‘The Straw that Broke the Back’, New Zealand and Britain’s Referendum on European Community Membership, 1975

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the role that New Zealand played during the renegotiation of terms and the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Community in 1975. This topic has received little attention from historians, despite New Zealand trade being among the most prominent negotiating items between the British Government and its European Community partners in that year. For the first time in relation to this topic, this research draws on archival sources from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the European Community. It concludes that the issue of New Zealand assumed a disproportionate influence on the renegotiated terms agreed in the Dublin Summit of 1975, in large part because British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Foreign Secretary James Callaghan seized on it as one of the few areas that their Government could obtain substantive results in the renegotiation. There were also longer-term factors at play, suggesting continuities in Britain’s approach to New Zealand and the European Community both before and after accession. This suggests a broader reassessment of Britain’s relations with its former colonies in the context of European Community accession is required.