Britain in Europe? Conservative and Labour Attitudes to European Integration since the Second World War

European integration has been the most consistent theme in British foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the factors that shaped the European policies of the Conservative and Labour parties, and consider the extent to which these have been subsumed by the demands of domestic statecraft. At points (the early 1960s, the early 1990s, for example), ‘Europe’ has asserted its primacy over the political agenda. It has never done so, however, as an unadulterated, neatly delineated foreign policy matter, but rather as part of a web of debates and issues, often domestic in character. This can be seen in five key features of Britain’s European statecraft since 1945. Firstly, both parties have approached ‘Europe’ ideologically, processing it according to existing political beliefs and divisions, which manifested themselves as principally economic (for Labour), and principally political (for the Conservatives). In both forms, these debates were essentially about sovereignty, centring on the purpose and primacy of the Westminster system of government. Secondly, one can detect a continued, if multifaceted, allegiance to alternative political visions, both within the geographical confines of Europe and out-side. To write Britain’s European story as a narrative charting the rise of the European Union (EU) would ignore, for example, the Western European Union (WEU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), and the Council of Europe, as opportunities for different forms of European union, whether fully exploited or not. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.