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The Soames Affair 61
However, recent archival research has demonstrated that de Gaulle’s proposals
to Soames came in the midst of an increasingly successful period for Wilson’s
European policy. 7 The French veto led Wilson to follow an aggressive,
multi-faceted European policy. He and the then foreign secretary George Brown
retained the ultimate aim of full membership of the Community. In the meantime,
however, they directed their efforts towards preventing Community developments
that might endanger long term British membership, and at securing some kind of
‘interim solution’ involving meaningful co-operation with the Five. They would
also focus on strengthening the British economy, thus dealing with some of the
criticisms that de Gaulle had made in his veto speech.
Leaving the application ‘on the table’, as Wilson put it, was therefore positive
rather than resigned. Wilson and Brown (and his successor Michael Stewart)
ensured through allies among the Five that the British application dominated the
Community agenda. This domination of the agenda was supplemented when allies,
notably Italy and the Netherlands, held up Community business in explicit protest
at the French veto. Although the Six made some progress in integration during the
veto period, such as the completion of the Common External Tariff in July 1968,
the Dutch repeatedly refused to participate in – and thus effectively blocked –
discussions on technology co-operation, while they and the Italians held up talks on
political co-operation. Ultimately, the Five refused to concede French demands on
the Common Agricultural Policy without reciprocal movement on British
membership. It is clear that the British, both by continuing to press the application
after the veto, and by enlisting the assistance of Community allies, delayed
progress towards further integration within the Community itself. Given that such
progress, particularly in the technology, foreign policy and agricultural policy
fields, could have placed significant barriers in the way of eventual British
membership, such forestalling can be seen as a foreign policy success for Her
Majesty's Government (HMG).
Negotiating any kind of pre-membership ‘interim arrangement’ proved
considerably more difficult. In order to preclude any possible French charge of
attempting to sabotage or circumvent the Community itself, and to avoid the
possibility of another French veto of British ideas, HMG again worked through
friendly states. All members of the Community made proposals for short-term
arrangements. The French themselves co-sponsored with Germany proposals for a
‘trading arrangement’ with limited agricultural content in January 1968, although
they then rejected subsequent German efforts to turn those proposals into anything
more concrete. Likewise, the French rejected suggestions from the three Benelux
states for significant advances in, inter alia, foreign policy co-operation. As it
became increasingly clear that the French were both isolated and recalcitrant, the
others began consideration of proposals that could proceed without France. Easing
7. M. PINE, Application on the Table: the Second British Application to the European Communities,
1967-1970, unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2003. The following paragraphs are
drawn from this work.