Thread by @EmporersNewC

1.Having had the author of the quote make it clear that this is not from Jean Monnet, Kate Hoey believes it’s OK if she keeps it up.

Well there might be something to talk about here....

(Thread)

2. The quote, which has been accredited to Jean Monnet by Eurosceptics for years to claim that people have been kept in the dark, was actually from Adrian Hilton.

(Nice to see him rebut this claim)

3. But since Kate Hoey is practically a Labour MP, let’s talk about this in the context of things said during the two applications to join the EEC by the Labour party.

4. In the lead up to first negotiation in 1967 we can find the Prime Minister being asked if it’s possible to join the EEC purely on commercial terms, and Harold Wilson saying ‘no, I don’t think so’.

5. The first negotiation was entrusted to George Brown. Here George is at the Royal Albert hall talking about the circumstances on which the UK were prepared to accept the Treaty of Rome.

6. In George’s policy declaration he made it clear we would play its part “not only in the commercial and economic but also in the political and defence fields”.

7. Here is George talking about Europe speaking as one in NATO.

8. The attempt failed, but Europe was entirely closed to the UK. Here is European Common Market President Jean Rey explaining the future political union and how countries like the UK could be involved.

9. When that attempt failed their second attempt was to be negotiated by George Thomson. Here is George talking about sovereignty.

10. In this time there as a good article published by The Illustrated London News on Saturday 23 August 1969. I don’t have the full text, unfortunately, but here is what I’ve got with quoted extracts.

11. “The men who created the European Community never made any secret of their ultimate ambition.“

12. “By joining the Treaty of Rome, we certainly undertake to do no more than the things which are written into the Treaty, and we give no commitment, either explicit or implicit, for anything more.”

13. “The political community, the technological community, the defence community, the monetary community, all of these are ideas which may seem to have a certain validity now, and may even be achieved, with or without us in the future.”

14. “Most economists agree that joining the Community will be advantageous for us industrially, and disadvantageous in terms of consumer prices and the balance of payments at any rate initially.”

15. “Nor can anyone foresee precisely what developments are likely to take place in the immediate future which may change the whole picture.”

16. “It is perfectly true that the common agricultural policy of the Community, in its present form, would be a very heavy burden for the British economy, perhaps too heavy for us to bear.”

17. “We do not and cannot know at this stage what the final outcome will be. The conclusion is necessarily vague at this point.”

18. I don't know exactly when in history Jean Monnet, who was said to have never made any secret of his ultimate ambition, began to be cast as someone who had attempted to hide those ambitions.

19. It’s also refreshing to read something so objective. The Illustrated London News article is so objective and weighs both sides in such a way, I didn’t know what the author would eventually conclude.

20. The second negotiations were scheduled to go begin at the end of June 1970, but didn’t go ahead because, just days before, Labour lost the election.

21. As for Monnet, after De Gaulle had imposed his direction on the EEC, he concluded in his memoirs he had no idea if his grand ambition of federalism would be seen in the EEC.

22. Apparently finally admitting that they had been wrong in the beginning, and that what had been created from the European Community was a permanent dialogue.

Not forming a coalition of states, but uniting people.

23. But the story doesn’t end there, because there was another quote in a pamphlet for which Peter Thorneycroft was the principle author.

(I haven’t been able to confirm its legitimacy. Pamphlets from 1947 are apparently quite hard to come by!)

24. This idea being dismissed during our eventual entry into the EEC by Eurosceptic George Fielden MacLeod who declared that the greater majority of people were not now unconscious pawns.

25. So from the mouth of a Eurosceptic, the vast majority of people knew that the EEC had political intentions in 1971, like the intentions it had in 1967, and like the intentions it had from the very beginning.

/End