Читать книгу Edward Heath - Philip Ziegler - Страница 13

Heath had wanted the Ministry of Labour, wrote Macmillan, ‘and it was only right, in view of all his services, that he should step into independent ministerial command’. In fact he had wanted the Board of Trade but that had been promised to Maudling. He was well satisfied with the alternative, knowing that his success or failure in the role would be critically important to the economic and social performance of the government. The history of the unions in post-war Britain suggested that this task, though difficult, would not be unmanageable. Walter Monckton in 1951 had set a pattern of conciliation which had been broadly continued by Iain Macleod; the unions for their part had been controlled by moderates who were almost as anxious to avoid confrontation as the ministers with whom they dealt. But there were signs that all might not run so smoothly in the future. On one side the Tory right wing was growing restive: strikes, though still relatively infrequent, were becoming more common. There were calls for the abolition of the closed shop and the political levy, and the introduction of secret balloting. Sir John Laing, a giant of the construction industry, wrote to the Prime Minister demanding a return to the discipline enjoyed during the Second World War and citing examples from the Continent to show that this would be generally acceptable. ‘I can see no prospect of reverting to the wartime policy of combining a prohibition of strikes with a compulsory form of arbitration on industrial disputes,’ commented Heath. ‘The industrial conditions in Switzerland are so different from ours that a comparison is not very fruitful.’ He did not rule out legislation, yet he felt that the TUC must be given a chance to put its own house in order before the Government tried to impose its will on them.¹

But, on the other side, the union leadership was becoming less disposed to take any steps which might satisfy the Tory right. The scene was still relatively tranquil. Though the stalwarts of the wartime years had now departed, the TUC was still largely in the hands of moderates. George Woodcock, the General Secretary, and his deputy, Vic Feather, were eminently reasonable or, as their left wing saw it, feeble. So were the majority of members of the General Council. When Macmillan wrote in dismay to Heath about a rumour that the TUC was proposing a boycott of South African goods – ‘There are terrible dangers, especially for the heavy machinery business. In their present mood the Union of South Africa might retaliate by boycotting mining machinery and all the rest of it’ – Heath replied soothingly that all was under control. He would talk to Tom Williamson, ‘one of the more level-headed members of the General Council’, and was sure that the TUC would show restraint. So, for the moment, it did, but with Frank Cousins in charge of the giant Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) it was clear that the industrial scene was likely to grow more tempestuous. Arthur Scargill and his like were still a distant menace, but Scargill was already ensconced in his local branch of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and still a member of the Young Communist League. The problems that Heath was to confront in the mid-1970s had their genesis fifteen years before.²

Heath was genuinely well disposed towards the unions; he adhered to the view which had been propounded in One Nation, that ‘a strong and independent Trade Union movement is essential to the structure of a free society’. He set out to create a good working relationship with its leaders. Vic Feather warmed to him from the start. ‘He was ready to depart from the formal procedures and see people informally,’ Feather told Heath’s biographer, George Hutchinson. ‘He recognised that preconceived positions by the Minister are no good…He played the traditional role of being neutral…He understood the need for conciliation.’ William Carron, the president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), was likely to prove one of the most influential players in the game. Heath asked him out to dinner. Carron opted for lunch but refused to meet Heath in a restaurant as being too public a venue. Finally they settled for the Carlton Club. Carron can hardly have found the environment congenial but at least there were no lurking journalists. The lunch was a great success and went on till 4 p.m. In December 1959 Heath asked if he could borrow Chequers for a working party on industrial relations. Macmillan’s appointments secretary thought this would be a dangerous precedent and was probably outside the designated purposes of the Chequers Trust. With benign hauteur Macmillan minuted: ‘I expect Mr Heath’s guests will be more-or-less house-trained. Please arrange.’³

Heath’s first few months in office were uneventful; even when a rail strike began to seem a probability it was Ernest Marples as Minister of Transport who led in Cabinet. Heath said that, since the railwaymen had refused arbitration, he would have been entitled to intervene, but he thought ‘it would be better to await developments’. The situation was complicated by the fact that the Guillebaud Committee was about to report on the issue and was certain to recommend a substantial pay increase. The 4 per cent rise on offer was therefore no more than an interim figure: two of the unions involved were prepared to accept it but the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) stood out for an immediate 5 per cent. Heath made the disagreement between the unions an additional reason for holding his own fire but when it became clear that a national rail strike was otherwise inevitable he called in the unions and the British Transport Commission for direct talks. An element of charade was added by the fact that it was by now known to ministers that the Guillebaud Committee was going to suggest a figure far higher than the NUR was demanding (in the event it offered rises of between 8 per cent and 20 per cent). Heath argued in Cabinet that, given this, to refuse the NUR demand would present ‘difficulties from the point of view of the Minister of Labour in his conciliatory role’. Some members of the Cabinet complained that this would be a surrender to blackmail and the Chancellor muttered darkly about the dangers of inflationary settlements, but the majority was anxious to avoid a pointless and damaging strike.⁴ ‘I am thinking of you all the time,’ cabled Macmillan from Cape Town. ‘Do not hesitate to let me know if there is anything you want me to do.’ The press reaction had been reasonable, Heath replied, ‘but there may be criticisms from some members of the Party’.⁵ In the event, he was considered to be the hero of the hour and those sceptics who feared the long-term effects on negotiations with the unions for the most part kept their doubts to themselves.

