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The Labour Party's Changing Relationship to Europe 127
However, by 1967, Wilson was prepared to support an application for entry that
overlooked most of the original Labour conditions. What occurred between
1965-1967 to change Harold Wilson’s mind, and split the Party on Europe?
A Faction of the Party Turns to Europe – 1965-1967
Harold Wilson, elected to lead a government with a four-seat majority in 1964, was
neither pro- nor anti-Europe. There have been suggestions that the application for
entry in 1967 was done to appease the pro-Europeans in the knowledge that de
Gaulle would veto the effort. 33 However, there are indications that a legitimate shift
towards Europe was occurring in a faction of the Labour Party. Traditional analysis
points to the economy as the overwhelming rationale for the change in attitude
towards the EC. The benefits outlined in the Manifesto did not materialise, and the
economy entered a downward spiral. In addition, EFTA was not as successful as its
creators had hoped and efforts to create a linkage between the EFTA countries and
the EEC were rejected by the Six. 34 Thus, this failure of the Labour Party to
achieve its aims through national planning, coupled with the perceived inefficacy of
EFTA, is thought to have led to the renewed interest in the EEC. In addition to the
economic reasons, however, there is evidence of changes on the European level
which also influenced members of the Labour Party to turn towards Europe. Specifically,
the work of the new Commission pointed to an emerging promise of something
more compatible with the socialist goals of the Labour Party.
The leader of this first Commission was Walter Hallstein, who was a dedicated
'European' and expanded the role and power of the Commission within the Community.
Initially, it appeared that the Commission was only interested in achieving
liberal economic aims – an agenda that did not include full employment or other
Labour priorities. The immense challenge of beginning deregulation and the harmonisation
of industry necessary for the Common Market demanded tough action
from the Hallstein Commission in its first few years. The expansion of the institutions’
jurisdiction over certain social policies could have created more opposition
from the Labour Party; however, the increased focus and the ‘left of centre’ thinking
on social issues (complementary to the Labour ideology) were essential new elements
of the institutions in the late 1960s.
33. A. THORPE, A History of the British Labour Party, Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1997, p.170.
34. Wilson himself led the British delegation to the Vienna Conference where it was hoped
EEC-EFTA ‘bridge-building’ would be successful. However, it was not only the rejection of the
Six that weakened EFTA. “In 1962 part of Labour’s attack on the Conservative Government had
been based upon support for EFTA as an alternative European grouping which had no supranational
or restrictive political aspects. However, in October 1964 the Labour Government, which had
inherited a massive balance of payments deficit, itself weakened the organisation by imposing a 15
per cent surcharge on EFTA imports in clear contravention of the EFTA treaty”. M. NEWMAN,
Socialism and European Unity, op.cit., p.204.