'Swallow the lot, and swallow it now': Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU

Britain is making the same mistake about the EU now as Harold Macmillan did about the European Community in the 1960s, writes Piers Ludlow (LSE). Personal appeals to Général de Gaulle proved fruitless. The EU27 are unbending - not because they bear ill-will towards the British for voting to leave, but because the nature of the EU demands internal unity. ..

Introduction

This edited volume uses newly released archival material to show linkages between the development of the European Union and the Cold War. Containing essays by well-known Cold War scholars such as Jussi Hanhimaki, Wilfried Loth and Piers Ludlow, the book looks at: France, where neither de Gaulle nor Pompidou felt committed to the status quo in East-West or West-West relations, Germany, where Brandt’s Ostpolitik was acknowledged to be linked to the success of Bonn’s Westpolitik, and Britain, where the move towards Community membership was tightly bound up with a variety of calculations about the organization of the West and its approach to the Cold War. Nixon and Kissinger’s policies are set out as the background of US policy against which each of the European players was compelled to operate, explaining how Washington saw European integration as part of the over-arching Cold War

Hard-won but vital: EU enlargement in historical perspective

Enlargement has become one of the defining features of the European integration process. This was neither foreordained nor predicted by those who drafted the Treaty of Rome between 1956 and 1957. The founding fathers mentioned the possibility of countries joining in the Treaty preamble. They also included Article 237, which provided more detail on the procedure for new countries to join. But nothing in the historical record indicates any realisation on their part of how central the expansion of the European Community (EC)/EU would be to the integration process. Still, in the sixty years of subsequent development, ‘widening’ has in many ways had the most dramatic impact on the process that the Treaty set in motion

Don’t blame the worse-off for Brexit. Plenty of Britain’s ‘liberal elite’ backed it too

Brexit can’t simply be written off as a protest vote by worse-off, older and less educated voters, writes Piers Ludlow. Plenty of the so-called ‘liberal metropolitan elite’ – politicians like Boris Johnson, business leaders and journalists – also called for Britain to leave the EU. The dwindling number of pro-Europeans testifies to growing disillusionment with the European Union among the UK political elite

Hopes of a softer Brexit are probably in vain – though I’d love to be proved wrong

Are we heading for a softer Brexit after the Conservatives’ electoral setback? Piers Ludlow doubts it. There is little to suggest voters were warning Theresa May off a hard Brexit. The Cabinet reshuffle is unlikely to tip the balance, and even if she returns from Brussels with a softer deal it is far from clear that Labour would back it

Introduction: writing a supranational history of the EEC

A new and detailed study of the European Community's development between 1963 and 1969, with a special focus on the struggle between France and its EC partners over the purpose, structure and membership of the emerging European Community. On all three, French President Charles de Gaulle held divergent views from those of his fellow leaders. The six years in question were hence marked by a succession of confrontations over what the Community did, the way in which it functioned, and the question of whether new members (notably Britain) should be allowed to enter. Despite these multiple crises, however, the six founding members continued to press on with their joint experiment, demonstrating a surprisingly firm commitment to cooperation with each other. The period thus highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of the early Community and highlights the origins of many of the structures and procedures that have survived until the current day

The discomforts of life on the edge: Britain and Europe, 1963-1975

The publication of Stephen Wall's second volume of The official history of Britain and the European Community allows us to revisit a period when Britain found itself perched uncomfortably on the edge of the EEC. The period covered, between 1963 and 1975, includes the failure of Britain's first attempt to accede to the EEC in 1963, the second Labour-led application of 1967 which like its predecessor was thwarted by a veto from General Charles de Gaulle, the revival of Britain's second application once de Gaulle had left power, the membership negotiations of 1970–1, the struggle to secure parliamentary ratification of the European Communities bill, Britain's first year in the European Community and the Labour-inspired renegotiation of British membership in 1974, before ending with the 1975 referendum on British membership which resulted in a seemingly decisive popular vote in favour of remaining within the EEC. Throughout the emphasis is on the high politics of entry, with Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath playing the starring roles—and with de Gaulle cast as the lead villain

Michael Gove’s problem is that a single market is more than just a tariff-free zone

One of the key ideas in Michael Gove’s recent, much-publicised Brexit speech was that the UK could rely on membership of a European free trade zone. This idea constitutes a bizarre historical throwback to the early years of Britain’s relationship with what was then called the European Economic Community, or Common Market. But the relevance of his attempt to dismiss the economic case for continued EU membership in a 21st century context is highly questionable, writes Piers Ludlow

Britain’s liberal elite can’t wash their hands of Brexit

The Brexit vote has been linked by some commentators to disaffection among those who perceive themselves to be ‘losers’ from the process of globalisation. Piers Ludlow discusses the tendency of Britain’s liberal elite to distance themselves from the outcome of the referendum, noting that in reality they played a far more prominent role in shaping the final result than has been recognised