Churchill and the EU

Churchill wrote to his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, on 21 October 1942:

‘Hard as it is to say now.. I look forward to a United States of Europe, in which the barriers between the nations will be greatly minimised and unrestricted travel will be possible.’

In his famous Zurich speech of 1946, Churchill said:

‘We must build a kind of United States of Europe.. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important.. If at first all the States of Europe are not willing or able to join the Union, we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can.’ At London’s Albert Hall, in May 1947, just a few months after his Zurich speech, Churchill spoke as Chairman and Founder of the United Europe Movement to:

‘present the idea of a United Europe in which our country will play a decisive part..’

Churchill argued that Britain and France should be the:

`founder-partners in this movement’

and concluded:

`Britain will have to play her full part as a member of the European family’. In May 1948 Churchill said in the opening speech to the Congress of Europe in Holland:

‘We cannot aim at anything less than the Union of Europe as a whole, and we look forward with confidence to the day when that Union will be achieved.’

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