Foreign Affairs

• Joined in 1973 after the third application in 1971 as everyone knew they would get accepted. This didn't solve divisions between political people .

  Britain's Third EEC entry
• • British PM Heath was pro-European
  • His first speech in Parliament was about the Schuman Plan
  • France had a new leader, Pompidou who convinced Britain and the EEC needed each other


  Why did Britain get accepted into the EEC
• The bigger issue was gaining parliamentary approval in Britain. There were doubters in the Conservative Party, partly from those who believed strongly in the Commonwealth and also from those who believed that Britain would be surrendering her sovereignty. One of the most vociferous critics was Enoch Powell. His relationship with Heath was already very poor in the aftermath of the 'rivers of blood' speech.
• Powell voted against the passage of the European bill through Parliament at every single stage. He believed that Heath had betrayed the country by signing the treaty before it had been debated in Parliament. He refused to stand as a Conservative candidate in the February 1974 election and even called on his supporters to vote Labour.
• Labour’s response to EEC:

  • some were pro-European such as Roy Jenkins but the left was really hostile
  • Labour couldn’t argue against joining the EEC because of how many pro-European mps there were in the party so instead Wilson argued against the terms and said they weren’t good enough for Britain.
• Wilson’s promises:

  • he promised a re-negotiation and a national referendum
  • in the end, 69 rebels labour MPs helped the conservative government to win the decisive commons vote with 20 more abstaining.
• Why was the referendum for Europe’s membership:

  • for party unity
  • he let each side of the party to argue what they believed in rather than trying to enforce a party line and Wilson and Callaghan presented themselves as neutral.
  • by 1975, voter support for Britain to stay in the EEC was stronger.
  • economy: it was in such a state that people of England believed they needed the EEC to recover
  • most of the press was in support of staying in the eec
• Campaigns for referendum:

  • the ‘yes’ campaign was well financed by business supporters. A survey in 1975 found that out of 419 company chairman, only 4 wanted to leave.
  • chairman of the ‘yes’ campaign were higher profile politicians such as Jenkins and Heath which made a bigger impression on the public than the other side.
  • ’no’ campaign: led by Castle and Foot from the left of the party who argued the EEC membership would be worse off for workers in Britain.
  • some also said this would mean Britain would be less independent who included people like Tony Benn and Enoch Powell.
• Question for referendum: ‘Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community?’

  17 million (69%) voted ‘yes’ and 8 million (32%) voted no in July 1975.
• Significance of referendum:

  • this meant that Britain was definitely in but the fact that the referendum was held was a sign of lack of commitment.
  • wilson: he was pleased with this outcome and he avoided a labour split.
  • labour was becoming for anti and conservatives were opposed to the increasing power of Europe.
• Edward Heath’s approach to special relationship:

  orientated towards Europe he was less inclined to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance. He rejected attempts by the United States' secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to use Britain as a link with Europe and insisted that the United States should negotiate with the European Community as a whole, rather than using Britain as a go-between.
• Kissinger commented that Heath 'dealt with us with an unsentimentality totally at variance with "the special relationship". However, Heath personally got on with the US president, Richard Nixon, and he was more forthright in his support for the United States policy in Vietnam than Harold Wilson had been.
• Yom Kippur War:

  a short war in October 1975 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states including Egypt and Syria. The State's supported Israel and the USSR supported the Arab states so the conflict also had implications for the Cold War.
• Wilson and Callaghan still keen on the Atlantic alliance. Callaghan forged a strong personal relationship with Kissinger and negotiated the replacement of Polaris nuclear missiles with Trident in 1979 with President Jimmy Carter. Nevertheless, they completed the withdrawal from East of Suez that had been started in the 1960s despite US disquiet.
• Reason for why Britain continued to work with the US:

  Britain and the United States continued to work together in the 1970s, despite disagreements, is that they continued to share the foreign policy objective of holding back communism.
• The USSR and China were the most powerful communist nations in the world. The context of the ongoing Cold War meant that relations between Britain and these countries had been based on suspicion, bordering on hostility.

  However, in the 1970s the United States' relationship with both the USSR and China improved - and in both cases Britain followed the United States' lead.
• Why did tensions increase between Britain and USSR:

  During the 1970s there was what was called a détente. After the tension of the Cuban Missile Crisis, successive presidents of the US and the USSR tried to prevent such a situation recurring by establishing direct contact. This led to meetings and eventually agreement to limit the build-up of arms.
• Tensions with USSR:

  tension remained as there were still fears about the USSRs influence in Eastern Europe. This was demonstrated by the Georgi Markov affair. Markov was a Bulgarian who defected to the West in 1969 and was outspoken in his criticism of the Bulgarian communist regime. He was assassinated in London in 1978, supposedly by a poisonous pellet fired from an umbrella; the Russian secret service, the KGB, were suspected of being behind it though this was never proven.