The Nuclear Deterrent and the British Election of 1964

Abstract

There was little reason to have expected Britain's international policies to be of major concern to most voters in casting their ballots in the 1964 General Election. Party disagreement over entering the European Economic Community was at least temporarily in abeyance after de Gaulle's veto. No great imperial question remained to divide Conservatives from the Labour or Liberal Parties. Membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was firmly bipartisan (or tripartisan). Moreover, British power was now so limited, in relation to the rest of the world, as to provide little basis for Englishmen to think that their nation could make important international decisions. At the same time, there were domestic economic problems about which, it was widely thought, a British government could and should do something. In short, every likelihood existed for electoral attention to be fixed almost entirely on domestic affairs. This would hardly have been unusual. Democratic elections ordinarily seem so conducted. Even if it were clearly desirable to have sharp partisan disagreement over a substantive international question, it is doubtful whether genuine alternatives often exist except perhaps for the super-powers.It is surprising, then, to find that a question of international policy was contested in the British General Election of 1964. The question was whether Britain should continue trying to have an independent nuclear deterrent. Labour (and the Liberals) proposed that the effort be abandoned. The governing Conservative Party was committed to its continuation. These divergent party policies did not, it is true, make the deterrent issue overwhelmingly important in the electoral decision.