CRYING OUT FOR FOLLOWERSHIP
Michael Harrington rejects the well-worn myth
that Britain could ever have had the leadership of Europe
NOT FOR the first time have Sir Edward Heath and other Europhiles been trying to make use of Churchill's famous Zurich speech of September 1946, in which he called for a United States of Europe. Scholars such as Andrew Roberts who have examined it favour a more sceptical interpretation. Yet the whole treatment of the history of the European issue by the Europhiles is packed with misconceptions — to put it charitably. Heath has been especially guilty of confusing and evading the issue of sovereignty. And why, except as a matter purely of historical interest, are we so concerned about what Churchill said or did not say in 1946?
Churchill's actual speech in Zurich was wildly unrealistic even at the time. He believed that the British Commonwealth was one of the three great powers in the world along with America and Russia, and that they would together 'sponsor' the United Europe. The following year in Lon- don, Churchill returned to the subject and spoke of 'the world temple of peace' which would be built on 'the four pillars' of the United States, the British Commonwealth, Soviet Russia and Europe.
Beneath the unreality of Churchill's pic- Now, Simon, let's not over-romanticise.' ture of the world, however, there lurked a deeper and surprising misjudgment. How could he have imagined that a United States of Europe would be in Britain's interests? Why should Britain have helped to build what could be a new great power on the Continent, a power which would be bound to diminish the relative standing of Britain? Having spent centuries resisting Spanish, French and then German attempts at hegemony, why should we help to raise on our doorstep an artificial mon- ster with resources potentially greater than those of the United States or Soviet Russia? To that question the Europhiles though not Churchill himself — fashioned an answer which stands as the greatest sin- gle myth of modern British politics. It is the myth that 'Britain could have had the lead- ership of Europe for the asking' (Bob Boothby's expression), if only our rulers had not been so stupid as to stay out of the coal and steel community in 1950 and the Messina Conference of 1955 which pre- pared the ground for the Treaty of Rome. We hear this legend today from Kenneth Clarke and Sir Edward Heath, and it seems to have started life in the later 1950s with such people as Anthony Nutting, Boothby and Jo Grimond among others.
Commonsense and our current problems with Europe should tell us that this 'leader- ship of Europe' was a chimera. You cannot lead people where they do not want to go. Back in 1950, Attlee and Bevin, as prime minister and foreign secretary, saw clearly that the coal and steel community, formed by France, Germany and Benelux, was supranational in character. Britain could not fit in to that without a root-and-branch national upheaval. Nor would people like Monnet and Schuman, who were driving the European movement, have settled for anything other than a supranational desti- nation which meant an end to national political independence. In Europe, nation- alism had been discredited by the wars, whereas in Britain the wars were seen as a national triumph. All the problems that plague Britain's relationship with the European Union today were there, right at the beginning.
Who in Europe was crying out for British leadership anyway? The French? When? Adenauer? De Gasperi? Who? Of course Britain had great prestige in the 1940s and 1950s, and if we could have agreed to the federalist goals we would have been welcomed at an early stage. But this would not have been leading, it would have been following. What happened, in the event, is that the Suez disaster of 1956 precipitated a collective nervous break- down in the British ruling class, and a kind of mass conversion to 'Europe' happened over the next four years.
Under Macmillan, Wilson and Heath, the British were eventually tricked and double-shuffled into the European project. It was presented in the first place simply as an economic club. Even a man as astute as Enoch Powell was taken in by this for a while. It has never been a happy relation- ship, though the Europhiles never think of blaming themselves — they blame their countrymen for having an unsatisfactory attitude.
The dream of European leadership, which Heath still tried to keep on life sup- port in 1972, died a slow and bitter death as Britain found herself playing the game of odd man out — unable to follow the federalist road with conviction, yet terri- fied of being excluded. Now both John Major and Tony Blair try to cope with the fundamental contradiction between a fed- erating Europe and an insular 'national' Britain by blustering, playing for time and hoping that something will change.
Churchill cannot help them with his 50- year-old speeches. He cannot bail out the Establishment again. He is a giant of course, with historical glamour and star quality. Everyone with a political axe to grind likes to find a quote from Churchill to decorate his case. Nor is the task all that difficult. In a long and voluble career from 1900 to 1964 he said something for every- one, except teetotallers. There is even a favourable reference to Hitler in Great Contemporaries.
Orwell wrote of Dickens that he became so popular and so central to our culture that some kind of endorsement from him was wanted by 'all the smelly little ortho- doxies now competing for our souls'. So it is with Churchill today, although it was not like that when he was alive. De Gaulle occupies a similar posthumous position in France. In America, the martyred Lincoln holds first place. Politicians and commen- tators examine their collected utterances for clues, as the ancients used to ask ques- tions of the oracle. One might as well use the I Ching. As a substitute for thought it might be less misleading. Churchill, at any rate, will not be pressed into this kind of service.
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