Why Britain really joined the EEC (and why it had nothing to do with helping our economy)

Conventional historiography has put forward some dubious reasons for Britain’s membership of the EEC, writes Alan Sked. Most students seem to think that Britain was some sort of economic basket case and that the EEC provided an engine which could revitalise her economy. Others seem to believe that, after the second world war, Britain needed to recast her geopolitical position away from empire towards a more realistic one at the heart of Europe. Neither of these arguments, however, makes sense.