Community and saw accession as a means of pushing through its own agenda. In fact, the USA feared that de Gaulle's “third force” aspirations for Europe would weaken the Western Alliance and hoped Britain would steer the EC in a more “Atlantic” direction[7]. The USA wanted an open and outward looking EC and wanted Britain to be part of it. It was a strong incentive for Britain's government which was therefore able to re-fashion its thinking towards Europe with the understanding that it did so with American support. [...]

[...] Was the Macmillan government's decision to apply for membership of the European Communities the product of Britain's declining global status? The fear that Britain would become, as Labour's post-war Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin put it “just another European country”[1], was one of the main reasons to explain the British refusal to join a European supranational organisation. The Attlee government was indeed in favour of cooperation amongst Western European countries but did not want to be one of them[2]. The view of the Foreign Office was that “Great Britain must be viewed as a world power of the second rank and not merely as a unit as a federated Europe”[3]. [...]

[...] This can probably explain the scepticism on the continent as to the validity of Britain's commitment to Europe and the veto of de Gaulle. Britain eventually did gain entry into the EEC under the guidance of Edward Heath in 1973. Bibliography Lord Beloff, Britain and European Union: Dialogue of the deaf, (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), chapter 4. Roy Denman, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century, (London: Cassell Publishers, 1997), chapters Anthony Forster and Alasdair Blair, The Making of Britain's European Foreign Policy, (London: Pearson Education, 2002), Part I. [...]