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

The Labour Party's Changing Relationship to Europe 129
external aid to developing nations both inside and outside the Commonwealth” and
proposed to “make our aid more effective by helping recipient countries to plan
their development and to select worthwhile projects on which to spend our aid”. 39
During 1967 a faction of the Labour Party, including Prime Minister Wilson,
began to see opportunities for social policies within the European framework. Harold
Wilson believed Europe could advance his domestic agenda: “The question is
whether any proposed surrender of sovereignty will advance or retard our progress
to the kind of world we all want to see”. 40 The TUC also saw benefits on the European
level, and when invited to join the trade union centre of the Six (ECTUS), the
TUC sent two representatives to their Executive Committee. 41
In retrospect, the political shift of the Community is apparent; that it was noted
by Labour leaders and contemporary journals at the time reaffirms its importance:
“It is evident that EEC members like France remain free to practise a high degree of
economic planning. In the Common Market's own practice, the trend is toward more
central control of national economic life along lines attractive or at least acceptable
to Socialism. Many young Labour MPs and Ministers have 'discovered' the European
institutions, and have found them less dangerous than they imagined”. 42
The Labour leadership officially recognised the leeway allowed by the European
institutions after Wilson's trip to meet with the Heads of Government of the Six.
The meetings were arranged to assess the possibility of safeguarding British interests
in an application for EEC membership, and were conducted from January to
March 1967. During the series of meetings, which also included a February visit to
the EEC Commission itself, Wilson began to understand the difference between the
Treaty of Rome and its practical application within the Community. 43 In his memoirs,
Wilson described his discussion with the Italian Ministers about an important
Labour issue, regional policy:
“We then turned to regional policies. The answers we received, both on the freedom
we require for existing regional policies and on our plans to extend them, were reassuring.
It was important to us that we should be able to report that in the matter of
regional policies, Community practice allowed a great deal of latitude”. 44
In other countries as well, Wilson was told that the laws of the Community in
practice could allow for many of Labour's requirements.
39. Labour Manifesto 1966, op.cit., p.99.
40. H. WILSON, Purpose in Politics, op.cit., p.110.
41. L.J. ROBINS, The Reluctant Party, op.cit., p.65.
42. P. LEWIS, Britain in Transition, in: Common Market 6, nos.9-10(1966), pp.181-182.
43. Upon returning from Europe, George Brown, the Foreign Secretary, said of himself and Wilson:
“I'd long ago discovered that the Treaty of Rome, like the Bible, takes account of any possible sin,
provides the antidote and thereby offers ways and means of obtaining sanctity afterwards. On our
tour of Europe the Prime Minister also learned this. We found that other people bound by the Treaty
of Rome had managed to provide for all their private troubles, and it was pretty obvious that we
could provide for ours, even within the terms of the Treaty”. G. BROWN, op.cit., p.221.
44. H. WILSON, A Personal Record, Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1971, p.332.