It is March 25, 1957. The place: Rome. Gathered in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill are ministers and officials from seven European nations, there to sign a treaty establishing the European Economic Community. As the meeting ends, the British prime minister Harold Macmillan, appointed just a few weeks earlier, shakes hands with West Germany’s chancellor Konrad Adenauer. A new partnership has been forged, a momentous event for two nations that just 12 years earlier had been at war.

Except, of course, it didn’t happen. The Treaty of Rome was indeed signed on March 25, 1957; but the UK was not represented at the conference that brought the EEC into being. What if we had been? Would the EU be celebrating its 60th anniversary next month as a united entity or would Britain have pulled out long ago? Or, perhaps, had we been on board from the start it would never have grown into the unwieldy, unaccountable structure that we see today but would have remained the loose-knit trading zone we always wanted. 

And:

It is arguable that our economy began to recover in the 1980s because of the reforms of the Thatcher government, breaking the power of the trade unions, freeing up the labour market and selling off state assets. As we prepare to leave the EU it is at least worth considering what life might have been like on the outside. For a start we would have saved billions of pounds in net contributions and been free to strike trade deals with the emerging economies of Latin American and south-east Asia. This might have been to our considerable advantage: in the years since we joined the accumulated trade deficit with EU member states is about £500 billion.

One thing that was supposed to come from membership, but didn’t, was the returns of national self-confidence dented by the end of empire. Being part of a supranational body, especially after the Maastricht treaty forged much closer economic and political ties, diminished our sense of independence. It was intended to, of course; but while other EU countries were content with that, the British never were. So had we stayed out we would probably have had a very good relationship with the EU – certainly better than the one we are likely to end up with when the bruising Brexit negotiations are concluded.

Counter-factual histories usually try to legitimise the way things are today by implying they could have been a lot worse had matters taken a different course. Yet where our membership of the EU is concerned, the alternative might have been preferable to the reality. There is one other oddity about this: whether in the alternative world or the real one, the Germans always end up on top. Funny that.

David Fuller's view

Very few people read the weighty documents detailing European leaders’ long-term ambition to form a Federal Super State.  I certainly didn’t.  Instead, practically everyone was enthusiastic about the sensible concept of a European Common Market, not knowing that it was only a halfway house. 

However, two interesting but very different politicians – Enoch Powell and Anthony Wedgwood Benn, who alarmed more people that they reassured during long careers, did know about the largely German and French ambitions for Europe. 

(Read: Enoch Powell and Tony Benn were right on Europe – it was a great deception, by Christopher Booker for The Telegraph)   

Lastly, I am far more optimist about the relationship between the UK and ongoing or former EU countries once the process of Brexit is completed and Britain has regained its sovereignty.  UK and European minds will then be able to focus on the importance of good trade and diplomatic relations between neighbours.   

Here is a PDF of Philip Johnson's article.