What if Brexit was inevitable? A book looks back at the ambivalent relations between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, particularly its French neighbor, during the pivotal period of the 1970s.
While cyclical factors, such as the development of populism on a European scale and the concomitant development of xenophobia targeting European emigrants, contributed to the result of the referendum of 23 June 2016, it seems necessary, in order to fully understand the origins and issues of this major event in recent history, to take the long term into account. The work of Laurence Baratier-Negri, associate professor and doctor of contemporary history, on the relations between a young head of state at the head of one of the main powers of the continent, and ardent supporter of a revival of European construction, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1974-1981) and the leaders of the United Kingdom, a newcomer to the European Community (1973) lays the essential foundations for such an approach.
This book offers a reading of Franco-British relations that is at once geopolitical, institutional and human. It highlights the stages of the emergence of “summit diplomacy” (p. 13), of which Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is one of the main promoters. Many tables also provide a synthetic account of the different Franco-British summits – actors, modalities and results (p. 103, p. 110 and pp. 327-329). This reading fully integrates the place of representations, at all levels – from government decision-makers to public opinion, including certain associations and the media – in the evolution of international relations, like recent works on European construction or Franco-British relations. Throughout her analysis, she introduces different contextual elements allowing us to grasp the multiple facets of the Franco-British relationship: European construction, obviously, but also the German question and the expanding economic power of the RFACold War, transatlantic relations and Détente, globalization and economic crisis, decolonization and North-South relations… One can however regret that the analysis does not address the role of business circles and economic networks, whose essential role in European construction is now well known. However, the choice to focus on political decision-makers justifies this option.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s France and Great Britain: an ambiguous relationship
The book is, in fact, centered on the role of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and analyzes the levers and the purposes of his diplomacy towards London. It first returns to the special relationship that the young French president had with the British world when he came to power: raised by a father turned towards Germany and an Anglophile mother, he mastered English perfectly and read the English press daily. If his relations with the different Prime Ministers were variable – difficult with Harold Wilson (1974-1976), very good with James Callaghan (1976-1979), and conflictual with Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) –, his understanding with Queen Elizabeth II constitutes the essential factor in the success of the state visit he made to Great Britain in June 1976. British diplomacy quickly became aware of this and exploited this understanding.
However, beyond the richness of this exhaustive analysis of Franco-British relations in 1974-1981, this work gives the reader the tools for a true archaeology of Brexit, as it highlights some of its factors perceptible from the second half of the 1970s. This is not the least of the merits of this work, drawn from a thesis defended in spring 2015, more than a year before the referendum of June 2016. This is particularly evident when the author examines the role of representations in Franco-British relations. While France, whose economic dynamism contrasted sharply with the economic and social slump that Great Britain was experiencing, gave in to a certain “superiority complex” (p. 69) that left little room for a balanced partnership project with its neighbour across the Channel, Great Britain did not seem able to overcome an “inferiority complex” (p. 72) that led its leaders and diplomats to place themselves in the position of “demanders” (p. 117) vis-à-vis Paris. The strengthening of bilateral relations with Paris appeared to British diplomacy as the only way to enhance Britain’s prestige in the eyes of the European powers, particularly the Federal Republic of Germany, but also to obtain satisfaction regarding the consideration of its national interests in the framework of the common fisheries and energy policies. In this context, there are unsavoury reciprocal representations, at the level of public opinion but also within chancelleries and in parliamentary circles, which portray the partner as a nation whose arrogance sometimes borders on vanity or as a declining Atlanticist power exclusively interested in immediate commercial gains.
To be or not to be European?
