ABSTRACT
The history of the United Kingdom after 1945 at first sight appears to fit well the model of the revived nation-state which has been used here to explain the process of western European integration. The post-war consensus on which the western European state was reconstructed resembled in its general lines that which formed the basis of British politics after 1945. The ambitions and functions of the state were extended in a similar way, and in the policies which ensued Britain differed much less radically from western Europe than it did from its own past. There was a burst of welfare legislation between 1945 and 1951. The first post-war government consciously sought to bring organized labour into policy formulation. The commitment to agricultural protection, although it spared consumers from higher prices, was in substance also typical of western European developments. There has been much argument over whether British governments were in fact committed to Keynesian ideas on deficit financing after 1945.1 But full-employment policies were not confined to rhetoric only. It was of great importance to the British side in the Bretton Woods negotiations that the agreement should not endanger post-war employment levels, intended to be much higher than in the 1930s. Demand-management became an integral aspect of government intervention in the economy. The increased and sustained level of government budgets had the same effect on demand as elsewhere. The degree of state control and guidance over industry, too, was far more extensive than earlier. Export-drives and the rhetoric of exports were also more evident, although the cult of exports was more orientated to the need to earn dollars than to change the structure of the economy.