Heath was convinced that the time was ripe for a high-level meeting between employers and union leaders, presided over by the Prime Minister, which would open the way for a new age in industrial relations. To his dismay his Cabinet colleagues were politely unenthusiastic – the project was too ambitious, it would be dangerous to convene such a meeting until the ground had been carefully prepared and a measure of consensus established. ‘Further consideration was needed,’ concluded the Prime Minister. Undeterred, Heath battled on and by the end of July 1960 was able to tell the Cabinet that both the British Employers’ Confederation and the TUC were ready to enter into talks. He had arranged for a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee in the near future.⁶ By the time it took place he had moved on, but he had launched a process which was to be carried on by his successor, John Hare. Heath’s relationship with the unions tends to be judged in the light of his performance as Prime Minister, particularly by the legislation which he championed intended to place the unions within the framework of the law. ‘In the period from 1959 to 1964,’ writes Eric Wigham, ‘the Ministry of Labour moved from the field of talk into that of action and legislation. Perhaps it began with Edward Heath, the future Prime Minister with the laughing shoulders and cold eyes.’ Cold eyes or not, Heath’s most considered views on labour relations in these earlier days were delivered at the Swinton Conservative College in May 1960. What should be done to improve industrial relations, he asked. ‘Some people would like to see the legal situation tightened up, but there is a grave danger in seeking legal solutions. How would they work in practice? What happens if thousands of men ignore the law and go on strike?…In dealing with these problems, we are dealing with the whole of the industrial population of this country. Those who think it is purely a legal affair would do well to remember that the law deals with criminal and civil cases in which one person or a small number of persons is involved. Here we are dealing with very large numbers indeed, with a long history behind their problems, and holding very deep feelings. They need to be approached very carefully, both by industry and by ourselves.’ It might have been better for Heath if he had had those words engraved and displayed permanently on his desk.⁷

In June 1960 Heathcoat-Amory finally retired as Chancellor. In the reshuffle that followed Heath was moved to the Foreign Office, to serve as Lord Privy Seal, with a seat in the Cabinet, under the new Foreign Secretary, Alec Home. When Heath became Minister of Labour his one stipulation had been that he should serve for the full period of the Government; now he was to be transplanted before he had been able to do more than start on what he thought was necessary. With Home in the Lords, however, he would speak for the Foreign Office in the Commons and, still more important, would be in charge of Britain’s relationship with Europe. If any other Foreign Secretary had been involved Heath might have had doubts, but he liked and trusted Home and believed that they would work successfully together. Some people predicted dire consequences from the divided leadership but James Stuart, always one of Heath’s most ardent admirers, reassured him. ‘I quite like the idea of FO in the Lords’, he wrote, ‘because the Commons mustn’t get into the way of regarding themselves as entitled to all important posts. Also, from your own personal future angle, it should be of great value to you to get the experience of another most important Department and to have to run important debates in the House.’ For Heath it was the prospect of negotiating British entry into Europe that was above all enticing. He had no doubt that he must accept the challenge. But he left Labour with regret. ‘I know you’ll do a first-class job,’ wrote Vic Feather, ‘which is why I rather wish you’d had another year or so at the Ministry of Labour where you’d so quickly won the respect and confidence of the unions. Anyway, there it is – from one hot spot to another!’⁸

Though Europe was to be at the centre of Heath’s time at the Foreign Office, it was by no means his only responsibility; indeed, for several months, it made relatively few demands on his time. In Cabinet Home tended to take the lead when any subject except Europe was under discussion but Heath would often accept responsibility when the countries of the Gulf, particularly Bahrain or Kuwait, were causing problems. He visited both states and considered himself something of an authority on the area; allegedly assuring the immensely experienced Sir William Luce, then Resident in Bahrain, that he understood how the Arabs thought and needed no advice on the subject.⁹ Otherwise he filled in for Home whenever the Foreign Secretary was out of the country or otherwise engaged. When Madame Furtseva visited London she became increasingly discontented with her programme and finally went on strike when required to visit Henry Moore’s studio – ‘It would be quite inappropriate for a Soviet Minister of Culture to inspect the work of a sculptor who put holes in people.’ Heath came to the rescue, took her to Wimbledon and the ballet and invited her to visit him in his new flat – the first time she had ever entered a British home. But though there were occasional compensations, the work was far less interesting and the responsibilities less serious than had been the case at the Ministry of Labour. Nor did his performance in the House of Commons do much for his reputation. ‘He seems to lack authority and grasp of his subject,’ said the MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, Lord Lambton – a comment that reflects more on the amorphous nature of his job than the merits of his performance but still makes it clear how difficult it was for Heath to shine when presenting someone else’s case on issues which were not under his control. In the Sunday Graphic in July 1960, the Tory MP Gerald Nabarro had tipped ‘the tough, imperturbable Edward Heath’ as a future Foreign Secretary. A few months later he had slipped back in the stakes so far as future promotion was concerned.¹⁰

The setback was only temporary. Heath’s real work at the Foreign Office more than restored his reputation. When he was appointed Lord Privy Seal he was known to be well-disposed towards Europe and critical of the Labour Government’s failure to move towards the Common Market, but he was not generally held to be – to use the phrases current some fifty years later – a Europhile, still less a Eurofanatic. Once Macmillan had taken the decision to apply for British entry and had charged Heath with the task of negotiating acceptable terms, however, what he had always felt would be a most desirable step forward became for him the Holy Grail. Heath became totally committed to the concept of Britain as an integral part of Europe and fought for it tenaciously until the day he died.

