All about the United Kingdom and the European Union

Pictured: The flags of Europe and the United Kingdom fly together, a common sight when the UK was in the EU.

From 1973 to 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) was a member of the European Union (EU) and its predecessor the European Communities (EC), which you can find out about here. So, how did the UK join the bloc? And why did it leave?

Britain's accession into the EU

One of the very first proponents of the European project was former British Conservative prime minister Winston Churchill, who became a leading campaigner for the creation of what is now the EU. It is for this reason that he is recognised today as one of the union's founding fathers.

After leading Britain against the Nazis through the Second World War, Churchill believed that the formation of a so-called "United States of Europe" was the only way to guarantee continued peace across the continent. He believed that such a union would eliminate the threats of nationalism and war-mongering, the two main causes of the war, across Britain and the rest of Europe once and for all.

Churchill laid forth his plans for this United States of Europe, which would include the United Kingdom, in a now famous speech to the University of Zurich in September 1946:

We must build a kind of United States of Europe … If at first all the states of Europe are not willing or able to join a union we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and who can … I say to you: Let Europe arise!

To this end, Churchill proposed the creation of a Council of Europe as a first step to achieve this goal of European unity. In 1948, Churchill presided over the Congress of Europe in The Hague, which led to an agreement between European countries to create his envisioned Council of Europe (formed in 1949) and also a separate political customs and economic union, which later became the EU.

Pictured: Winston Churchill, a founding father of the EU, making his trademark war-time "V for Victory!" sign.

The EU was born in 1951 when the first of the European Communities, the European Coal and Steel Community, was formed by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, West Germany, Italy and the Netherlands following the Schuman Declaration of 1950, creating a single common market for coal and steel between its members. Churchill wanted Britain to join the EC, but this move was opposed by the Eurosceptic governing Labour Party, which saw the union as a threat to Britain's sovereignty, the unity of the British Commonwealth, socialism and the wages of the working class, and also by France, which believed that the UK was too closely aligned with the United States of America.

Following the Treaty of Rome and the Euratom Treaty in 1957, the EC grew to include the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (EEC), which led to the creation of an economic common market between members of the EC. Churchill continued to lobby for Britain's accession into the EC until his death in 1965, but it wasn't until 1969 when France finally agreed to allow the UK into the EC.

After a few years of negotiations, Britain finally joined the EC in 1973 at the behest of the Conservative government of Edward Heath who, like Churchill, was a staunch supporter of European integration, having campaigned aggressively for the UK's accession into the bloc since becoming Conservative leader in 1965. Heath's party believed that EC membership, and membership of the EEC in particular, would modernise Britain's economy via integration with the economies of mainland Europe which it believed would lead to increased exports and competition. The Conservatives also saw membership as enabling the UK to maintain its international power, relevance and prestige following the decline of the British Empire. As Oxford professor Mikko Lievonen explains:

The Conservative policy unit was not only interested in the economics of membership, but also in the EEC as a way of maintaining Britain's diplomatic prestige and relevance. The EEC held the promise of a new international identity for a post-imperial Britain. Britain had to be in the club, or risk being left out in the cold. The Conservative Research Department even argued that Britain should throw her weight behind deeper integration in everything from foreign policy to monetary union. In this way, Britain could shape the EEC in accordance with her own interests, acting as a leader in a unified Europe.

There were also potential economic benefits for Britain to join the EC and EEC in respect of earnings. Following the establishment of the EEC in 1958, Britain had fallen behind member states of the EC in terms of earnings. While in 1958 Britons earned on average 50% more than those in Italy and as much as workers in the Netherlands, West Germany, and France, this situation changed by 1969, with average earnings in Italy having caught up with Britain while in the other EC countries average earnings were between 25% and 50% higher than in Britain.

