This book explores how New Zealand, a small country almost as far from Western Europe as it is possible to be, assumed political importance in Britain’s accession to the European Community vastly out of proportion to its size, proximity and strategic position. At several points in accession negotiations, the issue of New Zealand’s continued trade with Britain threatened to derail UK Government attempts to join the Community. This issue also interacted with the broader context of the Cold War, economic shocks and decolonisation, materially affecting the terms of entry into the European Community, and altering Britain’s relations with its European partners and the British public’s perceptions of British membership. After entry, New Zealand continued to resurface as a continued source of tension between Britain and an integrating Europe. The role that New Zealand played sheds light on Britain’s attempts to retain global influence after the demise of its formal empire. Contributing to a growing body of research which challenges the traditional historical narratives of British ‘decline’ and colonial ‘independence’ in the second half of the twentieth century, this book fills an important gap in the historiography of Britain following the 1973 enlargement of the European Communities.

External challenges, strategic threats, and war have shaped the course of modern British history. This volume examines how Britain mobilized to meet these challenges and how developments in the constitution, state, public sphere, and economy were a response to foreign policy issues from the Restoration to the rise of New Labour.

This volume provides an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to British policy in Europe. By exploring the schisms within the party over Europe, through primary source-based history and theoretical discourses of political science, N.J. Crowson gives the reader the best sense of understanding of how and why the Conservative party’s policy attitudes to European integration have evolved. The Conservative Party and European Integration since 1945 adopts a thematic line based around two chronological periods, 1945–75 and 1975–2006, and uses different methodological approaches. It explores the shifting stances amongst Conservatives within an economic, political and international context as the party adjusted to the decline of Britain’s world role and the loss of empire. Crowson analyzes Britain’s role and relationship with Europe together with the study of the Conservative Party, and deals with economic, commercial and monetary issues, successfully bridging a serious gap in any discussion of the UK’s relations with the European Union and appreciation of the political world in which Conservative European policy has been framed and pursued since 1945. This book is recommended for background reading in undergraduate courses in British politics and European history.

Brexit is likely to lead to the largest shift in Britain's economic orientation in living memory. Some have argued that leaving the EU will enable Britain to revive markets in Commonwealth countries with which it has long-standing historical ties. Their opponents maintain that such claims are based on forms of imperial nostalgia which ignore the often uncomfortable historical trade relations between Britain and these countries, as well as the UK's historical role as a global, rather than chiefly imperial, economy. Forging a British World of Trade explores how efforts to promote a 'British World' system, centred on promoting trade between Britain and the Dominions, grew and declined in influence between the 1880s and 1970s. At the beginning of the twentieth century many people from London, to Sydney, Auckland, and Toronto considered themselves to belong to culturally British nations. British politicians and business leaders invested significant resources in promoting trade with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa out of a perception that these were great markets of the future. However, ideas about promoting trade between 'British' peoples were racially exclusive. From the 1920s onwards, colonized and decolonizing populations questioned and challenged the basis of British World networks, making use of alternative forms of international collaboration promoted firstly by the League of Nations, and then by the United Nations. Schemes for imperial collaboration amongst ethnically 'British' peoples were hollowed out by the actions of a variety of political and business leaders across Asia and Africa who reshaped the functions and identity of the Commonwealth.

This book questions conventional accounts of the history of European integration and British business. Integration accounts normally focus on the nation-state, while Neil Rollings focuses on business and its role in the development of European integration, which business historians have previously overlooked. Business provided a key link between economic integration, political integration, and the process of Europeanization. British businessmen perceived early on that European integration meant much more than the removal of tariffs and access to new markets. Indeed, British entry into the European community would alter the whole landscape of the European working environment. Consideration of European integration is revealed as a complex, relative, and dynamic issue, covering many issues such as competition policy, taxation, and company law. Based on extensive archival research, this book uses the case of business to emphasize the need to blend national histories with the history of European integration.

The Economics and Politics of European Integration offers a comprehensive history of European integration, from the conceptualization of a United States of Europe, to the present day. The special role of the United States in this process of integration, and the expansion and evolution of the European Union, is critically analyzed. The book also thoroughly discusses the current view of the EU and the complex crises emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the book focuses primarily on Europe, the role of other countries is also examined. The rise of hostile enemies from Turkey, Russia, the US and China is explored, and the history and outcome of Brexit also receives unique focus. Maps are used throughout to clearly depict the enlargement process. This illuminating text will be valuable reading for students and researchers across international economics, economic history, political economy and European studies.

This is the first social history to explore experiences of British emigrants from the peak years of the 1960s to the emigration resurgence of the turn of the twentieth century. It explores migrant experiences in Australia, Canada and New Zealand alongside other countries. The book charts the gradual reinvention of the ‘British diaspora’ from a postwar migration of austerity to a modern migration of prosperity. It offers a different way of writing migration history, based on life histories but exploring mentalities as well as experiences, against a setting of deep social and economic change. Key moments are the 1970s loss of Britons’ privilege in Commonwealth destination countries, ‘Thatcher’s refugees’ in the 1980s and shifting attitudes to cosmopolitanism and global citizenship by the 1990s. It charts a long process of change from the 1960s to patterns of discretionary and nomadic migration, which became more common practice from the end of the twentieth century.

In the early postwar era, Britain enjoyed a very close economic relationship with Australia and New Zealand through their common membership of the Sterling Area and the Commonwealth Preference Area. This book examines the breakdown of this relationship in the 1950 and 1960s. Britain and Australasia were driven apart by disputes over industrial protection, agriculture, capital supplies, and relations with other countries. Special emphasis is given to the implications for Australia and New Zealand of Britain's growing interest in European integration.

An illuminating and comprehensive exploration of a subject which has dominated the British political scene for much of the period since the Second World War. Through a wide and varied collection of documents, complemented by detailed and perceptive analysis, this book explores Britain's reactions to the dynamics of European integration. Key subjects covered include; European unity and "missed opportunities" in the early post-war years the Commonwealth dimension and the "special relationship" Britain's belated attempts to join the EC in the 1960s the singlecurrency Many of its numerous sources are made widely accessible here for the first time. It is an invaluable resource for all students of Politics, Modern British History and European Studies.

Brexit, populism, and Euroscepticism seem to have challenged old assumptions about European integration and raised the prospect of disintegration. This book re-examines why the European Union and its forerunners were created and investigates how and why they have changed. It links contemporary events to historical explanation, arguing that there were long-term sets of conditions, dating back to the 1920s, which pushed European governments to cooperate economically and to try to resolve their diplomatic differences. The failure of the French and German governments to create what Aristide Briand had called a 'European federal union' demonstrated both the precariousness of the enterprise and its connection to the domestic politics of European states. After 1945, the unexpected advent of a 'Cold War' and the military, diplomatic and economic presence of the United States in Europe facilitated the gradual development of habits of cooperation and institutional 'integration', but they also placed limits on European governments' activities, as did disagreements between political parties and the expectations of citizens. As a consequence, supranational bodies such as the European Commission have been accompanied - and often overshadowed - by intergovernmental institutions such as the European Council, with the EU as a whole functioning in important respects as a type of confederation. The volume addresses a series of large-scale historical questions which are integral to an understanding of the European Union. It asks how and why citizens of member states have identified with the EU; how matters of 'security' affected the development of the European Community during and after the Cold War; whether economic and social convergence have taken place, and with what consequences; and why European institutions have come to function as they have. The study is thematic, focusing on the most important aspects of European integration and explaining why member states have decided to carry out - or have consented to - the unique experiment of the European Union.