I knew Winston Churchill, I worked with him, I stayed with him at his home at Chartwell and I have read his speeches many times. I can assure you that Winston Churchill was no Euro-sceptic. Can anyone seriously imagine any Euro-sceptic today saying, as Churchill did in his renowned Zurich speech 50 years ago, that our task "is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe"? He looked to Britain, with others, to create it and be with it.
I readily accept that at that time Churchill did not envisage Britain being a full member of this united Europe, but in gleefully seizing upon this point, Euro-sceptics have misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of Churchill's attitude to full British participation in Europe. This reluctance was based on circumstance; it was not opposition based on principle. And the circumstances have changed in such a way that I am sure Churchill would now favour a policy that enabled Britain to be at the heart of the European Union.
What is certain is that Churchill never entertained any of the objections that today's Eurosceptics hold to British participation in a united Europe. In the House of Commons debate on the Schuman Plan in June 1950, Churchill asserted: "The whole movement of the world is towards an interdependence of nations. We feel all around us the belief that it is our best hope, if independent, individual sovereignty is sacrosanct and inviolable, how is it that we are wedded to a world organisation?... How is it that we have undertaken this immense obligation for the defence of Western Europe...? It can only be justified and even tolerated because on either side of the Atlantic it is felt that interdependence is part of our faith and the means of our salvation."
It would, indeed, have been odd for Churchill to have said otherwise, for this was the same man who in June 1940, as France was succumbing to German invasion, wrote, published and proposed, with the full support of his War Cabinet, the Declaration of Union between Great Britain and France, stating: "The two governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France." Unfortunately the French were being overwhelmed by the Germans and could not respond to his proposal.