A European Party

Abstract

This chapter considers Labour’s attitudes towards the European Union and European monetary cooperation as they developed between 1979 and 1997. An alternative approach would have been to consider the European aspect of industrial intervention, macroeconomic policy and so on. However, I have chosen to deal with the question of Europe separately for two reasons. First, it recognises the significance of Labour’s change in policy on the European Union. The change from hostility to enthusiasm for the EU is one of Labour’s major policy shifts in the 1979–97 period.¹ Second, considering Europe separately allows a fuller consideration of the European context within which policy changes were effected. This perspective is often lost in treatments that begin from an analysis of Labour’s internal policy making.