The Decision to Seek Entry to the European Community

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first Gresham lecture of the New Year. It is the third in my series of lectures on Britain and Europe since 1945, and I shall be talking about the first two British applications to join the European Community, or the Common Market, as the European Union was then known. The first was in 1961, under a Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and the second under a Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, and both applications failed, and we did not enter the European Community until 1973, under another Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath. But, as I shall try to show, these two applications, and in particular the first, in 1961, were major turning points, with lasting effects in British history, and perhaps European history as well, very momentous. One newspaper, in 1961, suggested it was the most important decision facing Britain for 400 years. Those who came to the last lecture may remember that the European Community, or the Common Market, was formed i