Following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill in Zurich in 1946, his son-in-law, Duncan Sandys, organised the launch of the United Europe Movement in 1947.

In Paris on 20 July 1947 ELEC, the UEM, the EPU and the EUF agreed to establish the Committee for the Co-ordination of the International Movements for European Unity.

The EPU did not however subsequently ratify its participation in the Committee but the Nouvelles Equipes Internationales agreed to join.

Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America, and I trust, Soviet Russia....must be the friends and Sponsors of the new Europe, and must champion its right to live."

The British European Movement, mostly working through its Campaign Group based in Chandos House, London, worked closely with the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath in the early 1970s when Heath applied to join the European Union.

[7] Other campaigns since then have included pressing for direct elections to the European Parliament in the 1970s[8] and promoting the benefits of the single market in the run-up to 1992.

[10] In February 2018 George Soros's Open Society Foundations donated £500,000 to a number of groups opposing Brexit including £182,000 to European Movement UK.

[12][13] The current chair of the UK European Movement is Mike Galsworthy, who was elected to the position in 2023.