No Easy Solution

Abstract

The reasons why Britain did not seek to join the other six European states in their quest for formal unity - which began with the European Coal and Steel Community (1950), survived through the ill-fated European Defence Community negotiations from 1950 to 1954, and finally came to fruition with the signing of the Treaty of Rome in March 1957 - have been well detailed elsewhere. In short, the British attitude may be explained by the fact that, first, British political and strategic priorities were altogether and justifiably different from those of the European Six; secondly, British trade relied heavily upon Commonwealth connections; and thirdly, the federal ideal - which proved later to have been expounded with more enthusiasm than commitment - found no favour among the people of the United Kingdom. The British, clinging to the glories of war-time victory to blot out peace-time hardship, ‘felt no need to exorcize history’1 and, as Barzini points out, their leaders ‘naturally found it unthinkable [for Britain] to join a condominium of defeated, weak, frightened, and impecunious second-rank nations’.