Brexir10 Jul 2018 00:41
On becoming Prime Minister in 1951, Churchill lost no time in also disappointing those who wanted Britain to join the project for European unity, including both his sons-in-law Duncan Sandys and Christopher Soames. On 29 November 1951, he wrote a minute on Robert Schuman’s plan for a European Iron and Steel Community — which was to form the basis for the later EEC — that stated unequivocally:
Our attitude towards further economic developments on the Schuman lines resembles that which we adopt about the European Army. We help, we dedicate, we play a part, but we are not merged with and do not forfeit our insular or Commonwealth character…. It is only when plans for uniting Europe take a federal form that we ourselves cannot take part, because we cannot subordinate ourselves or the control of British policy to federal authorities.
It was true that Churchill came up with a plan for the pound sterling to join a common currency, but it was with the US dollar.
Seems at Thanks LTV totally at odds with Jayfax summary to date including the argument of a Federal Europe? .
‘Where do we stand?’ Churchill asked the Commons in 1952:
Churchill was himself clearly not a ‘European’ at all. If he had had his way, Britain would have been ‘associated’ with a Europe that would extend from Lisbon to Brest-Litovsk… but would never have formed part of it herself. Why the European federalists should have apparently thought at one time that he was thinking of British membership of a federal Europe I have never understood. He always made it quite clear that Britain, if he had anything to do with it, would stand aloof.
‘In our European Movement we have worked with federalists,’ Churchill told the Commons when in opposition, ‘and we have always made it clear that, although they are moving along the same road, we are not committed to their conclusions.’ British pro-Europeans despaired of the way that, as Jebb also put it, ‘Churchill was not really in favour of joining anything like a supranational Europe.’ In August 1948, Churchill told Lady Violet Bonham Carter that the ‘Federal solution’ could not work because ‘a Parliament of Europe [was] quite impracticable’.
On becoming Prime Minister in 1951, Churchill lost no time in also disappointing those who wanted Britain to join the project for European unity, including both his sons-in-law Duncan Sandys and Christopher Soames. On 29 November 1951, he wrote a minute on Robert Schuman’s plan for a European Iron and Steel Community — which was to form the basis for the later EEC — that stated unequivocally:
Our attitude towards further economic developments on the Schuman lines resembles that which we adopt about the European Army. We help, we dedicate, we play a part, but we are not merged with and do not forfeit our insular or Commonwealth character…. It is only when plans for uniting Europe take a federal form that we ourselves cannot take part, because we cannot subordinate ourselves or the con
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