How Tony Blair’s attempt to put the UK at the heart of Europe backfired

Pro-Europeanism was central to New Labour’s efforts to modernise ‘New Britain’ – but, asks John Rentoul, did it only sow the seeds of Brexit?

Blair left a Eurosceptic deluge. When the dam broke in 2016 the wave carried Britain out of the EU (AFP/Getty)

I don’t like it,” said Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, when the Labour government considered what to do about the Council of Europe, an early attempt to unite the continent in 1948. “When you open that Pandora’s box, you will find it full of Trojan horses.”

Well, they opened that Pandora’s box. Here we are, 72 years later. Britain joined the Council of Europe, despite Bevin’s reservations, but the Cold War paralysed it. We stood aside from the European Economic Community when it was formed in 1957, but tried to join in 1963 under a Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan, and again in 1967 under a Labour one, Harold Wilson.

When Edward Heath finally succeeded in joining in 1973, Labour opposed him, but a large minority of Labour MPs, led by Roy Jenkins and including John Smith, defied their whip and voted in support of the government. They outnumbered the small minority of Conservative MPs who rebelled against theirs.