ABSTRACT
This chapter begins where John Young's leaves off, for the central foreign policy question for any UK government in the early 1970s was one of how the wider canvass of Britain's external relations would be related to its imminent membership of the European Community (EC). A growth of interdependence meant that even if the British state remained a central foreign policy actor, it would have to behave in very different ways. As part of its commitment to restore a sense of determination to UK foreign policy, the Heath government had made more specific promises on international questions than is common in the election manifestos of British political parties. The promise to resume arms sales to South Africa partly reflected the commercial frustration that other countries, unconstrained by membership of the British Commonwealth, were picking up contracts that might otherwise have gone to the UK.
