ABSTRACT
The Conservatives in opposition from 1974 to 1979 could still be seen broadly as the least divided of the main parties when it came to Europe. They were a pro-EEC party. The anti-Marketeers appeared, as a force within the party, to have dwindled, deemed irrelevant due to the scale of the ‘Yes’ vote in the 1975 referendum. Now the issue was deliberately kept low key. This position suited the new leader Margaret Thatcher, who was yet to form her strident views on the matter, because there was no wish to detract from the objective of questioning Labour’s domestic record. The discussion that did occur on Europe after the referendum revolved around four areas. One was a general sense that Wilson and then Callaghan were taking a passive role in European affairs. This was largely because of Labour’s internal divisions, but it meant that in Conservative eyes the EEC continued to be dominated by the Franco-German axis. The matter of direct elections to the European Parliament exercised minds the most. The matter of Britain’s budget contribution to the EEC was an irritant, along with the issue of whether Britain would participate in the Franco-German proposed European Monetary System (EMS). With the exception of direct elections, these were not issues that really registered with the party’s grass roots. One phenomenon of the post-1975 Europe debate was the extent to which it was confined to within the parliamentary party until the 1990s. It should also be seen as significant that, unlike the last opposition period, 1964-70, there was only one policy group considering European matters: direct elections to the European Parliament.1 Yet as Thatcher led her party into the 1979 general election there appeared to be a positiveness about their attitude to the EEC. They were critical of Labour’s obstructiveness, and made promises of renewed British leadership and entry into EMS if the election was won.2
