Victory in Europe? by Sabine Lee

Author:Sabine Lee [Lee, Sabine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Great Britain, General, Modern, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781317886211
Google: pM4FBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-07-15T01:23:38+00:00

6.2 Reorientation: Britain’s relations with the United States and Europe

If one name has been publicly associated with Britain's bid to join the European Community it is that of Edward Heath. As head of the British delegation negotiating Britain's first application from 1961 onwards, he witnessed de Gaulle's veto in January 1963. As British Prime Minister, he was leader of the United Kingdom, when, on 1 January 1973, the country finally entered the Common Market. When Edward Heath against all odds, led the Conservative Party to victory in June 1970, his government decided to put Europe at the top of its political agenda, and revived the previous government's application which had lain dormant since de Gaulle's effective veto in 1967.

As in other policy areas, the question of EEC enlargement in the early 1970s provided an opportunity for Britain and the Federal Republic, to fulfil a common foreign political goal. This was less due to a change in attitude or policy on the part of either of the two countries but more to the change of political leadership in France. Although the Heath government took a decisive move in pressing the issue of British membership in Brussels, it was the resignation of de Gaulle, in April 1969, and his succession by Georges Pompidou which allowed the membership question to be resolved in Britain's favour. Yet, in 1969 and 1970 it was by no means clear that this change would suffice to secure Britain's accession, and as in 1961/3 and 1967, hopes were pinned, among others, on German support — only this time with a more realistic chance of success.

The reverse side of Heath's strong commitment to Europe was an equally radical departure from another core element of postwar British foreign policy, namely the 'normalisation' of relations with the United States. Heath, unlike his predecessors was unconvinced about the 'special' nature of the transatlantic links between Britain and America. Although it had long been recognised that stronger links with continental Europe were not detrimental, but, in fact, favourable to a continuing close relationship with the United States, Heath chose to assert first and foremost Britain's European identity. He might have been led by the experiences of the negative effects of strong pro-American rhetoric on de Gaulle's decision not to allow Britain into Europe.30 Although Heath's relations with America were 'always correct, they rarely rose above the basic reserve that prevented — in the name of Europe — the close co-operation with [them]'.31 At a time when the other two central players in Europe, France and Germany, strove to improve their relations with the United States, Heath deliberately did not continue the customary early prime ministerial visits to the United States, and when he met President Nixon for the first time in Washington, in December 1970, he left him in no doubt about the new priorities in British foreign policy.32

Heath's shift away from the United States as the principal point of reference of British foreign policy was as explicit as it was nonantagonistic. Rifts

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