Britain on Friday voted to leave the European Union after a 43-year-long stint. But it had less than smooth relations with the group of nations -its first application to join was peremptorily rejected by France’s Charles De Gaulle in 1963, dealing a major blow to the career of then Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
It was only in 1973 that it got in (under Edward Heath, another Conservative) but never seemed to have been comfortable there given the less than complimentary references in popular media.
One of the best guides to what the British establishment thought of their European association is in Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s satirical TV sitcom Yes Minister (1980-84) and Yes Prime Minister (1986-88).
Though it chronicled Minister for Administrative Affairs Jim Hacker’s struggles to effect changes in government policy against the Civil Service’s opposition, represented particularly by his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, dealing with outcomes of Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community (as the European Union was till 1993) frequently came up.
Hacker initially had a benign view of Europe, but Appleby was more cynical.
As Hacker notes it was “all ancient history”, he responds:
In a latter episode (“Devil You Know”, telecast March 1981), as Hacker says “Europe is a community of nations, dedicated towards one goal”, Appleby laughs and asks him to look at it “objectively”.
To Hacker’s assertion that Britain joined “to strengthen the brotherhood of free Western nations”, Appleby responds:
(Vikas Datta is an Associate Editor at IANS. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
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