To a remarkable extent the decision to apply for British membership was made by Macmillan alone. He had, of course, to take the Cabinet with him but it was he who led and the rest who followed. The crucial moment probably came in January 1961 when Macmillan returned from a meeting with the French President, de Gaulle, at Rambouillet to report that there were ‘some grounds for thinking that it might now be possible to make some further progress towards a settlement of our economic and political relations with Europe’. There were, he said, ‘powerful influences in favour of the development of a close political federation in Europe’. De Gaulle was resolutely opposed to any such development. He believed that the United Kingdom by and large shared his views and would be a useful ally in the battle against the federalists. While there was no guarantee that de Gaulle would welcome British entry it was at least possible that he would not oppose it. It might therefore be best to seek a settlement while de Gaulle was still in power. The Cabinet enthusiastically agreed that steps should at once be taken to see if the way could be made clear for British entry.¹¹

But what did entry into Europe mean? In Britain, wrote Heath in 1967, ‘a myth has become fashionable that we were concerned only with economic affairs…Nothing could be further from the truth. The main purpose of the negotiations was political.’ Robert Marjolin, one of the two French Commissioners on the first European Commission, called on Heath in the House of Commons in March 1961. The EEC ‘was not an end in itself but only a stage on the road to a wider political union’, he said. The question was not whether the British wished to be associated with the Community as it was today but as it would be in the future. The UK, Heath replied firmly, ‘had always made it clear that they regarded the…question as primarily political’. The historian Keith Middlemas has suggested that Heath more than any other Conservative minister recognised the full implications of this concept and accepted ‘how great and painful the adjustments would have to be’. Probably this is true, but he shared his vision with the Lord Chancellor at least. ‘I am myself inclined to feel’, he told Lord Kilmuir, ‘that we have allowed ourselves to be over-impressed by supranationality, and that, in the modern world if, from other points of view, political and economic, it should prove desirable to accept such further limitations on sovereignty as would follow from the signature of the Treaty of Rome, we could do so without danger to the essential character of our independence and without prejudice to our vital interests.’ Kilmuir replied that he thought it would be difficult to persuade parliament or the public to accept any substantial surrender of sovereignty. ‘These objections ought to be brought out in the open now because, if we attempt to gloss over them at this stage, those who are opposed to the whole idea of our joining the Community will certainly seize on them with more damaging effect later on.’¹²

Heath accepted the argument, but with reservations. It might be undesirable to let this sleeping dog lie altogether, but there was no need to wake it too energetically. The emphasis when arguing the case in public should be on the immediate advantages to be gained from British entry and the damage that would be done by staying out; not on a hypothetical threat to national sovereignty that might or might not arise in the distant future. When the issue of sovereignty did arise, Heath played it down. Speaking at a private meeting in Chatham House in October 1961, he emphasised that any move towards federation could only come about with the unanimous support of all the members: ‘Therefore the position of those who are concerned from the point of view of sovereignty is completely safeguarded.’ That he believed this to be true is certain; that he privately considered that when the time did come the arguments in favour of some surrender of sovereignty would prove irresistibly strong is no less clear. This was not the moment to argue that case, however. He did not seek actively to mislead the British public about his expectations, but he did not feel it necessary or desirable to spell out the full implications of British entry in any detail.¹³

Until July 1961, however, the British Government was not committed to make any formal application to join. Exploratory missions were despatched to the most important capitals: Macmillan and Home received an encouraging reception in Bonn, Heath went to Rome in August 1960 and was assured that the Italians would welcome British accession. It was in Paris, though, that the problems were going to be found. Heath went there in October and found the French ‘predictably difficult’. Their stance was not that they opposed British entry but that they professed not to see how it would be possible. It was not as if the United Kingdom alone was applying to join. Largely to counter the EEC, Britain had been instrumental in creating the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), a loose association of seven fringe countries forming a rival trading bloc. Heath was able to tell the Cabinet that EFTA welcomed the British application, but only on the understanding that, in any negotiations, the British ‘would have full regard to the interests of their partners’. Were such interests, the French wondered, compatible with membership of the EEC?¹⁴

Worse still, there was the Commonwealth. The French had defended the position of its former empire when the Common Market was established; such arrangements could hardly now be renegotiated to meet a still greater complex of individual needs. Macmillan hopefully proposed that, when explaining the British position to the Commonwealth, ‘we should set the economic considerations in the context of the great political issues which were involved and the importance of reaching a settlement in the interest of Western unity’.¹⁵ That was all very well, said the French, but would the Commonwealth countries necessarily put the need for Western unity ahead of their export markets? And, if they did not, would the British be prepared to abandon them? Heath was impressed by the calibre of the French negotiators but not by their readiness to compromise. Couve de Murville, the Foreign Minister, was coolly non-committal. His deputy, Olivier Wormser, was quite as cool but rather more ready to commit himself. His preliminary views on the question of Commonwealth exports were so unforthcoming that Maudling exclaimed: ‘It seems to me to be pointless to be talking about any negotiations with them. They have in effect rejected in advance any proposals on the points of vital interest to us.’¹⁶ Baumgartner, the Minister of Finance, was one of the few Frenchmen in a high position who seemed favourable to British entry; but, he warned Heath, his Cabinet was divided and ‘he did not know what General de Gaulle’s innermost thoughts were on this’.¹⁷

