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The 1971 South Asia crisis demonstrated that Britain, despite the contemporaneous discussions which were taking place over British accession to the European Economic Community, continued to possess global interests. After a brief period of neutrality in the growing conflict between India and Pakistan, the government of Edward Heath leaned decisively towards the former. This contrasted with the American 'tilt' in the other direction, towards Pakistan. The resulting differences of approach between the Heath government and the Nixon White House reflected a wider pattern of division between British and American policy makers over Asia rather than any attempt by Heath to underscore his European credentials by distancing himself from the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how the Cabinet Office was able to isolate rogue ministers as a means of reinforcing collective Cabinet responsibility and enforcing the will of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Harold Wilson returned to Number 10 Downing Street in 1974 promising to renegotiate the terms of Britain's entry into the European Community. The renegotiation effort was coordinated by the Cabinet Office's European division, which aligned itself to Wilson's strategy of engineering the renegotiation to ensure Britain would remain a member of the Community. Benn was opposed to Community membership and in his capacity as Secretary of State for Industry sought to use the renegotiation items of regional development and the steel industry to cause its disruption. The Cabinet Office, in close collaboration with Wilson and Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan, frustrated his attempts by utilising the machinery of government it operated against him to help push their preferred policy through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability under the Thirty Year Rule of British and Stormont government papers for the early stages of the Troubles has made it possible for existing analyses of the role of key actors to be reassessed. This article uses the reports of successive UK Representatives to cast new light on the nature of British policy in the 1969-71 period. It argues that a view of the dynamics of the conflict as between an entrenched and discriminatory majority and an oppressed minority led to an underestimation of the depth of Protestant fears and the deepening of the regime's legitimacy crisis with its own supporters. The result was persistence with a policy that achieved the worst of both worlds: a regime incapable of stabilising itself and an increasingly militant and radicalised Catholic population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Commonwealth has always been a subject of lively academic debate and publication but in recent years the historical context seems to have gone by default. Forty years ago the picture was different. Commonwealth historians were among the leading historians of their generation. This article revisits some of the contemporary assessments of the Commonwealth in the 1960s, and contrasts them with the Commonwealth policies pursued by the British government between 1964 and 1971. It is open to interpretation whether these were years of unremitting crisis or a time of adjustment leading to a more mature and realistic appreciation of what the Commonwealth represented and what it might achieve. The article begins with a discussion of economic relationships, and proceeds to the political aspects, the centrepiece of which was a 1967 assessment within Whitehall of the value of the Commonwealth to Britain. The overall conclusion is one of British government disillusionment with the Commonwealth and a readiness to stand firm against the pressure of threatened departures from the Commonwealth. While the government in London never itself contemplated action to break the Commonwealth, ministers always believed that it would place British interests first in any conflict with Commonwealth members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the rationale behind the Heath governments 1970 decision to negotiate a Five Power Defence agreement with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia and to maintain a small British military contingent in Southeast Asia as a part of this new politico-military framework. It argues that while its overriding foreign policy concern was to end Britains problematic relationship with the European Economic Community and to make membership of this grouping the cornerstone of its foreign policy, the Heath government was careful not to cast Britains post-imperial future in purely European terms. The successful negotiation of the Five Power Defence Arrangements in 1970–71 was instrumental in achieving this by ensuring that London would maintain close links with key Commonwealth partners in the Asian region. In what was not only an attempt to neutralize potential domestic opposition to Britains entry into the EEC, but also a lingering reluctance to do away with the rhetoric of Britain as a leading power with extra-European interests, Heath was eager to show that by making a contribution to the stability of Southeast Asia, Britain still had a role to play outside Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]