which caused such damage.’ Yet, as he admitted in his memoirs, the opening position that he was required to take up was ‘always unrealistic, at times farcically so’. The result was that even Britain’s staunchest allies among the Six wondered whether the will to join was really present; the French were exultant at such clear-cut evidence that the British were not serious in their application.23
Once it became clear that every commodity – from butter, through bananas, to kangaroo meat – was to be the subject of lengthy bargaining, it became obvious that the negotiations would be protracted, tedious and faintly absurd. It was his activities at this period that earned him Private Eye’s mocking nickname of ‘Grocer Heath’. The noble concept which Heath cherished was almost lost in a welter of trivial haggling. Since, after every British offer, the Six had to retreat into conclave to agree on their response, the delays became almost intolerable.
The French rejoiced in this sluggish progress. It was their object to spin matters out so as to ensure that the Common Agricultural Policy would be operational before matters came to an end. Heath might reasonably have despaired at the snail-like advance of the discussions. Instead he remained alert, cheerful and resolute. ‘A less resilient personality than the Lord Privy Seal’, wrote Nora Beloff of the Observer, ‘would have been driven to distraction by the long hours he was to spend pacing in ante-rooms.’ He saw it as his function not only to remain abreast of every detail of the bargaining but to keep up the spirits of the British team. Morale was not always high. Both Eric Roll and Patrick Reilly, a future ambassador in Paris then working in the Foreign Office, believed that the extravagant demands of London, particularly those of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, had made it far more difficult for the other members of the Six to overrule the French.24 Heath himself felt that, after a bold start, the British delegation had disappointed their allies by failing ‘to stand up to the French and to outwit and out-manoeuvre them’. Yet he had been left with so few cards to play that his ability to outwit or out-manoeuvre was very limited. ‘It was a gallant and indefatigable effort,’ wrote George Ball, an American diplomat who was as eager as anyone to see the negotiations succeed, ‘but inevitably mired in technicalities. During the ensuing debate the British purpose became obscure; the political momentum was lost in niggling bargaining.’25
Heath was resolved that the purpose should not become obscure, that the flame should continue to burn. Late every evening in Brussels he would join the journalists in the basement bar of the Metropole Hotel. ‘On these occasions,’ remembered Maitland, ‘he was thoroughly relaxed and totally in control. His mastery of detail was complete and his confidence infectious.’ In London he used every avenue open to him to dispel what he felt to be unhelpful misunderstandings. The Labour Party, which for the most part had switched under Gaitskell’s leadership to opposition to British entry, was beyond his power to influence but he used his old contacts with the trade unions to brief them at regular intervals. Would he be giving a similar report to the House of Commons? asked the trade union leader Frank Cousins. ‘Mr Heath replied that in Parliament he could only give broad outline statements of what had been taking place and could go nowhere near so far as he had at the present meeting.’ The one point that the union leaders made repeatedly was that there should be a specific reference in the Treaty of Rome to the maintenance of full employment. Heath replied that ‘if they were successful in achieving the general aims of the Treaty, full employment would follow naturally’. Not wholly satisfied by this assurance, Cousins returned to the charge and Heath retorted that the trade unions in the Six were happy with the existing formula; the British could hardly insist on more.26
It was the sceptics in his own party who required the most careful handling. Paul Channon, R. A. Butler’s pps, reported to his master that a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee was ‘well-attended and extremely friendly. Members were much impressed by the clarity and knowledge of the Lord Privy Seal.’27 The 1922 Committee proved more critical. At a meeting in June 1961 d’Avigdor-Goldsmid attacked the negotiations on the ground that the interests of the Commonwealth were being neglected while Alfred Wise spoke for EFTA. Was it really necessary to be inside the EEC to influence it? he asked. ‘Has Britain had no influence up-to-date?’ This sally met ‘with a grumble of support’. Kenneth Pickthorn asked a question which preoccupied many members: ‘Can we at any time self-determine ourselves out?’ But though a majority of those who attended needed some convincing, the atmosphere was more one of enquiry than hostility. Opinion on the whole moved in favour of the Government. When a few months later Heath delivered a ‘long and complicated speech’ to the 1922 Committee it had ‘a very favourable reception’.28 Though he won the argument, however, some felt that he was doing himself harm in the process. Robert Rhodes James, at that time a Senior Clerk in the House of Commons, noted that ‘an ominous note of thinly-veiled intellectual contempt for those in his party who opposed the application was sometimes clearly apparent in his speeches…For the first time, one was conscious of a substantial hostility developing towards Heath in some quarters of the Conservative party.’29 ‘Substantial’ is a strong word, probably too strong. No other reports of the period make the same criticism. But when Heath knew that he was right – and he almost always did know that he was right – he was not at pains to conceal his opinion. Some members did undoubtedly feel that they were being brushed aside and their views treated with scant respect. They did not yet feel hostility towards Heath, but their affection was limited.
Persuading the Commonwealth countries that it was in their best interests to see Britain safely embarked in the Common Market was a first preoccupation of the Government. Heath firmly believed, or at least convinced himself, that this was true. Ministers were despatched to the capitals most concerned to set at rest any mind that might still be uneasy. They went out as doves, remarked Robin Turton, a strongly anti-European Conservative MP, ‘but returned not with an olive branch but with a raspberry’.30 Heath went to Ottawa and received, if not a raspberry, then at least a very cautious welcome. When the Commonwealth leaders convened in London in mid-September 1962 the atmosphere was no more cordial. Heath’s own performance, noted Macmillan in his diary, ‘was really a masterpiece – from notes and not from a script. The temper was good, the knowledge of detail was extraordinary, and the grasp of complicated issues affecting twenty countries and many commodities was very impressive.’ But though the premiers of Canada and Australia, Diefenbaker and Menzies, may have been impressed, they were not converted. Two days later Macmillan wrote ruefully: ‘Poor Ted Heath…who is only accustomed to Europeans who are courteous and well informed even if hard bargainers, was astounded at the ignorance, ill-manners and conceit of the Commonwealth.’ But having let off steam and berated the British negotiators, the Commonwealth leaders took stock and concluded that they could live with the sort of settlement which Heath was envisaging. The worst was averted. ‘The meeting had ended better than it had begun,’ Macmillan told the Cabinet. Somewhat grudgingly, a green light had been given for the negotiations to continue. More than anyone else, Heath had been responsible for the change in the atmosphere. France Soir described him as being Macmillan’s ‘brillant poulain, le célibataire aux joues roses’. ‘Poulain’ – literally ‘foal’ – suggested a talented novice, a trainee. It was perhaps not exactly the description that Heath would have preferred but he accepted it as the compliment that was intended and kept the cutting among his papers.31
It had been his hope that, before the date of the Commonwealth Conference, every important issue in Brussels would have been resolved. It was not until July 1962 that he accepted a recess was inevitable and that negotiations would have to be resumed in the autumn. It was the fault of the French, he told the Cabinet. They had refrained from discussing their objections when the British had been present but had not hesitated to press them at meetings of the Six. ‘A high proportion of the obstacles which we were still