Nor did anyone else. The General kept his own counsel. Pierson Dixon, the British Ambassador in Paris, believed that de Gaulle was hostile to British entry but hedged his bets by saying that he would ‘not be able to turn down a genuine offer from us to join’; Macmillan clung to his hope that the General would welcome the UK as an ally against creeping federalism in Europe. Jean Monnet, the great architect of European unity, maintained that in the last resort de Gaulle would accept British entry because his views ‘were coloured and guided by thinking how history would judge his actions’. One thing on which everyone agreed was that, if a British application was in principle desirable, there was no point in deferring it in the hope that de Gaulle would make his intentions known. In May 1961 Heath told the Cabinet that the signals from Paris were more encouraging; the French seemed less unwilling to take into account British obligations to EFTA and the Commonwealth. Ministers were divided: Christopher Soames, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Duncan Sandys, the Minister for Defence, and Heath were eager to start negotiations, Hailsham and Maudling saw no justification for such a step, Butler was characteristically uncertain. The Prime Minister had no doubts; it would have taken more than a few sceptics to check him. The decision to enter negotiations was announced in the House of Commons on 31 July. A fortnight later, on holiday in Brittany, Heath read in a newspaper that he was to conduct the talks. When he had left London a final decision on the matter had still not been reached. ‘There was nothing that I wanted more than this.’¹⁸

A formidably competent team was quickly assembled. The original proposal had been that the leading official should be Eric Roll, a polyglot civil servant of Austrian birth, who was an academic economist by training and possessed the unusual ability to lip-read in three languages – an invaluable asset in international negotiations. Heath respected his talents but told Macmillan he doubted whether he should be the senior official on the delegation. Macmillan agreed: ‘He thinks it specially important that the official in charge should be a man of standing and authority.’ That man, at Heath’s insistence, was Pierson Dixon: ‘Knowing that French agreement was the key to success, he wanted to put the man who was closest to them in charge in Brussels.’ The disadvantage of this was that, if Dixon was much of the time in Brussels, he would no longer be so close to those making policy in Paris. Probably it made little difference to the final outcome but it certainly placed an almost insupportable burden on Dixon himself and, on balance, was a mistake.¹⁹

But the real leader was Heath himself. The members of his team were united in their admiration for his achievements. He was outstanding, said Roll. ‘He combined in a unique way the qualities of a first rate official having complete mastery of complex technical details with the necessary political touch in his contacts with Ministers and officials of other countries, with the press and with London. He was the sort of Minister British senior civil servants particularly admire and like to work with, always ready to listen to advice yet quite clear in the end as to what ought to be said and done.’ Donald Maitland, the chief press officer seconded from the Foreign Office, wrote that, within the first few days, ‘Heath managed to create an almost tangible team spirit among members of the delegation. He was relaxed yet totally in control, he let others speak, including the most junior, and he ensured that by the end of the evening we each knew what was expected of us.’ The pressure on both Heath and his team was unremitting. In the eighteen months after May 1961 Heath flew 100,000 miles and spent one night in five abroad. His team spent less time in aeroplanes but were more often away from home; when the negotiations finally ended Heath sent Donald Maitland’s wife a bouquet of flowers with an apology for so often disrupting her family life.²⁰

Jean Monnet was the European whom Heath most respected and to whose opinions he paid the greatest heed. In Monnet’s view the way was wide open for British entry: ‘The greatest difficulty was to take the decision which the British Government has taken.’ The right tactic, he urged, was that Britain should accept the Treaty of Rome as it stood and then, having acceded, seek to change things from within. The idea had obvious attractions. Even de Gaulle could hardly have rejected an unconditional application to join and if Britain had become a member in mid-1961 it would have been in time to participate in the formulation of the Common Agricultural Policy instead of being confronted with a system largely devised to meet the needs of French farmers. But though left to himself Heath would probably have proceeded along such lines, he knew that there was no possibility that either the Government or the country would let him do so. Willynilly, he was doomed to fight for the interests of EFTA and the Commonwealth. He told Monnet that Macmillan would never ‘let the substantial domestic opposition which he faced prevent him from carrying out his aim of taking the United Kingdom into the developing European Union’; but in fact Heath knew that such opposition could not be ignored and that his conduct of negotiations in Brussels would have to take account of it.²¹

When he expounded to the Cabinet the line that he intended to take in his opening statement on 10 October 1961 he said that he would stress that ‘the aims and objectives of the Treaty of Rome were accepted by the Government’. That point made, however, he would ‘deal in some detail with the three major matters – the Commonwealth, agriculture and EFTA – for which satisfactory arrangements would have to be secured if the UK were to join the Community’. If a united Europe had been eager for British accession such an approach would have been reasonable, but given the attitude of the French it guaranteed that there would be, at the very least, endless delays and difficulties, and possibly final failure. He told the Cabinet a fortnight later that the response to his speech had been ‘reasonably favourable’. When speaking at Chatham House he was still more hopeful. Fears among the Six – France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – that Britain sought only to break up the union, or at least to impede its growth, had, he believed, been finally dispelled by his assurances. ‘The fact is that they do want us there, I believe now, broadly speaking, and we shall know finally one day.’ He would indeed. So far as five of the Six were concerned his optimism was well based, but if he found cause for comfort in the cool hostility of the French he was sadly deluding himself.²²

In retrospect it is easy to say that Heath should have fought harder in London to be allowed to decide for himself which items were worth a battle and which were not. As it was he found himself proposing terms which he knew would be unacceptable and in which he did not even believe himself. This was particularly true of the transitional periods which Heath proposed should be allowed before the full rigour of the EEC’s rules affected the Commonwealth exporters. ‘It was no good talking only about a short transitional period,’ he told the secretary general of the Italian Foreign Ministry, Cattani. ‘The Commonwealth system would continue and must be protected from anything which would seriously damage the interests of its members. It would not be possible from the internal political point of view in the UK to accept arrangements which caused such damage.’ Yet, as he admitted in his memoirs, the opening position that he was required to take up was ‘always unrealistic, at times farcically so’. The result was that even Britain’s staunchest allies among the Six wondered whether the will to join was really present; the French were exultant at such clear-cut evidence that the British were not serious in their application.²³

Once it became clear that every commodity – from butter, through bananas, to kangaroo meat – was to be the subject of lengthy bargaining, it became obvious that the negotiations would be protracted, tedious and faintly absurd. It was his activities at this period that earned him Private Eye’s mocking nickname of ‘Grocer Heath’. The noble concept which Heath cherished was almost lost in a welter of trivial haggling. Since, after every British offer, the Six had to retreat into conclave to agree on their response, the delays became almost intolerable.

