Euroscepticisme et opposition à l’adhésion britannique au Marché Commun, 1955-1975

Abstract

While British Euroscepticism is frequently regarded as a phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s and is most often seen in relation to the Conservative Party and the Thatcher and Major governments, particularly in the years leading up to and immediately after the Maastricht Treaty, the key ideas that are associated with it could already be found in the debates around Britain’s place in Europe in the previous decades.From the earliest years of European integration with the ECSC in 1950 the refusal to be part of this process was almost unanimously supported in Britain. The multiple arguments behind this choice included many that would today be termed ‘Eurosceptic’. In 1961, as a result of the change of direction announced by the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and the opening of talks with the ‘Six’ about a possible British entry into the EEC, the European question assumed a central place in British political life. The ‘anti-marketeers’ mobilised support across the political spectrum, somewhat less among the ranks of the Conservatives, far more in the Labour Party. From both the left (Tony Benn) and the right (Enoch Powell), and at times drawing on quite different arguments, the campaign against the EEC during the 1975 referendum was unable to win over a majority of public opinion. Nonetheless, the supporters of this first attempt at a “Brexit” did succeed in placing the European question, and that of Britain’s place in Europe, at the centre of both the national political debate and of the ideological and political struggles that were tearing apart the Labour and Conservative Parties. The clashes between rival factions in the two parties in large part revolved around this question of Europe. One consequence of this was that the ‘anti-marketeers’ of these years established the ideological and organisational foundations for the following generation of Eurosceptics.