History of England 1-6

When he took over government in June 1970 he had little idea of the tribulations which were to beset him. The faltering economy, the disintegration of Northern Ireland, two coal strikes and the exploding price of oil during the Arab–Israeli war were to leave him with the demeanour of a waxwork. His attempts at a corporate exercise in state affairs ended in failure, largely because the trade unions refused to participate, but this was only one of many disappointments that afflicted his premiership. The worst was the one which lingers in historians’ memory. Before the gruesome climax of the second miners’ strike he had reversed his policy of noninterference in industry, losing much authority in the process. He was in many respects a hapless figure, rendered more powerless by the first miners’ strike. The miners were carefully arranged to make the maximum impact, and the ‘flying pickets’ increased the strike’s efficiency. The miners won their case and climbed the ladder of industrial pay, while at the same time trumping other workers. The leaders of richer unions such as power workers and the dockers set their feet on the government’s rickety incomes policy, snapping it. The CBI, the TUC and the government could go on no more. The parlous state of Northern Ireland only thickened the brew.

Even his greatest achievement, Britain’s acceptance by the EEC, was not greeted with great celebration. Many felt indifferent, hostile or bored by any closer relationship to the adjoining land mass; it brought pizza parlours and wine bars, but it was not enough to change anyone’s way of life. It was certainly not enough to persuade the Labour party to embrace the European Community. The party was in any case in such disarray that it was almost impossible to know what was happening.

Yet to close with such a sweeping catalogue of failure would be as unjust as it would be unfeeling. Heath began with a solid majority and the warm wishes of press and public behind him. He was highly able and formidably diligent; and there could be no denying his patriotism. Unlike the expansive Wilson, he was uneasy before camera and microphone. The English love an underdog, and he had his ardent sincerity and sense of mission to recommend him. However, a leader must inspire courage in others, and Heath had not the skill to do so.

Harold Wilson did not expect to reoccupy Number Ten so soon after his recent eviction, and nor, it seemed, did he greatly want to. On the steps of Downing Street, on 10 October 1974, he announced: ‘Well, there’s a job to be done, and I’m going to go in and start on it now.’ As rhetoric, it was scarcely Churchillian. From that statement alone, it should have been clear that his white heat had cooled to grey ash.

The miners’ strike was swiftly resolved, to the benefit of the miners; there seemed little choice. Other matters outstanding were to prove soluble, after the fashion of the time. The Labour party had promised a referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the EEC, for the reason that the Tories had mishandled the negotiations, conceding too much too soon. Behind this palpable window dressing were sharper concerns. One was that the Labour movement as a whole remained unconvinced of the benefits of EEC membership. Most pressing of all, the new government needed a distraction from what Wilson himself admitted to be ‘the same old solutions to the same old problems’.

The ‘divine right’ of kings in England had been replaced by the ‘supremacy’ of parliament, but the proponents of British membership of Europe knew well that this supremacy was now limited; there was the overriding authority of the EEC to be reckoned with. This presented a democratic anomaly: how could the laws of parliament be at once sovereign and contingent? The government had no answer to this, so the problem was handed over to the people. Of the two main parties, it was the Conservatives who were the more ardent in the cause of continued participation. As the opposition, they would not have to face any adverse consequences for some time yet; furthermore, most of them sincerely believed that the Common Market meant just that – a sisterhood of capitalist nations, with no governess to answer to.