On Friday, 9 October 2026, Dr Larissa Kraft, the Robert Mcintosh Applied History & Policy Visiting Fellow at the IHR, delivered a paper to launch the seminar series on “The United Kingdom and European integration in a decolonising world: British agency in transnational and multilateral perspective”, convened by CORPUS, in partnership with the Maison européenne des sciences humaines et sociales (UAR 3185). In her paper, entitled “Reforging the Imperial Past and Looking to Lead Europe: Debating the Commonwealth Question During Britain’s First Application to the EEC”, Kraft examined how British policymakers reflected on and mobilised Britain’s imperial past, its Commonwealth present and European future in advocating for Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community (EEC), 1961–63.
The first, unsuccessful British EEC application represented a crucial moment of renegotiating the perceived nature of British foreign policymaking in the rapidly decolonising world of the early 1960s. The British government faced scepticism both at home and amongst EEC members about the UK’s ability to join an integrated European Community because it had previously seemed more preoccupied with maintaining its overseas links with its remaining colonial territories, the Commonwealth and the United States. Opponents of membership accordingly advanced a historically derived insular narrative that portrayed Britain as inherently different from continental Europe. To them, Britain’s imperial past presupposed it for a continued claim to global leadership, especially as the head of the Commonwealth, which, in turn, appeared as an insurmountable obstacle to joining the EEC.
British political leaders, however, tried to reconcile Britain’s ‘turn to Europe’ with a continued commitment to the Commonwealth by reframing elements of Britain’s imperial past. Trying to appeal to domestic and European audiences alike, they portrayed the EEC application as a natural next step in British foreign policy, merely adapting it to the need for European cooperation in the Cold War context. Advocates invoked a shared European civilisational heritage as the common denominator which firmly placed the UK in the European sphere. They argued that Britain had successfully concluded its global civilising mission by transforming the British Empire into a free association of peoples, the Commonwealth. Claiming that this successful transformation left the UK free to return to its European roots, they argued that Britain was now called upon to aid the continent and unite the ‘old powers’ against the newest barbaric threat, Soviet Communism. Trying to appease sceptics at home and in the EEC alike, advocates for British membership mobilised Britain’s historically derived claim to global leadership as a rationale to argue that British EEC membership would not only keep Britain in such a leading position, but that it would do so by strengthening Europe and restoring it to the position in the world that was appropriate to its past.
Kraft’s paper showed that Britain’s allegedly inherent insular difference from its European continental neighbours was a highly malleable concept. When mobilised politically, Britain’s imperial past could be as much proof that Britain should seek its future outside of Europe in cooperation with its traditional partners as it could be a promise that Britain could lead Europe into a brighter, more global future.
The seminar series “The United Kingdom and European integration in a decolonising world: British agency in transnational and multilateral perspective” is organised by CORPUS, in partnership with the Maison européenne des sciences humaines et sociales (UAR 3185) in Lille, the University of Westminster, and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (School of Advanced Studies, London). The programme from October 2026 to January 2027 is accessible here.
