Accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities

This followed ratification of the Accession treaty which was signed in Brussels on 22 January 1972 by the Conservative prime minister Edward Heath, who had pursued the UK's application to the EEC since the late 1950s.

It listed among "Areas of policy in which parliamentary freedom to legislate will be affected by entry into the European Communities": Customs duties, Agriculture, Free movement of labour, services and capital, Transport, and Social Security for migrant workers.

Meanwhile the Labour Party believed that it would lead to cost-of-living increase for the British working class, forcing them to consume more expensive agricultural produce from continental Europe instead of cheaper food from the imperial dominions, and that what they saw as the domination of mainland western European politics by anti-socialist Christian democracy would threaten the newly constructed welfare state introduced by the Attlee ministry.

As a result the UK's initial attitude to moves toward European economic integration was rather detached: it was only an observer to the negotiations on the creation of the ECSC which culminated in the 1951 Treaty of Paris, and similarly sent a mid-ranking civil servant from the Board of Trade as an observer to the ministerial Messina Conference which led to the Treaty of Rome.

[8] Shortly after the creation of the ECSC in 1952, the UK became the first country to establish a Delegation in Luxembourg, the seat of the High Authority (present-day European Commission) at the time.

[10] That year the British government also made a counter-proposal to the Treaty of Rome negotiations, advocating the creation of a larger but less integrated free-trade area encompassing all members of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (now the OECD): this would have established a European trade bloc but would not have introduced a common external tariff, which would have allowed the UK to maintain an Imperial Preference policy.

A series of international football matches between the member states, including a home team captained by Bobby Charlton, left Wembley Stadium only half-full.