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

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Erin Delaney
Gaitskell had managed to unify the Party behind a stance advocating conditional entry
and promoting nationalism. 27 His sudden death robbed the Party of an able leader,
and perhaps of the promise of future Party unity. Nonetheless, initially, under the new
leader Harold Wilson, the Labour Party appeared to maintain a general unanimity on
the subject of the Five Conditions. The 1964 Labour Election Manifesto did not mention
the EEC. It outlined Labour's approach to Europe in one sentence:
“Though we shall seek to achieve closer links with our European neighbours, the
Labour Party is convinced that the first responsibility of a British Government is still
to the Commonwealth”. 28
The Labour Left saw the EEC as “a Conservative exercise in economic escapism”;
they believed that economic recovery would be through national planning.
The 1964 Manifesto presented Labour's economic plans, including a reintroduction
of a planned economy, the re-establishment of public ownership of the iron
and steel industries, as well as an extensive regional policy designed to help the less
developed or declining areas within the UK. At the first Labour Conference following
the election, 29 there was little mention of entry to the EEC and the Common
Market - the subject was confined to the speech of George Brown, the Foreign Secretary:
“In view of the difficulties now within the Common Market we cannot talk
airily of 'going into Europe' without defining what that means”. 30
In the journal, Common Market, an article appeared in 1965 that, after describing
the Labour Government's attitude toward the EEC, declared: “any direct Labour
initiative to join the Common Market can therefore be dismissed as overwhelmingly
unlikely.” 31 And in fact, the Prime Minister, Labour leader Harold
Wilson, emphatically stated in April 1965 that
“there is no question whatever of Britain either seeking or being asked to seek entry
into the Common Market in the immediately foreseeable future. So far as this Government
are concerned, the conditions we laid down still apply”. 32
27. He could not, at this point, seem to unify the Party around one vision of socialism. He was unable to convince
the Party that the much vaunted Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution had outlived its usefulness,
and the right-left split over that issue foreshadowed the factionalism of the 1970s and 1980s. See T.
NAIRN, The Left Against Europe?, op.cit.; and T. JONES, Remaking the Labour Party, op.cit.
28. Labour Manifesto 1964, in: F.W.S. CRAIG (ed.), British Election Manifestos 1959-1987, Aldershot:
Parliamentary Research Services, 1990, p.56.
29. A comment at this Conference foreshadows a future split between the leaders of the Government
and the rank and file of the Labour Party. No longer were Party and Government viewed as a unified
entity. The split would occur five years later over the EEC. The Rt. Hon. R. J. Gunter, M.P.
and Chairman of the Conference remarked: "You know, the Labour Government is not the Labour
Party, and the Labour Party is not the Labour Government. We all know this is so. The Government
no more dictates to the Party than the Party dictates to the Government. The Labour Party exists as
a party so that we may progress towards a Socialist society, and for that we must have Labour governments".
64th Annual Conference …, op.cit., p.112.
30. Ibid., p.181. George Brown was personally pro-Europe, as were some other ministers; however,
he was not at this point able to push for integration against a strong anti-Europe majority.
31. A Look across the Channel, in: Common Market 5, no.2(1965), p.28. Prior to 1966, all articles in
the Common Market journal reflected the opinions of the Editorial Board.
32. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 5 th Series, 711(1965): 623.