Parliament and European integration: postwar MPs and their memories of a long history

Emma Peplow and Priscila Pivatto draw on oral history interviews with postwar MPs to highlight their diverse political experiences in Parliament, particulalry with regards to the question of Europe. I was always pro-European […] but if you think back to the late ’80s and early ’90s you’ve got a new situation where the Tory Party is quarrelling over Europe, split over Europe, […] John Major finding it difficult to handle it. I have allies in the Tory Party like Kenneth Clarke. My own party is a bit split on the issue. I know that the new generation, [Tony] Blair, [Gordon] Brown and [Peter] Mandelson, I know that they are pro-European instinctively but they’re not going to risk much on it, either electorally, because they know it’s a fifty-fifty issue, but also because it splits the Labour Party. Giles Radice, Labour 1973-2001