Dr Larissa Kraft
At the outset of Wilton Park’s history stood a mission to learn from the past. When it was founded as a place of re-education for German prisoners of war, it was not with the intention to draw a veil over the German past, but to learn from it and apply its lessons to creating a peaceful and united Europe. Over time, Wilton Park has transformed into a forum for exchange on British foreign policy, with Europe as one of the core topics. The 80th anniversary of this institution, therefore, provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the history of Britain’s changing relationship with the European Union.
In my research, I engage with the political uses of the past in debates about the relationship between Britain and Europe. As one might expect, the most salient narratives about this relationship provide an image of a rather contested and conflict-ridden past. In the context of the Brexit debates in particular, one of the most prominent narratives was that Britain has always been the ‘odd one out’ in Europe. This idea is often anchored in the distant past to identify Britain’s geographical position as an island off the shores of Europe as the determinant for its separate and more globally-minded development from continental Europe. Against such readings of the past, the Brexit decision of 2016 seems to have been predetermined.
As a range of historians have noted, however, the ‘awkward partner’ narrative provides just one, rather lopsided reading of the past, which brushes over a long record of mutual exchange and fruitful cooperation between Britain and Europe. Britain’s role in furthering European integration has, in fact, often been far more active than even British policymakers themselves would admit to.
Since Brexit, the geopolitical situation in Europe and the world has drastically changed. This has led to a sense across Europe that a more united European community, with Britain as a key player, is necessary to effectively deal with global challenges. For some time now, British and European leaders have worked towards improving their post-Brexit relationship, and current polling suggests that a majority of the British public believe that a closer relationship, if not a return to EU membership, is preferable to the status quo. However, even in the context of the Labour government’s declared ‘reset’ of UK-EU relations, I can only see limited efforts to also reframe the story we tell about Britain and Europe.
In the context of ongoing debates about the future of British-European relations, my hope – and (tentative) thesis – is that policymakers on both sides of the Channel can benefit from drawing on a more positive historical record of British-European relations to provide the narrative framework for future cooperation. I believe that there lies great potential in promoting a more positive story of British-European cooperation if the change in governmental policy is to inspire long-lasting support. Let me therefore turn to some previous instances when policymakers have tried to offer alternative readings of the British-European past to provide more positive narrative frameworks for policymaking.
When the British government first applied to the EEC in the early 1960s, references to the past were an integral part of the debates. Sceptics of Britain’s entry often invoked ideas of British insularity and exceptionalism. Advocates of membership, by contrast, countered such views by looking back to the more recent past to promote a closer relationship with Britain’s European neighbours. They endorsed the foundational myth of European integration as a peace project and argued that the EEC had been created to draw a line under the conflicts of the past. Reinforcing Europe also seemed important in the Cold War context, as the stability of the British democracy promised to prevent the recently restored and still fragile democracies on the continent from falling under the influence of Soviet communism. Pro-Europeans in Britain thus claimed that the country could build on its traditional global power role to take on a leading role in Europe.
Ultimately, the success of such pro-European campaigns remained very limited, especially as the French President, Charles de Gaulle, twice vetoed British membership. Nevertheless, this first application represents a moment in the not too distant past when attempts were made to posit a more positive record of Britain’s relationship with Europe.
Just a few years after the UK had finally joined the EEC, a first membership referendum followed in which, contrary to 2016, the remainers won. The 1975 ‘Britain in Europe’ campaign promoted positive narratives about Britain’s role in Europe more efficiently and forcefully than the campaigns of either the pro-Europeans in the 1960s or of the Remainers in 2016. Advocates of membership in 1975 endorsed and promoted the idea of the EEC as a peace project that promised a truly united European community. They also framed EEC membership as the path to much-needed political and economic modernisation. It cannot be ascertained whether these themes ultimately decided the vote. It might also have been ‘bread and butter’ issues, such as the economic and political implications of membership. Still, the British public decided to pursue the course of European integration on which they had been set just two years before.
Perhaps the most successful example of a positive reframing of the relationship with Europe is the Scottish case. When Britain first applied to join the EEC, the Scottish leadership was highly sceptical and, still, in 1975, Scotland voted to leave. Fast forward to 2016, and the vote share for ‘Remain’ in Scotland was higher than in most other regions of the UK. Even if this change in outlook has to be linked to the SNP’s ‘Independence in Europe’ campaign of the 1980s, it is noticeable that Scottish leaders today employ decidedly pro-European narratives of the past.
Interestingly, during the 2014 referendum campaigns on Scottish independence, both sides of the debate framed Scotland as a decidedly European nation. While advocates of independence argued that Scotland could remove itself from English anti-Europeanism, remainers argued that staying part of the Union would mean continued EU membership. In a 2021 policy paper, entitled ‘Steadfastly European,’ the Scottish government rooted the Scottish-European relationship firmly in a long history. Going back to before the Union of 1707 to point to European missionaries coming to Scotland and the ‘auld alliance’ with France, the paper glossed over the negative views that had dominated the mid-twentieth century. Instead, it argued that Scotland quickly became not only a beneficiary of European integration but also an active contributor. Even now, Scotland can perhaps be considered the most pro-European of the British nations, and it is often viewed very favourably by its continental neighbours.
Based on these examples, I believe that a case can be made for anchoring more positive narratives of Britain and Europe in public and political memory. Why not emphasise the moments of successful British-European collaboration over the centuries, including moments in the distant and recent past that go beyond the Second World War and the immediate post-war period? So perhaps attempting to correct the stories we tell about the record of British contributions to the European project might be a worthwhile task to undertake whilst re-negotiating the framework for future British-European cooperation, whichever form this might eventually take. Places like Wilton Park that bring together actors and experts with at times radically opposing views can provide the ideal environment in which such ideas may be discussed.
About the author
Dr Larissa Kraft is Robert McIntosh Applied History & Policy Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. She is currently developing a series of engagement events based on her University of Glasgow doctoral thesis on ‘Representations of the Past in Political Discourse: Comparing Britain, France and West Germany During the First British Application to the European Economic Community’.