The French rejoiced in this sluggish progress. It was their object to spin matters out so as to ensure that the Common Agricultural Policy would be operational before matters came to an end. Heath might reasonably have despaired at the snail-like advance of the discussions. Instead he remained alert, cheerful and resolute. ‘A less resilient personality than the Lord Privy Seal’, wrote Nora Beloff of the Observer, ‘would have been driven to distraction by the long hours he was to spend pacing in ante-rooms.’ He saw it as his function not only to remain abreast of every detail of the bargaining but to keep up the spirits of the British team. Morale was not always high. Both Eric Roll and Patrick Reilly, a future ambassador in Paris then working in the Foreign Office, believed that the extravagant demands of London, particularly those of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, had made it far more difficult for the other members of the Six to overrule the French.²⁴ Heath himself felt that, after a bold start, the British delegation had disappointed their allies by failing ‘to stand up to the French and to outwit and out-manoeuvre them’. Yet he had been left with so few cards to play that his ability to outwit or out-manoeuvre was very limited. ‘It was a gallant and indefatigable effort,’ wrote George Ball, an American diplomat who was as eager as anyone to see the negotiations succeed, ‘but inevitably mired in technicalities. During the ensuing debate the British purpose became obscure; the political momentum was lost in niggling bargaining.’²⁵

Heath was resolved that the purpose should not become obscure, that the flame should continue to burn. Late every evening in Brussels he would join the journalists in the basement bar of the Metropole Hotel. ‘On these occasions,’ remembered Maitland, ‘he was thoroughly relaxed and totally in control. His mastery of detail was complete and his confidence infectious.’ In London he used every avenue open to him to dispel what he felt to be unhelpful misunderstandings. The Labour Party, which for the most part had switched under Gaitskell’s leadership to opposition to British entry, was beyond his power to influence but he used his old contacts with the trade unions to brief them at regular intervals. Would he be giving a similar report to the House of Commons? asked the trade union leader Frank Cousins. ‘Mr Heath replied that in Parliament he could only give broad outline statements of what had been taking place and could go nowhere near so far as he had at the present meeting.’ The one point that the union leaders made repeatedly was that there should be a specific reference in the Treaty of Rome to the maintenance of full employment. Heath replied that ‘if they were successful in achieving the general aims of the Treaty, full employment would follow naturally’. Not wholly satisfied by this assurance, Cousins returned to the charge and Heath retorted that the trade unions in the Six were happy with the existing formula; the British could hardly insist on more.²⁶

It was the sceptics in his own party who required the most careful handling. Paul Channon, R. A. Butler’s pps, reported to his master that a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee was ‘well-attended and extremely friendly. Members were much impressed by the clarity and knowledge of the Lord Privy Seal.’²⁷ The 1922 Committee proved more critical. At a meeting in June 1961 d’Avigdor-Goldsmid attacked the negotiations on the ground that the interests of the Commonwealth were being neglected while Alfred Wise spoke for EFTA. Was it really necessary to be inside the EEC to influence it? he asked. ‘Has Britain had no influence up-to-date?’ This sally met ‘with a grumble of support’. Kenneth Pickthorn asked a question which preoccupied many members: ‘Can we at any time self-determine ourselves out?’ But though a majority of those who attended needed some convincing, the atmosphere was more one of enquiry than hostility. Opinion on the whole moved in favour of the Government. When a few months later Heath delivered a ‘long and complicated speech’ to the 1922 Committee it had ‘a very favourable reception’.²⁸ Though he won the argument, however, some felt that he was doing himself harm in the process. Robert Rhodes James, at that time a Senior Clerk in the House of Commons, noted that ‘an ominous note of thinly-veiled intellectual contempt for those in his party who opposed the application was sometimes clearly apparent in his speeches…For the first time, one was conscious of a substantial hostility developing towards Heath in some quarters of the Conservative party.’²⁹ ‘Substantial’ is a strong word, probably too strong. No other reports of the period make the same criticism. But when Heath knew that he was right – and he almost always did know that he was right – he was not at pains to conceal his opinion. Some members did undoubtedly feel that they were being brushed aside and their views treated with scant respect. They did not yet feel hostility towards Heath, but their affection was limited.

