Macmillan, Heath, Wilson and Europe: What did they do for us? Or did they just do for us?

4 October 2012

Sir Stephen Wall, formerly the UK's Permanent Representative to the EU and subsequently Tony Blair's EU adviser, will draw for this debate on his most recent book examining British politics towards the European Community from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

Currently Chair of UCL Council and of the UCL European Institute Advisory Board, Sir Stephen's latest research, as successor to Alan Milward in the position of Britain's official historian of UK-EU relations, follows his first book, published in 2008, on later EC/EU-UK relations, A Stranger in Europe: Britain and the EU from Thatcher to Blair. Combining both scholarly insight and his first-hand experience of working with British leaders as they shaped Britain's European policy, this evening talk will give an informed and nuanced view of this politically sensitive area. Specifically, he will discuss how three of Britain's most important post-war leaders weighed national interest and the interests of their European counterparts, extrapolating to discuss the more recent developments.

Speaker

Sir Stephen Wall (Chair of UCL Council, formerly the UK's Permanent Representative to the EU)

Discussant: Gill Bennett, former chief Historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.