The Common Market and Conservative Party politics, 1961–2

Extract

The Common Market as an issue in domestic British politics under the Macmillan government – and distinct from the negotiations, as such, with the European Economic Community – can be considered under three broad heads. First, there is the question how the decision to seek entry for Britain was taken. How far was it a political decision; how far was it motivated by the views of civil servants; how far was it prompted by interest groups in industry and finance ? Secondly, how did the Conservative Party become converted to the idea of British membership of the European Economic Community and how significant was the opposition to the idea that developed in the party ? The third question is what effect, if any, did domestic political opposition to the Common Market have on the French President's eventual veto of the project ?

Except by implication, the third question is excluded from consideration here. Only a close student of French domestic politics is competent to evaluate how far, if at all, the hostility to the European idea in a section of the Conservative Party and the official objections of the Labour Party to British membership of EEC on any terms that then seemed negotiable, made it easier for the French President to impose his final veto. Conceivably, the possibility that a successor labour government might disown any treaty that the conservatives had signed may have played a marginal part in assisting the President's attitude in the final stages.