Persuading the Commonwealth countries that it was in their best interests to see Britain safely embarked in the Common Market was a first preoccupation of the Government. Heath firmly believed, or at least convinced himself, that this was true. Ministers were despatched to the capitals most concerned to set at rest any mind that might still be uneasy. They went out as doves, remarked Robin Turton, a strongly anti-European Conservative MP, ‘but returned not with an olive branch but with a raspberry’.³⁰ Heath went to Ottawa and received, if not a raspberry, then at least a very cautious welcome. When the Commonwealth leaders convened in London in mid-September 1962 the atmosphere was no more cordial. Heath’s own performance, noted Macmillan in his diary, ‘was really a masterpiece – from notes and not from a script. The temper was good, the knowledge of detail was extraordinary, and the grasp of complicated issues affecting twenty countries and many commodities was very impressive.’ But though the premiers of Canada and Australia, Diefenbaker and Menzies, may have been impressed, they were not converted. Two days later Macmillan wrote ruefully: ‘Poor Ted Heath…who is only accustomed to Europeans who are courteous and well informed even if hard bargainers, was astounded at the ignorance, ill-manners and conceit of the Commonwealth.’ But having let off steam and berated the British negotiators, the Commonwealth leaders took stock and concluded that they could live with the sort of settlement which Heath was envisaging. The worst was averted. ‘The meeting had ended better than it had begun,’ Macmillan told the Cabinet. Somewhat grudgingly, a green light had been given for the negotiations to continue. More than anyone else, Heath had been responsible for the change in the atmosphere. France Soir described him as being Macmillan’s ‘brillant poulain, le célibataire aux joues roses’. ‘Poulain’ – literally ‘foal’ – suggested a talented novice, a trainee. It was perhaps not exactly the description that Heath would have preferred but he accepted it as the compliment that was intended and kept the cutting among his papers.³¹

It had been his hope that, before the date of the Commonwealth Conference, every important issue in Brussels would have been resolved. It was not until July 1962 that he accepted a recess was inevitable and that negotiations would have to be resumed in the autumn. It was the fault of the French, he told the Cabinet. They had refrained from discussing their objections when the British had been present but had not hesitated to press them at meetings of the Six. ‘A high proportion of the obstacles which we were still meeting could be attributed to French initiatives.’ Almost as disturbing was the hostility to Europe which was growing in the United Kingdom. Gaitskell was not alone in his opposition. ‘If they don’t want us we certainly don’t need them’, was increasingly the attitude. But still Heath could not believe that, after so many weeks and so much bargaining, the negotiations could founder. Even the pessimistic Dixon, on the last day of the discussions before the adjournment, told Eric Roll that the French were ‘rather resentful of our rewriting their sacred writings…But they are chittering with interest; not, I judge, with hostility.’³²

Through the autumn and early winter, the mood of optimism grew stronger. Frank Giles, the exceptionally well-informed Sunday Times correspondent in Paris, said that British entry was now very nearly a certainty. ‘If the Archangel Gabriel himself were conducting the negotiations,’ he wrote, ‘he could (assuming, of course, that he was British) scarcely do better than Mr Heath.’ The crunch would come in mid-January 1963, Heath told the Cabinet. The French had agreed that there could be a long ministerial meeting and, though they had not accepted that this should be the final stage, they seemed resigned to the certainty that substantial progress would be made. The French were isolated, he announced confidently on 10 January. All the other members were ‘earnestly seeking to reach a settlement on terms acceptable to the UK’. The possibility that the French would not be deterred by the feelings of their allies, though it had been endlessly discussed, still seemed too fanciful a chimera to take seriously.³³

What disturbed Heath most was that the negotiations in Brussels were only part, and not necessarily the most important part, of the relationship between Britain and Europe, particularly between Britain and France. In March 1962, in a memorandum to the Foreign Secretary dealing with the possibility of cooperating with the European countries on the development of nuclear weapons, Heath showed that he was painfully aware of the link between such matters and British accession to the Common Market:

What alarms me more than anything, is that, at the same time as we are trying to negotiate our entry into the EEC – in which we have all too few cards to play – we are giving every indication of wishing to carry out political policies which are anathema to the two most important members of the Community. This can only increase the mistrust and suspicion already felt towards us in the political sphere…We must never forget that the countries of the Community are interested in two things: first, in jointly increasing their own prosperity – in which they regard us as a possible liability and the Commonwealth as an undesirable complication; secondly, in strengthening their defence against what they regard as the persistent and menacing threat from the Soviet Union…What they see here is our apparent determination, with the United States, to prevent the French from developing their atomic and nuclear defence…Our colleagues have instructed us to carry out a negotiation for our entry into the EEC at the same time as they – showing a complete lack of understanding of European attitudes and problems – are carrying out contrary policies in the political and defence fields. It is no wonder that these negotiations, already sufficiently difficult and complicated, threaten to become almost unmanageable.³⁴

For ‘our colleagues’ read, above all, the Prime Minister. Macmillan negotiated with the Americans at Nassau an agreement for the exclusive provision of Polaris missiles to be carried on nuclear submarines; to de Gaulle, at Rambouillet in mid-December 1962, he made it clear that, though the French were welcome to jog along as junior partners, the so-called ‘independent’ deterrent would remain firmly in British hands. ‘I only trust that nothing I have done at Rambouillet or Nassau has increased our difficulties,’ Macmillan wrote apologetically to Heath. His trust was misplaced. ‘I can well imagine de Gaulle’s feeling’, wrote Heath in his memoirs, ‘at being asked to accept the terms of an agreement negotiated in his absence by the British and American governments. With more sensitive handling, we might, at the very least, have denied him this particular excuse for behaving vindictively towards the British.’³⁵

