A radical appraisal of Britain’s defence and foreign policy has led a group of Young Conservatives to conclude that commitment to Europe is at once our only choice and our greatest opportunity.

“If we are to play any role in the world it must be within a community of European nations which would form an equal partnership with the United States, sharing the defence of freedom by protecting itself, and the Mediterranean, and leaving the Far East to the United States, in concert with possibly a MAPHILINDO (Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia) alliance.”

This is the view of Mr John Selwyn Gummer, chairman of the Young Conservatives’ foreign affairs group, in a pamphlet, “Europe: No other choice” published yesterday, price 3d, by the Conservative Central Office. He argues that Britain’s military, economic and political interests compel her to try to enter the EEC.

‘Long dead myth’

“That long dead myth of the ‘special relationship’ between John Bull and Uncle Sam must finally be buried ... Outside the Common Market we can only expect the leftovers of capital from the US and elsewhere, and we shall have fewer of the new techniques which American money in particular brings in its train.”

He says that Britain, outside the Common Market, would be more and more dependent on the Communist countries and South Africa. “A neutralist stand would be necessary if our economy was to depend upon supplying to Mr Vorster and Dr Ulbricht materials which no other Western power will sell them.”

The pamphlet’s views are not necessarily official party policy. Mr Gumrner argues that there are so many oil suppliers in the world that the possibility of a total stop on supplies is too remote to demand the continued presence of British forces in the Middle East. This is not Tory party doctrine, although Mr Enoch Powell has seen the force of it.





Britain could ‘bridge the gap’ between Russian and US

By our own Reporter

Mr [Reginald] Maudling, the deputy Leader of the Opposition, yesterday forecast the end of the special Anglo-American relationship in the field of nuclear weapons and of defence arrangements outside the European theatre.

Britain, as a European nation, and preferably as a member of the European Economic Community, should help to provide a bridge between the United States and Russia, he said at a lunch given in London by the United States Chamber of Commerce (United Kingdom).

“I would like to see the Atlantic Alliance develop in a form which would recognise the new strength of Europe, and which would at the same time acknowledge the standing importance of American-Russian relations.”

It was very much in the interest of Europe that there should be a rapprochement between the United States and Russia, and that Europe should be involved, in any such rapprochement. The NATO structure must be revised, Mr Maudling said, to take into account the changing nature of the threat to the Western world and its movement, by and large, from Europe to the East. There could be little doubt that the pattern of relationships between the major Western Powers in these matters was in a phase of transition.

Entry ‘right’

He also supported British entry into EEC as right for the Commonwealth, for Europe, and for the development of Atlantic relationships.

On the Chrysler-Rootes negotiations, Mr Maudling said they had always been strongly in favour of American investment in Britain, and British investment in the United States. Subject to natural limitations, foreign investment brought great benefits to both parties, but it was important for the British to rely on themselves to provide capital and know-how for the development of their own industry.