Not so, says Denman. President Pompidou would not have agreed to a deal with a Labor-led UK, and even if he had Wilson and Callaghan would have backed off in response to pressure from their own left wing. Denman makes it clear that more than the individual shortcomings of leaders are to blame. The underlying cause is the British class system. The royal family, the church, the law, the army, the city, the land-owning class, inherited money and their concentric circles have continued without a radical break for centuries.
Some decisions are critical.
This was one. It was not the last chance for Britain to enter Europe, but it was the first wrong choice. Britain will be outside, once a world power, now an offshore irrelevance. He believes that a new Labor government under Tony Blair would take a more positive attitude to European integration and could perhaps 11 seize Britain's last chance this century. Never previously known as a Labor supporter, Denman's present conviction is a measure of the desperate pass to which he believes his fellow countrymen have come.