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A Study Of The Official Response Of The UK To European Integration Initiatives 1945-51 - A Pursuit Of The National Interest?
ABSTRACT
Key words: National Interest, Official Policy of the UK, Cripps, Attlee, Bevin, Dalton, USA, Marshall, Monnet, Marjolin, Schuman, Sterling, Empire, Europe, European Integration, Constitutional Initiative, Coal and Steel Plan
The UK in 1945 found herself victorious in the European war, still with a vast empire, dominant in the sterling currency and with an industrial base expanded in response to the war and less destroyed than that on the Continent. Her people were united as never before, and ruler reconciled with the ruled through a decisive result at the first post-war election.
The purpose of the study is to discover why a nation with all that going for it ignored the obvious lesson of recent history and went into denial about Europe and a state of dependence on the USA. The new government under Clement Attlee pursued a policy of welfare reform, investment combined with nationalization over industry and negotiated with the USA for a continuation of her wartime relationship of financial support and harmonization of foreign policy. This became the more important with the perception of Soviet political advances into central Europe allied to subversive pressure on western Europe.
The post-war period might have been an opportunity for the UK to take the initiative and herself lead the advance of European Integration. The offer of Marshall Aid presumed in many respects that the UK through the ECE and OEEC with responsibility for the European scale of the Recovery Programme. In fact, Ernest Bevin reacted enthusiastically, joined up with Bidault, his counterpart in France, and pioneered the Paris Conference within 3 weeks.
Whereas such as Monnet, Schuman and Marjolin provided constitutional plans for the future of Europe, the UK reacted with barely concealed reluctance at the official level. The word skepticism was not used but its existence was in instant play as far as 'Europe' was concerned. Bevin, with some understanding from Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was otherwise alone in a Cabinet headed by Attlee, himself with little regard for the 'the Continental Method'.
The purpose of the exercize is to construct a version of the UK National Interest. The primary source is the PRO at Kew: the exchange of papers within and between the Foreign Office, the Treasury, the Board of Trade and the Offices of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. A literature review has so far simply confirmed the general observation but not yet hypothesized the argument for the construct of the UK National Interest.
So far the research shows an official machine working well at the managerial and operational level. All the rules and procedures are observed. Correctness abounds. However, there is a clear mismatch between the UK and French pattern of thought. It is a philosophical problem. Monnet produces a general, political and constitutional type plan; Sir Sydney Caine, for one, produces a report based on alternative customs controls and the price and production forecasts for the next 4 years. Coal and steel are included.
In spite of an education system purporting to inspire leadership and initiative, its 'sons' appear to reveal neither when the word 'Europe' is on the agenda. The National Interest of the UK is thus pursued.
The aim of the research is to clarify the impression formed thus far, correct it where possible, and to put it all into the broader perspective of the major concerns of the UK at that time: the economy was in bad shape, the agreements with the USA were revoked at Bretton Woods, the Empire was running at a loss - it would lose share of world markets as the European economies recovered. The "Wind of Change" had already started to blow, with India as its first liberatee.
Furthermore the USA was in practical if not emotional terms hostile to the British Empire, cynical about sterling and ambivalent if not ambiguous about the role of the UK in Europe. Indeed, a successful Europe would have to be cornered by Federal policy; to that extent the influence of Soviet expansionism was not all a bad thing. The USA was ambitious for itself.
Thus the UK pursued an independent domestic welfare and industrial policy; this alarmed the leaders of the USA; it set up a course of economic policy that was out of harmony with that of the Continent. Research into the way in which the officials in the UK administration pursued the National Interest should reveal a lack of strategic thinking in need of inspired leadership - made all the more complicated by a concealed level of self awareness.
JWSP 23rd April 2004
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