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

132
Erin Delaney
posed a three-line whip against membership. Even though the terms of entry were negotiated
by the Conservatives, these Labour MPs believed that it did not
“automatically make them into ‘Tory Terms’; that is, terms which in their nature
must by opposed by members of the Labour Party. The Labour Committee for
Europe says these are terms that can honourably be supported by Socialists”. 53
Notwithstanding the rhetoric of the pro-Europeans, the majority of the Parliamentary
Labour Party voted no, and animosities deepened.
Many members of the Labour Party remained ideologically opposed to the idea
of the Common Market, even though Britain had joined. To the “guardians of the
Party’s ‘ultimate purpose’”, in other words, the Left-wing traditionalist socialists,
“there was still little to choose between the collaborationist Social Democratic Europe
of the revisionists and the capitalist-dominated Europe of the Conservative
Party”. 54 One Labour MP, Eric Deakins, declared: “I am not merely against Britain's
membership of the Common Market. Even if we were not in, I should be
against the Common Market's very existence”. 55
In the more moderate press, however, the benefits of the EEC, as noted in the
1965-1967 period, were still being reported. In a 1973 issue of Political Quarterly,
for example, an article discusses the increased attention paid to social policy within
the Community. It reviews the 1971 progress report on the actions taken by Community
institutions, Report on the Development of the Social Situation in the Community.
A key element of the actions taken in 1971 by the Community included the
reform of the European Social Fund “to allow the Community to promote schemes
itself directly instead of through national governments.” 56 This and other achievements
were touted as successes for socialism on the European stage.
Harold Wilson, still the leader of the party, attempted to create and maintain cohesiveness
in the party by throwing the European issue into the hands of the British
public. The major elements of the 1974 Labour campaign strategy were the commitments
to renegotiating the terms of entry and to a referendum on joining. The
renegotiation process was a balancing act between the leadership, which, while not
enthusiastic, was nonetheless committed to Europe, those on the pro-European
Right, and the Party's Left, which was strongly against any involvement.
The outlined renegotiation objectives in the Labour manifesto included the traditional
concerns for the Commonwealth and developing countries, as well as a demand
for changes in the Common Agricultural Policy and the Community Budget.
After Labour won the 1974 election, in an opening statement to the Council of
Ministers, the Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, reiterated that Britain “reserved
the right to withdraw from the Community if satisfactory terms could not be
53. The Labour Party and the European Communities, Labour Committee for Europe, Sept., 1971 as
quoted in L.J. ROBINS, The Reluctant Party, op.cit., p.88.
54. L.J. ROBINS, The Reluctant Party, op.cit., p.69.
55. Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 5 th Series, 865(1973): 306.
56. E. WISTRICH, Social Policy in the Community, in: Political Quarterly vol.44, no.2(April-June
1973), p.212.