The first membership referendum

However, Britain's accession into the EC and EEC was not without controversy. At the time, most members of the Labour Party still opposed membership because they believed the EC threatened the UK's sovereignty and democracy. The party was deeply divided and largely dominated by the Eurosceptic wing led by leading left-wing figures such as Tony Benn and Michael Foot. Labour left-wing nationalist Peter Shore led a failed attempt in Parliament in 1972 to prevent Britain's accession into the EC, warning that joining would "deprive the British Parliament and people of democratic rights which they have exercised for many centuries" with some powers over taxation given to unelected politicians in the EC as a condition of membership.

Labour leader Harold Wilson tried to maintain a neutral stance, allowing party members to campaign in favour of and against EC membership and European integration depending on their personal views. Meanwhile, the Conservatives remained largely united over the issue, supporting membership of the bloc to promote free trade and economic development. The party did however face some public setbacks by a few Eurosceptics within its ranks who shared many of the same concerns as their Labour counterparts, such as the prominent Conservative MP Enoch Powell, who later split from the Conservatives in 1974 over its "undemocratic" decision to bring Britain into the EC without a public referendum and therefore endorsed Labour instead as a result.

At first, it also appeared that the general public were opposed to accession. Upon Britain's accession into the bloc, Heath's government organised a two-week "Fanfair for Europe", organising over 300 events and concerts across the UK to celebrate British membership of the EC. However, despite a hefty investment of £350,000 by the government, most of these events had a very poor turnout. International football matches between the member states organised for the fanfair, including a home team captained by popular England player Bobby Charlton, left Wembley Stadium only half-full. Furthermore, opinion polls at the time seemed to suggest that only 12% of the public saw membership of the EC as beneficial for the UK.

To settle the debate and heal the divisions within his party, Harold Wilson promised to hold a national referendum, the first of its kind in the UK, on EC membership in Labour's manifesto for the October 1974 general election, which his party won. His government subsequently scheduled the first referendum on Britain's membership of the EC and later the EU for June 1975, leaving it to the British public to decide if the UK should remain a member or "Brexit" and go its own way.

Pictured: Harold Wilson, prime minister during the first membership referendum, smoking from his famous pipe.

During the referendum campaign, the Labour Party officially adopted a neutral stance on membership, with senior cabinet ministers and party members free to campaign for or against EC membership. Wilson and his government campaigned for EC membership, backed by the more moderate ministers in his government. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of party members and parliamentary colleagues, including some senior cabinet ministers from the left of the party such as Tony Benn and Michael Foot, campaigned vigorously against it.

The wider political left largely championed withdrawal from the EC, sharing sovereigntist concerns and fearing that the EC's common market would threaten socialist and trade unionist policies, while also undermining workers' rights by promoting greater immigration and freedom of movement between the UK and other European countries, which it believed would lead to lower wages and rising unemployment for British workers.

The Conservative Party, now led by arch-free marketer Margaret Thatcher who succeeded Heath as leader early that year, enthusiastically campaigned for membership, though a small minority of Eurosceptic rebels joined Foot and the other left-wing Eurosceptics to campaign against it. The mainstream right largely championed membership while forces on the fringe of the radical right, such as the fascist National Front party, joined with the left to campaign against membership.

Pictured: Margaret Thatcher, a keen supporter of EC membership, campaigning in a pan-European jumper.

A third camp, the so-called "Don't Know Campaign", took a neutral stance on the matter and instead campaigned across party lines for a don't know option on the ballot paper. This camp

also called on Parliament to decide on membership without the input of the general public in a referendum, arguing that referendums were an undemocratic violation of the constitutional tradition of parliamentary sovereignty and supremacy and that the government had failed to properly inform voters about the issue at hand. The Don't Know Campaign had supporters from both the left and the right, including Conservative MP Michael Latham and Labour MP Willie Hamilton, but did not gain much traction with the wider general public or the political leadership of either party.

