Edward Heath

I

Introduction

Edward Heath (1916-2005), British Prime Minister (1970-1974), who oversaw the United Kingdom’s admission to the European Community (now the European Union). Heath was born in Broadstairs, Kent, the son of a carpenter, and was educated at Balliol College, the University of Oxford. As an undergraduate he opposed the policy of appeasement pursued by the prime minister Neville Chamberlain towards the Nazi regime in Germany. In 1939 he was president of the Oxford Union. After serving in the army during World War II, Heath worked in the Ministry of Civil Aviation and for a London banking firm. He was elected to the House of Commons as Conservative Party member for Bexley in 1950, where he served as MP until 1974; he then served Bexley Sidcup (1974-1983), and Old Bexley and Sidcup (1983-2001). He made his maiden speech advocating British involvement in European union.

II

Party Leader

Heath became assistant party whip (1952) and then chief party whip (1955). He also served as minister of labour (1959-1960); Lord Privy Seal (1960-1963), during which time he had special responsibility for attempting to negotiate a British application to join the European Economic Community; and president of the Board of Trade (1963-1964). After the Conservative Party’s defeat at the 1964 general election and the decision of Alec Douglas-Home to resign as leader, Heath was elected his successor in 1965. He was the first Conservative leader to be elected by a ballot of Conservative Members of Parliament, and he defeated Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell in the contest. At the age of 49 he was the youngest leader of the party for over a century. He created a precedent by becoming the first party leader to attend the entire duration of the party’s annual conference in October 1965.

Heath immediately took control of the party’s policy-making structure, including the chairmanship of the Advisory Committee on Policy (ACP). Two Conservatives who sought to challenge policy, Angus Maude and Enoch Powell, had to do so from outside normal party channels. Powell was sacked from the shadow Cabinet in April 1968 after making his anti-immigration “rivers of blood” speech in Birmingham and neither man was offered a post in Heath’s Cabinet.

III

Prime Minister

Against expectations, the Conservatives won the general election of June 1970, and Heath became prime minister. The sudden death of Iain Macleod, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, only 31 days into office cast a shadow over the new administration. Macleod’s successor Anthony Barber initially presided over a period of economic prosperity from 1972 to 1973 (the “Barber boom”) fuelled by his “dash for growth”. Barber was later blamed for the inflation that followed, although he claimed he had been reluctant to pursue such expansionist economic policies and that Heath had been determined upon this course of action. Consequently, Heath’s premiership was hit not only by problems in economic policy (rising inflation and rising unemployment) but also by industrial unrest. Heath’s imposition of an incomes policy in an attempt to deal with inflation led to a national coal strike in 1972, obliging the government to declare a state of emergency (February), followed by strikes in the coal, power, and transport industries. In December 1973, Heath imposed a three-day week on the country to deal with power shortages.

Northern Ireland re-emerged as a major problem for the British during the early 1970s. The escalation in political violence from July 1970 and the death of the first British solider in Belfast in February 1971 obliged Heath’s government to introduce internment (August 1971). Problems continued after the army killed 13 during the Londonderry Bloody Sunday riots in January 1972 and eventually in March the government was obliged to re-impose direct rule from Westminster on the province. Later in the same year Heath allowed the immigration of British passport-holding Ugandan Asians, expelled en masse by Uganda’s ruler Idi Amin.

During this period Heath was faced with considerable unrest among Conservative backbenchers and from the 1922 Conservative backbench committee under the chairmanship of Edward Du Cann. This was largely due to Heath’s off-hand management of the parliamentary party. Furthermore, he ignored advice to engage with the country after his election, which might have provided the nation, and the party, with the necessary inspiration to take on the challenges of the period. Heath’s major accomplishment was to take the United Kingdom into the European Community. However, his party was defeated in the February 1974 general election, which Heath had called to decide “Who Governs Britain”, and Heath resigned as prime minister in March after negotiations with the Liberals failed to secure a working majority. The Conservatives were defeated again in the October 1974 election. In February 1975 Heath lost his post as party leader to Margaret Thatcher. He held no posts in subsequent Conservative Cabinets but retained his seat in Parliament and served on the Brandt Commission between 1977 and 1980. Heath finally stood down as an MP after 51 years of service at the 2001 election. Under the leaderships of John Major and William Hague he became one of the chief spokespersons for the pro-Europeans within the Conservative Party.

IV

Assessment

Heath’s premiership has been cast by Thatcherites as a failure, with the suggestion that he displayed cowardice for abandoning initial right-wing objectives in the face of difficulties. This is an ahistorical judgement, however, since it incorrectly presumes that a January 1970 shadow Cabinet conference held at Selsdon Park was a blueprint for monetarism and market economics. Heath never believed in laissez-faire, but was a traditional “one nation” Tory who saw the state as an essential deliverer of economic and social policy. Outside politics, Heath pursed his interests in sailing (a winner of the Admiral’s Cup in 1971) and classical music. He was knighted in 1992 and in October 1998 he published his memoirs, The Course of My Life.