Europe and the Common Market

Six countries on the European mainland decided in 1957 that trading as a bloc would serve them better than trading apart, and formed the European Economic Community to do it. Britain chose not to join at the start. It watched from outside for years, unsure about tying its trade and its laws to a club it had not helped design, before eventually deciding to apply. Whether and when to join became one of the defining arguments in British politics for a generation, argued over by government after government.

The question of Britain's place in Europe did not go away once the EEC had grown into something larger. It kept resurfacing right through the years when Margaret Thatcher led the Conservative government, and on into the decades that followed her time in office. What started as six countries choosing to share a market in 1957 went on to shape British politics for the rest of the century.