Contrary to expectations, the referendum showed that the British public overwhelmingly supported membership of the EC and further European integration. When the referendum result was announced on 6 June, a decisive 67.2 percent of voters (17,378,581) backed EC membership, a massive majority of 34.5% over the 32.8% (8,470,073) who voted no. No voters were more likely to come from poorer, working-class Labour-supporting areas while yes-voting areas were more likely to support the Conservatives, reflecting the two parties' traditional stances on the issue. Almost every single council area in England and Wales voted in favour of membership by over 60%, with the Labour heartland of Mid Glamorgan being the only case where support was below 60%.

Further integration and political realignment

The 1975 referendum settled the European debate for almost ten years. The mainstream political scene accepted or tolerated EC membership, with leading Eurosceptics like Peter Shore finding their reputation damaged and their influence reduced after the resounding referendum victory for remaining in the EC.

After almost ten years, the debate re-emerged again in the early 1980s. The Labour Party, which lost power to Thatcher's Conservatives in the 1979 general election, fell under the control of the left after leftist firebrand Michael Foot's election as leader in 1980. Under Foot, the party shifted firmly towards the left, which entailed the adoption of a firmly Eurosceptic policy stance. In the 1983 general election, Labour campaigned to unilaterally withdraw from the EC without a referendum. The Conservatives campaigned to remain in the EC, calling it "vital in cementing lasting peace in Europe and ending centuries of hostility". On withdrawal, their manifesto read as follows:

The European Community is the world's largest trading group. It is by far our most important export market. Withdrawal would be a catastrophe for this country. As many as two million jobs would be at risk. We would lose the great export advantages and the attraction to overseas investors which membership now gives us. It would be a fateful step towards isolation, at which only the Soviet Union and her allies would rejoice.

In that general election, the Labour Party lost to the Conservatives who won a landslide victory. However, Europe did not take a leading role in the campaign, rather it was issues such as nuclear weaponry and the aftermath of the Falklands War which determined the outcome, with the left-wing Labour manifesto including unpopular pledges to denuclearise Britain and work towards "phasing out" the defensive Western European NATO alliance.

As Thatcher's premiership continued into the late 1980s, the European issue started to take increasing prominence. The European Parliament, which had been made the EC's directly elected Parliament in 1979, started to discuss proposals to further integrate the EC and its members to form a more legally defined federation, with the proposed adoption of a single currency and freedom of movement for all EC citizens.

The Conservatives, having been largely supportive of European integration up to this point, gradually became increasingly divided over the issue. While many in the party supported a framework for strong European economic co-operation, they were more sceptical of legal political and economic union. Many leading Conservatives, including Thatcher herself, saw the proposals for a federal Europe as an infringement on British sovereignty which would lead to the creation of a new European super state.

During this period, EC members negotiated the 1987 Single European Act, which gave the European Parliament, the European Council of Ministers and the European Commission greater powers over managing EC member states' policies on health, education and the environment, among several other policy areas. Thatcher opposed this, and in 1988 the president of the European Commission Jacques Delors committed the EC to establishing a single European economic, fiscal and social legislatory system. Thatcher, viewing this as a direct provocation against the UK's national sovereignty, rebuked Delors in her Bruges speech, in which she outlined her government's opposition to a federal Europe and European centralisation and delivered the famous remark:

We have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels.

The Labour Party at this time was undergoing its own ideological transition on Europe. While the Conservatives were becoming increasingly divided over Europe with rising Euroscepticism in its ranks, the Labour Party was starting to shift away from its traditional Euroscepticism to become more pro-European at the initiative of Foot's successor Neil Kinnock, who purged more leftist elements of Labour's membership and implemented a wide range of policy reforms to "modernise" the party and make it more electable. As part of this modernisation programme, Kinnock gradually shifted the party's stance on Europe, with the party eventually becoming more supportive of European integration than the Conservatives at the turn of the decade, proudly supporting a federal Europe.

Pictured: Labour leader Neil Kinnock and European Commission president Jacques Delors in 1990. In 1975, Kinnock was a leading Eurosceptic leave campaigner. By the late 1980s, he supported a federal Europe.

