The history of Britain's relationship with the European Economic Community is a remarkably complex one. At the end of the Second World War, the British government dismissed attempts by their continental counterparts toward tighter economic and political collaboration and struggled to preserve their world power status. In the early 1950s, the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community and the debates about the European Defence and Political Communities marked the maximum degree of divergence. London did not take part in the Schuman Plan in 1952 and its decision not to be involved in the integrated army project reinforced opposition in several European parliaments and contributed to the fall of the European Defence Community project in 1954. Three years later, the British withdrew from the Treaties of Rome negotiations and did not join the Single Market (European Economic Community, EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Authority (EURATOM).

The history of the following two decades is the history of the British attempts to reconcile their interests with the EEC's expansion. While the EEC proved to be a success, the British faced economic problems compounded by the end of colonial rule. London's first reaction to the EEC's buoyancy was to launch an alternative project in which Britain could be the undisputed leader. When, however, Plan G and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) did not bring the hoped for results, Macmillan finally embarked on a review of London's European policy that opened the way to Britain's first application for EEC membership in 1961.

The shift in London's position toward Europe and the British accession negotiations have attracted much historical research. Because of the availability of primary sources and because it was seen as the proverbial turning point, many historians have focused on Harold Macmillan's first EEC membership application. Kaiser (Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans: Britain and European Integration, 1945–1963 [London, 1992]), Ludlow (Dealing with Britain: The Six and the First UK Application to the EEC [Cambridge, 1997]), and Milward (The United Kingdom and the European Community, vol. 1, The Rise and Fall of National Strategy, 1945–1963 [London, 2002]), to mention just a few, weighed the economic, political, and geopolitical motivations behind the Conservative choice. The lack of archival material and the fact that Wilson's second application was seen as the inevitable consequence of the first meant that the attempt of the Labour government to gain EEC membership in 1967 initially attracted less attention. Over the past few years, historians have taken the opportunity presented by the opening of the British archives covering the period to look at the second application under Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1964–67. Oliver Daddow's edited collection of essays (Harold Wilson and European Integration: Britain's Second Application to Join the EEC [London, 2003]) and John Young's research into Labour's international policies between 1964 and 1970 (The Labour Governments, 1964–1970, vol. 2, International Policy [Manchester, 2003]) were the first works to directly address the issue. Helen Parr and Jane Toomey have now published two primary sources–based monographs that focus exclusively on Harold Wilson's European policy.

Parr both offers an effective critique of Wilson's motivation and strategy in launching a second British application for membership, in the context of domestic and international constraints. Parr defines Britain's second application as a watershed in British relations with the Community. She rightly sees in the 1967 negotiations a “turning point in the reconciliation of Britain's political class to a European future” (186). Although the application itself was not successful, it should not be seen as a pointless exercise. The intense diplomatic exchanges and the numerous political debates led to a better understanding of the Community in London and of the British position in the European capitals. They prepared fertile ground for future negotiations and eventually for the British EEC membership and marked a turning point in UK-EEC relations. Despite focusing on a narrow time frame, the author is able to explore long-term continuities with the previous and subsequent membership applications. By taking into account factors like the position of the Foreign Office and the progressively more isolated position of de Gaulle in the Community, the author reassesses the importance of 1964–67 as a period of political change both in Britain and among the Six. There is no attempt to present Wilson as an idealist and strategist, Parr brings out all the weaknesses and contradictions in his decision making and statesmanship. There is a convincing examination of the transformations that took place in the British and European arenas and of the reciprocal influences that such transformations exerted on the British government, the Labour Party, the Foreign Office, and the Community itself. The interplay is analyzed effectively through the examination of a wide range of primary sources, including interviews and correspondence with key policy makers. Parr is particularly successful in offering a sophisticated insight into the position of the Foreign Office and into the internal rifts within the Labour Party. Going beyond the view that Wilson's application was motivated by a “collapsing of alternatives” (R. J. Lieber British Politics and European Unity: Parties, Elites, and Pressure Groups [London, 1970], 261), this work emphasizes the importance of political and geopolitical motivations in explaining Britain's shift toward EEC membership. The author's main conclusion is the rejection of the interpretation that Britain’s—and Labour’s—turn toward the EEC was inevitable. Even if the 1966 sterling crisis precipitated the Labour government toward an initiative, in Parr's view, Wilson's action was the result of the development of a new European policy whose roots lay in Macmillan's first application and in the shock caused by the first veto.

Toomey's work adds little to what has already been said more convincingly by Parr. Toomey uses similar archival material and includes a new set of correspondence with policy makers other than those used by Parr, thus introducing a refreshing new range of points of view and opinions. Curiously, the list of secondary sources ignores crucial works on the subject, including Parr's book. This is the first sign of the main problem with this research: its narrow focus. The timeframe of the two works is identical, but while Parr's focuses on a wide range of factors both in the home and the European arenas, thus producing an articulated and dynamic portray of the period, Toomey's limits her analysis to de Gaulle's position and to Wilson's attempts to gain the general's support for the British application. This is undoubtedly a crucial factor in the history of the British application for EEC membership but it is only one side of the story and adds little to what has already been pointed out by more traditional accounts of the history of British relations with the Community. Even in what is the core idea of this book, the focus is too narrow: the connection between the Empty Chair Crisis and de Gaulle's withdrawal from NATO, for example, is not fully developed. In order to keep de Gaulle in NATO, the Five may well have concurred with de Gaulle's demands in the EEC, at least temporarily, but none of this is discussed by Toomey. When the author does hint at other factors that may help explain Wilson's turn toward Europe, such as the worsening economic situation in Britain (20–21), she does not offer sufficient details and analysis. Thus, she fails to provide a comprehensive picture not only of the multifaceted relations between the Foreign Office, Whitehall, and Europe but also of the reciprocal influences between the Community and Britain.

In both cases, the authors use only British primary sources. Even if the aim of these books is to examine the British approach to the EEC, the reciprocal influences across the Channel were indeed crucial in shaping London's position and it may have been worth considering additional material in other European archives to achieve a more sophisticated understanding of how the changes in the EEC were perceived in London and vice versa. In both cases, there is virtually no mention of public opinion. Toomey and Parr focus on diplomacy and on the position of the two main political parties with little reference to the role that public opinion may have played in shaping the change in policy. In her introduction, Parr argues that “1967 emerges as the moment at which the domestic political consensus in Britain shifted decisively in favour of a British future in Europe” (7), but she does not discuss the issue any further in the book. If public opinion may simply prove to be irrelevant in the formulation of party and government European policy, particularly after the consolidation of Wilson's position in the 1966 election, it may be helpful to explain why and to what degree. The history of Britain's relationship with the European Economic Community is indeed very complex.