Was the nuclear issue a decisive feature in de Gaulle’s thinking or was it just one more piece of evidence that Britain could never become truly European? From early in the negotiations Heath had been in no doubt that de Gaulle disliked the idea of British entry; he told Macmillan that ‘there was a genuine fear on de Gaulle’s part of admitting Britain as a kind of Trojan horse which would either disrupt the present system or prevent French domination’. But it did not necessarily follow that he would block British entry whatever the outcome of the negotiations. Some of the British team involved in the negotiations were convinced that that had been his intention from the start. He was determined to keep us out, says the British diplomat, Michael Butler, ‘because he feared the UK would gang up with Holland and Germany to create a Europe which was both too federal and too closely linked to the United States’. Any delay in making his position brutally clear was caused by his hope that the negotiations would break down without his intervention.³⁶ Yet Couve de Murville, whom Heath believed would not wilfully have misled him, told him just before the final sessions in Brussels: ‘No power on earth can now prevent these negotiations from being successful.’ De Gaulle, he claimed, had ‘neither the power nor the intention to veto UK membership’. Eric Roll was convinced that the General ‘made up his mind almost at the end’. The answer could be that de Gaulle did not ask himself till the last minute whether or not his mind was made up. He preferred not to contemplate the problem until it was thrust upon him. But if a decision had been forced upon him three or six months earlier he would almost certainly have acted as he did in January 1963. His mind may not have been made up earlier, but his mindset was inexorably fixed. Given his temperament it seems almost inconceivable that, whatever the course of the negotiations, whatever the feelings of the other countries involved, he would have allowed the British to enter the Community.³⁷

A few days before the last round began Heath dined with the American diplomat George Ball in Paris. He was ‘in ebullient high spirits’, wrote Ball. He described his meetings with various French ministers and concluded that, though some serious obstacles remained, he was ‘reasonably confident that the British application was in no serious trouble’. Then came de Gaulle’s press conference of 14 January, at which he stated bluntly that Britain was socially, economically and politically unsuitable to be a member of the European Community. Swiftly, Couve de Murville made it clear that, so far as the French were concerned, the negotiations were over. Heath at first hoped that so arrogant a volte-face might ‘rouse the Five to a new level of anger’, but, as he told the Government in London: ‘It begins to look as though none of them will have much stomach for the idea of carrying things to the point of breaking up the EEC.’ The last meeting of 29 January confirmed this view. Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian Foreign Minister, condemned the French behaviour in the harshest terms. It was, he said, ‘a day of defeat for Europe…If the Rome Treaty did not explode, the Community spirit was gravely, perhaps mortally wounded.’ But the Rome Treaty did not explode, nor was it near doing so. Gerhard Schroeder, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, made the best of it when he praised ‘the splendid effort which had been made by his British friends’ and hoped that ‘the impulse for European unity would not die away in Britain. For the day would come when it could be realised.’ Heath in his reply spoke with moving dignity. There was no need for fear, he said: ‘We would not turn our backs; we were a part of Europe by geography, history, culture, tradition and civilisation.’³⁸

It was one of the worst days of his life. The journalist Nicholas Carroll recorded seeing him in his hotel just before midnight: ‘The Lord Privy Seal, normally cheerful and tireless and the best-liked negotiator here, seemed frozen into profound depression; his cheeks grey, his eyes glazed with fatigue.’ Christopher Soames recalled driving with him to the meeting when they already knew that the veto was to be applied. ‘I remember sort of putting my hand on his knee and saying: “You mustn’t mind too much, Ted. Nobody could have tried harder than you”…and I got absolutely frozen dead-pan. I could never understand how undemonstrative he was.’³⁹ Impassivity was indeed his usual reaction to any setback. Carroll must have caught him with his guard down. But he rallied with remarkable speed. Within a few days he was raising in Cabinet the possibility of a new initiative confined to those members of the Six who favoured British entry, ‘preferably of a political or military nature and linked with NATO, which might strengthen our own position in Europe and serve as a counterpoise to the ambitions of the French government’. He gained little support for his ideas. Macmillan thought it would be dangerous to press for some new form of association which might seem incompatible with the course the British had so recently been espousing, and the Cabinet endorsed his views. The truth was that a substantial minority in the Cabinet was privately relieved that the effort to join the Six had shipwrecked and the rest felt that the whole European problem had best be left to simmer for a while, at least until the General had departed the scene.⁴⁰

The debacle had done no harm to Heath’s reputation. Evelyn Shuckburgh, from the UK delegation to NATO, spoke for the whole of the British team when he found some consolation in the fact that ‘you personally have emerged from the whole affair with such a tremendous reputation and, indeed, with a position in Europe and at home which is in many ways unique. This is a really remarkable result to have achieved through a failed negotiation.’ It was remarkable, yet, as was to happen so often in his career, Heath contrived to forfeit some part of the credit that was due him by the embittered intransigence of his behaviour. Philip de Zulueta told Macmillan a few months later that Heath was being ‘a bad loser’. He was refusing to leave ill alone, constantly making speeches attacking the French, which left them irritated but unmoved and embarrassed the other Five. ‘I am sure you ought to raise this with the Lord Privy Seal,’ urged de Zulueta. There is no evidence that he did so, but Macmillan noted in his diary: ‘Heath is so bitterly anti-French as to be almost unbalanced in his hatred of de Gaulle, Couve etc.’⁴¹

One reason why he harped so angrily on the past was that he did not have enough to do. For some eighteen months his activities had centred almost exclusively on Britain’s relationship with Europe. During this time his other responsibilities in foreign affairs, ill-defined at the best of times, had largely been looked after by other people. Even if he eventually managed to re-establish his position the work would never be of adequate importance: he had been appointed to the Foreign Office above all to secure Britain’s entry into Europe, and that avenue was now closed. He was marking time. It is the lot of those who mark time to pass unnoticed. Worse still, though nobody blamed Heath personally for de Gaulle’s veto, he was associated in the eyes of the public and the party with a failure of British policy. In the first six months of 1963 his reputation went, not dramatically but noticeably, into decline. It seemed unlikely that it would recover until Macmillan overhauled his Cabinet or retired.

