According to Matthew Broad, the connections between the British and Danish approaches to European integration under Harold Wilson's Labour Party and Jens Otto Krag's Social Democratic Party matter more than one might think. Britain and Denmark had several things in common, he notes. In part due to being located on the periphery of the Continent, they shared “a preference for looser forms of international cooperation and free trade, intimate security and military ties” (2) and were “unique in facing the same demands of European unity in cognisance of one another” (14). There were close economic links, with Britain representing a large market for Danish agriculture. In addition, the two parties had external loyalties that drew them away from integration with the six founder members of the European Economic Community: Labour felt the pull of a somewhat-romanticized British Commonwealth, while the Social Democratic Party had the lure of Nordic solidarity, with the success of labor movements in Norway and Sweden providing inspiration. In short, there was continued and influential interaction between Labour and the Social Democratic Party, and Broad contends that the origins of their respective European policies should be understood not only through studying their respective national contexts but through acknowledging “the existence and influence of ties in the space between them” (18).

In 1958, Labour and the Social Democratic Party each advocated integration through the European Free Trade Area rather than the European Economic Community. The collapse of the scheme led the two parties to look toward the European Free Trade Area as “a possible basis from which a new framework with the Six could be established” (241). Denmark tied joining the European Economic Community to a successful British application, but Eurosceptics in Labour and the Social Democratic Party argued along similar lines about how supranationalism appeared to threaten the state and national values. Broad presents Krag as a source of influence and pressure on Labour in a relationship that was not always harmonious. Wilson's 1964 authorization, in response to a large budget deficit, of an import surcharge generated anger in Krag's minority government, which contemplated retaliating through the European Free Trade Area and even pursuing a lone bid to join the European Economic Community. This possibility was of great concern to Wilson and his colleagues because of fears of how it might weaken the European Free Trade Area. Denmark was not the only country to condemn the surcharge, but its arguments did, according to Broad, play at least a modest role in encouraging the Labour government to reduce the tariff, and they also helped to broaden the surcharge controversy into a debate about the European Free Trade Area's relationship with the European Economic Community.

A man who even by the standards of politicians held his cards very close to his chest, Wilson's move toward seeking membership in the European Economic Community has generated a great deal of speculation among contemporaries and historians. Broad contends that the Labour government's attempt at “bridge-building” between the European Free Trade Area and the European Economic Community after a decision reached at Chequers in April 1965 may have stemmed partly from the Social Democratic Party's encouragement and from the threat of a unilateral Danish bid to join the European Economic Community. Danish records lead him to suggest, though, that at least until the end of 1965 Wilson had serious reservations about embracing the terms of the Treaty of Rome. Repeated financial and economic crises, defense cuts, and weakening ties with the Commonwealth and the United States meant that by the summer of 1966 Britain “looked ever more like what Labour had long maintained it was not: just another European country” (138). With the backing of the Social Democratic Party, the prime minister took the decision to “probe” the Six about their attitude to British membership of the European Economic Community. The move also had the advantage of countering the obstreperous European policies of President Charles de Gaulle. In Broad's account, Wilson was a calculating and pragmatic politician who responded to changing economic and political tides; he was never a wholehearted enthusiast for European integration. The path to membership in the European Economic Community was of course not smooth, nor was its aftermath. Britain and Denmark finally succeeded in joining in 1972, with both Labour and the Social Democratic Party experiencing turmoil over some of the implications of membership.

Broad has provided a detailed and nicely written account of an overlooked dimension of Wilson and the Labour Party's approach toward Europe. The story he tells is complex and subtle—and of course particularly interesting in light of current debates over the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union. The book, a transnational and international history, is admirably well researched, with evidence from archives in Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Broad might have supplemented the research with work in the records of the US State Department for additional insights. Sometimes the personalities involved in Broad's story emerge only rather thinly. All the same, he has made an authoritative case that the Danish connection influenced Harold Wilson's European policy far more than might be reckoned.