In the particular context of the first half of the 1970s, and a decade after their first application, the British joined a dynamic European Economic Community with a view to recovering a partially lost economic power. Very quickly, however, European construction was accused of all evils, because British membership was concomitant with the global economic crisis that was hitting the United Kingdom hard. The British contribution to the Community budget, a major, if not the main, argument of the Brexit leaders, was already a bone of contention between Paris and London, both at the governmental level and in public opinion. The Common Agricultural Policy, whose very philosophy seemed immediately unacceptable, even incomprehensible, across the Channel, appeared to be an expenditure that was as useless as it was unfair. Within the Foreign Office, the Community was commonly described as a tool designed by and for France and specifically geared towards satisfying its agricultural and commercial interests. This image was widely relayed in public opinion by consumer associations and the media, especially popular newspapers. Far from constituting a framework conducive to the enrichment of dynamic Franco-British bilateral relations, the integration of the United Kingdom into the European Community therefore carries the seeds of multiple tensions, of which Margaret Thatcher’s “I want my money back” (November 1979) was undoubtedly the most frank manifestation. In this light, the choice made in June 2016 can be seen both as an extension of this history and as the symmetrical of the 1973 accession: faced with a European Union giving the image of disunity and decline, Great Britain chose the – hypothetical – path of renewing its relations with the former colonies and with the United States.
This impression of symmetry is reinforced by the stages that marked Great Britain’s entry into the Community. While membership, a major achievement of the pro-European Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath (1970-1974), was effective in 1973, Labour’s accession to power in February 1974 reshuffled the cards. Elected on the promise of a renegotiation of the treaties, Harold Wilson obtained various adjustments from his European partners (Dublin Summit, March 1975). The European partners accepted a mechanism for correcting the Community budget that would reduce the British contribution as well as better conditions of access to the European market for Commonwealth sugar and New Zealand dairy products. This Dublin compromise, validated by a favourable vote in the cabinet – sixteen votes for, seven against – allowed him to obtain a vote from British voters in favour of remaining in the Community (June 1975). However, even after these concessions were obtained, less than one in two British voters expressed themselves positively in favour of remaining (turnout of 64.5%, remaining receiving 67.2% of the votes cast). Incidentally, one may be surprised that the author describes this vote as “massive” in her introduction (p. 12).
Finally, the European question appeared from the 1970s onwards as a factor of both confusion in political and parliamentary life and division within the British political parties. Since many Labour MPs were opposed to British participation in the European project, the head of government was only able to get the compromise negotiated in Dublin approved with broad support from Liberal and Conservative MPs. The referendum of June 1975, although it seemed to settle the debate on membership of the Community, nevertheless accentuated the divisions within the Labour Party. This opposition from a significant part of the Labour base, combined with the narrow parliamentary base of the Labour governments, constantly weighed on the European policy conducted successively by Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.
Missed opportunities and fundamental disagreement
Finally, can we say that the United Kingdom was a “Brexiter” from the moment it joined the Common Market? This would probably be an exaggerated thesis. The merit of Laurence Baratier-Negri’s work is also to highlight the opportunities that presented themselves. In this respect, the Franco-British bilateral relationship could have constituted the viaticum for a clearer anchoring of the United Kingdom to the European organization. In London, the Franco-British relationship is seen as a lever allowing it to weigh on a community scale; in Paris, there seems to be a concern not to be locked into the Franco-German couple, while the RFA weighs more and more heavily economically. However, this plan does not come to fruition, essentially because of a fundamental divergence between British European policy and the designs of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: the latter poses as the herald of an autonomous Europe in the face of a weakened United States, while London sees its entry into the Community as a way of enhancing its role with Washington, as an intermediary, at the very least, if not as an ally in the place. Faced with this structural opposition, the meritorious efforts of Roy Jenkins, leader of the pro-European Labour Party and then President of the European Commission (1977-1981) or of the British ambassadors in Paris – in particular Nicholas Henderson (1975-1979) – prove powerless, the Quai d’Orsay being warned, from the first years, of the absence of “community spirit” among the vast majority of British leaders.
Thus, this work, whose merits were highlighted by the award of the Ernest Lémonon Prize (Académie des Sciences morales et politiques), presents itself not only as an in-depth and multidimensional study of Franco-British bilateral relations at a crucial moment in economic history and international relations, but also as an essential tool for understanding the most contemporary aspects of relations between London and Europe.