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Rhiannon Vickers, Britain's Policy Towards the European Community: Harold Wilson and Britain's World Role, 1964–1967. By Helen Parr., Twentieth Century British History, Volume 18, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 258–260, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwl032
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Extract
With the release of government documents for the 1960s, there has been a marked increase in the work on the Wilson governments. This book focuses on the period between 1964 and 1967, when Harold Wilson reversed his position on Europe and made an unsuccessful bid to join the European Community. As such, it is the first in-depth study of this issue using primary documents. Parr argues that Wilson's turn towards the European Community was not due to collapsing alternatives, neither was it driven by domestic political considerations, nor a tactical device to get round conflict from within his Cabinet and party. This is an interesting approach, as much of the previous work on Wilson has tended to see him as instinctively hostile to the European Community, and only reluctantly deciding to bid for entry in 1966 either because he felt that Britain had no choice due to its growing economic problems, or as a cynical ploy to keep the support of the pro-Europeans in his Cabinet. Parr says that Wilson's policy shift was neither inevitable, nor was it a cynical ploy. Rather, she argues that Wilson did genuinely decide sometime between 1964 and 1966 that it was in Britain's interests to join the European Community; that from early 1965 the notion of ultimate accession to the Community was a growing feature of his policy; and that the July 1966 sterling crisis and the accelerated withdrawal from the Far East meant that Wilson increasingly looked to British leadership in Europe to forge a new overseas role. Furthermore, Wilson's strategic priority in 1967 was to ensure British accession to the European Community in the long run. He did not, as is sometimes argued, set out aiming to fail in his bid for membership. While his 1967 bid was vetoed by de Gaulle, Parr also argues that it had wider significance in that it helped pave the way for Heath's successful 1970 bid to the European Community in terms of shaping British domestic opinion.
