ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the reasons behind the UK's original reluctance to engage in the European project before analysing the debates surrounding entry, renegotiation and referendum that set the pattern for Britain's contested European Union (EU) relations for the next forty years, even if the 1975 referendum was thought to have settled the question of Britain's membership permanently. European integration began as a visionary way to secure peace in Europe in the wake of two world wars. Deploying economic means for political ends, the founding fathers hoped to make war among participating European states 'materially impossible'. In the immediate aftermath of the war, there was a need 'to keep the Americans in, the Soviets out and the Germans down'; factors that contributed to the development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and, more significantly regarding the German question at least, to moves to integrate 'Europe'.