Even on the wider left, Euroscepticism lost its dominance. With the old nationalised post-war consensus economy of the UK destroyed by Thatcher's privatisation programme, many on the left started to look to European integration as a potential safeguard against right-wing economic policies which they opposed, like privatisation and cuts to welfare. Many leading left-wing Eurosceptics who had rallied against European integration and the EC in 1975 now came to not only support the EC, but also further European integration too. Kinnock himself was one such example, coming to support a federal Europe, with other notable examples in the Labour Party including Barbara Castle and Margaret Beckett.

By 1990, Thatcher's government had become seriously divided over the issue of European integration, with Thatcher and her advisers becoming staunchly Eurosceptic while many of her senior cabinet colleagues such as her deputy prime minister Geoffrey Howe became steadfast supporters of European federalism. Thatcher refused to support any proposals for further integration by the EC, including a proposed single European currency and exchange rate mechanism. In a session of Parliament, she answered a question by Kinnock on European integration and made the famous remark:

The President of the Commission, Mr. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No.

This remark led to Howe's dramatic resignation as deputy prime minister, which triggered a crisis in Thatcher's government with a significant rebellion by pro-European Conservative MPs against her leadership. These MPs rallied around Michael Heseltine, who challenged Thatcher to a leadership election. This election caused Thatcher's dramatic downfall after 11 years in power, as she failed to secure the support she felt she needed to continue leading the party and withdrew from the contest, resigning as prime minister and Conservative leader.

Treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon and the rise of UKIP

Heseltine failed to win the election, losing out to Thatcher's chancellor of the Exchequer John Major who ran as a unity candidate, pledging to deal with the Conservative Party's splits on Europe.

The debate came to a head in 1990, when the president of the European Commission Jacques Delors said the EC should be reorganised as a European Union with the Commission as its governing body, the European Parliament as its legislature and the European Council of Ministers as its senate.

The issue of one single European currency became a significant point of dispute, with Lawson and others pushing for Britain to back the plans while Thatcher famously declared "no, no, no!"

Conservatives gradually split over the issue of Europe. While the party had almost universally been pro-Europe just a few years earlier, the EC started to further integrate itself politically, leading to renewed debate within the party over Britain's membership of the bloc. The European Parliament, which had been made the EC's directly elected Parliament in 1979, started to discuss proposals to turn the EC into a much more legally integrated federation of its member states, with the proposed adoption of a single currency and freedom of movement for EC citizens.

Many leading Conservatives, including Thatcher herself, saw these proposals as an infringement on British sovereignty and a move towards a new European super-state.

the status quo and, with the help of rising patriotic fervour amid the Falklands War, resoundingly defeated Labour.

re-emerged again in the early 1980s. The Labour Party, which in the 1979 general election lost power to Thatcher's Conservatives, fell under the control of the left after the election of Michael Foot as its leader in 1980. Labour's membership voted for the party to adopt a policy of unilateral withdrawal from the EC without a referendum. Foot backed this policy and made it official party policy.

Foot agreed with this proposal and in the 1983 general election Labour campaigned on leaving the EC unilaterally in its manifesto. The Conservatives campaigned for the status quo and, with the help of rising patriotic fervour amid the Falklands War, resoundingly defeated Labour.

debate in Britain for almost ten years, until it re-emerged again in the early 1980s. After Labour lost power to Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives in the 1979 general election, it fell under the control of a resurgent

The Labour Party, which in the 1979 general election lost power to Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives, fell under the control of the left after the election of Michael Foot as its leader in 1980. A leading campaigner against the EC and European integration, under Foot's leadership the party shifted further towards Euroscepticism.

and in the

However, while the British general public overwhelmingly backed European integration, the nation's politicians remained split on the matter. The left continued to campaign rigorously for the UK's withdrawal from the EC.

The second membership referendum

Britain's withdrawal from the EU

WIP