journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Erin Delaney
was prepared to review its position. It saw significant changes at the European level
which contributed to its change of policy, and the Labour Party emerged reunified
in the late 1980s as the party for Europe.
The first section will provide an historical outline of the Labour Party’s opposition
to European integration, through the 1950s until the mid 1960s. I then analyse
the changes on the European level during 1965-1967 and demonstrate how a faction
of the Labour Party noted the shift, leading to division and internal breakdown
of the Party during 1967-1987. The 1980s and early 1990s marked the final transformation
of the Labour Party; in this section, I draw the links between this move to
Europe and the expanding possibility for Labour to implement social change on the
European level. 6
Labour Unified in Opposition to European Integration
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Labour Party remained, by and large, united
against the integration movements on the continent. Part of their antipathy to European
integration stemmed from the dangers they believed European integration
posed to the Commonwealth countries, as well as to the sovereignty of Parliament.
The other major concern of the Labour Party was that the proposed organisations
would not further socialist ideals in Britain, or in Europe. 7 In addition, there was a
perception that those same organisations and their institutions might go so far as to
hinder or undo successes that the Labour Party had had in implementing a socialist
agenda within Britain.
Faced with the Schuman Plan, the first proposal for integration in the nascent
European movement in the early 1950s, the NEC issued a statement on international
affairs entitled, European Unity. 8 The document clarified the Labour Party's attitude
toward Europe: “In every respect except distance we in Britain are closer to
our kinsmen in Australia and New Zealand on the far side of the world, than we are
to Europe”. 9 Specifically, the statement outlined Labour’s stance, which had been
established at the 1950 Labour Party Conference, on the fledgling European Coal
and Steel Community (ECSC).
Delegates had spoken out strongly against the ECSC, using socialist rhetoric.
Mr. R. Edwards, a delegate representing the National Union of Vehicle Builders,
6. The author would like to thank Julie Smith and Anne Deighton for their help and advice on earlier
drafts of this article.
7. The Party may have had reason to believe this, as the governments of the states pushing for integration
were all led by centre right or Christian-Democrat governments.
8. An earlier attempt at European integration was the agreement in 1950 between the governments of
Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Britain to hold consultation in economic matters. This union was
called the UNISCAN. Its success was short-lived, however, as by 1953 the impetus driving Northern
economic harmonization was the Nordic Council, minus Britain.
9. 49th Annual Conference of the Labour Party, (Margate, 1950), p.85.