Abstract
This article explores the November 1962 South Dorset by-election when the intervention of an anti-Common Market candidate split the Conservative vote and allowed Labour to win this previously safe Conservative seat. Party officials at the time sought to dismiss the outcome as a ‘freak’ result. For those opposed to EEC membership it suggested that this was the beginning of a groundswell of anti- Europeanism. Exploiting previously unused archival sources, this article argues that this by-election was not a vote against the EEC, given that there were too many local factors to have made it a mini-referendum; the Conservative campaign was ultimately at fault and lost Angus Maude the seat.
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