The moment was not long postponed. Heath had been losing confidence in his former hero since the summer of 1962. His responsibilities in Brussels had kept him to some extent remote from Westminster politics and he was even more taken aback than most of his fellow ministers when Macmillan, in the notorious ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in July 1962, savagely reshaped his Government and put six of his senior cabinet ministers out to grass. ‘I knew nothing of what he had in mind,’ said Heath some years later. ‘After all, I was engaged in Europe. But it was ill-advised. The timing was wrong. And to do it on such a scale!’⁴² The Profumo scandal, giving as it did the impression that the Prime Minister was old, inadequate and out of touch with contemporary life, further weakened his position. When ill health forced him to retire just before the Party Conference in October 1963 it caused surprise but little distress in the parliamentary party.

If the negotiations in Brussels had ended in success and Heath had been rewarded for his efforts by promotion to a senior department it is possible that he might have been a significant challenger in the jostling for position which followed Macmillan’s resignation. Even as it was, he could not entirely be ruled out. Alec Home, the dark horse who was eventually to romp home the winner, told his Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Peter Thomas, that he thought the choice was between Maudling and Heath. Maudling, he felt, had the better chance, ‘because Ted Heath’s single-mindedness and lack of rapport with some backbenchers would disqualify him in many people’s eyes’. Home said not a word to suggest that he might be a candidate himself. Macmillan himself thought Heath and Maudling were both too young, and the same went for Iain Macleod: their chance would come in five or ten years.⁴³ The Times disagreed. If Heath was really too young – ‘after all, he is a mere year older than President Kennedy’ – then R. A. Butler would be the best choice. But, considered The Times, ‘that “if” needs to be questioned. Sooner or later the reins of Conservatism will be placed in the hands of a new generation. There is much to be said for that being done now.’⁴⁴ David Bruce, the American ambassador with an extremely sensitive understanding of British political life, felt that, in the wake of the Profumo scandal, ‘an unmarried man would be at a great disadvantage’. He too felt that Heath’s time would come but that in the meantime his supporters were likely to vote for Butler or Hailsham, who could be expected to disappear from the scene more rapidly than Maudling or Macleod.⁴⁵

Heath’s own views are hard to establish. He told his pps, Anthony Kershaw, that he was not going to throw his hat into the ring. If people wanted to vote for him he could not stop them, but he would give them no encouragement. In his biography of Alec Home, D. R. Thorpe states that, while Heath was staying with the chairman of the 1922 Committee, John Morrison, at his Scottish home on Islay in July 1963, the question of the succession came up. Morrison told Heath that Alec Home was going to be urged to run and Heath agreed to back him if he did. This Heath strongly denies. He told Hailsham that he had played no part in the choice of a new leader except to tell the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne, who it was that he personally supported. He had no discussions with Butler, Maudling or Macleod, and the matter was never discussed while he was at Islay. At that time, anyway, he pointed out, Macmillan’s retirement did not seem imminent. It is almost incredible that during their days and, still more, long evenings on Islay two men as passionately concerned with politics as Morrison and Heath should not even have touched on the question of who would be Macmillan’s successor. Heath, however, had no high opinion of Morrison’s judgment or his discretion; he might well have chosen to abort the conversation or to confine himself to a non-committal grunt when Home’s candidature came into question. Whatever the truth, Heath did back Home and made no secret of his loyalties.⁴⁶

Why he did so is another matter. He knew Home well, had found him easy to work with and could be reasonably confident that, with the former Foreign Secretary in Number 10, his own career would flourish. Was that all there was to it? Jim Prior, who worked as closely with Heath as any Tory and was his strong supporter, suspected that there was more. ‘Perhaps Ted had recognised that, although his own time had not yet come in 1963, he did stand a chance of being Alec’s successor, and that he would be much more out of the running if either Rab Butler or Quintin Hailsham had been chosen. This seems the most likely explanation…but it does also reveal Ted in a more scheming guise than I was to associate with him on virtually any other occasion.’⁴⁷ A more suspicious nature still might see Heath as even more guileful. Home was twelve years older than Heath, not believed to be hungry for office or likely to be particularly tenacious in holding on to it. He would be taking command at a time when the Tory ship was heading into storms, probably into electoral defeat. He would not be a caretaker prime minister but he would more nearly fill that role than any of his rivals. Heath would probably have backed him anyway, but a measure of self-interest may well have been among his motives. Certainly Home was a far happier choice from Heath’s point of view than either Macleod or Maudling, one only two years older than him, the other two years younger. If either of these secured the succession Heath’s prospects of reaching Number 10 would have been dim indeed.

In the event it became clear that Macleod had made too many enemies on the right and centre of the party to be in the running. In a ballot of Tory MPs, Maudling secured 48 first choices to Heath’s 10, and 66 second or third choices to Heath’s 17, but since Heath was not a formal candidate this meant little. Quite as important was the fact that Maudling was credited with six ‘definite aversions’ – in effect, blackballs – against Heath’s one. Hailsham, at one time said to be Macmillan’s favoured successor, piled up so many ‘definite aversions’ as a result of his ill-judged and extravagant performance at the Party Conference that he was ruled out. In the end the Queen, largely, it seems, on Macmillan’s recommendation, sent for Home. It was the consummation Heath had hoped for. It was made even better by the fact that Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell took exception to the secretive and, as they saw it, undemocratic process by which Home was finally selected and refused to serve under him. By doing so they gravely damaged their own prospects of future promotion. On 19 October 1963, the Earl of Home, as he then was, became Prime Minister, renounced his peerage and stood for election to the House of Commons as Alec Douglas-Home. It remained to see what job he would offer Heath.