1/10/2024 0 Comments Wilson memo![]() The motives behind this resignation, which took place three years before the next scheduled election, remain unclear. In Britain, however, economic difficulties continued, and on March 16, 1976-with the pound floundering and a crucial budget soon to be presented-Wilson announced his resignation to a stunned cabinet. By the June referendum on EEC membership, Wilson was able not only to confirm British membership in the EEC by an overwhelming majority but also to end an acrimonious, long-running quarrel inside the party. His party was deeply divided over the question of Britain’s new membership in the European Economic Community (EEC). Wilson’s adroitness in holding together a party of social democrats, trade unionists, and leftists was never more severely tested than in 1975. This administration lasted until October, when he won a narrow majority after the second general election in eight months. In the general election of February 1974 the Conservatives won a plurality of the popular vote but were unable to form a coalition, so Wilson formed a government that March. With unemployment rising and trade union disputes on the increase, the Conservatives won the general election of June 1970, and Wilson resigned. Wilson had widened his party’s voting majority in the general election of 1966, but his popularity declined in the late 1960s, partly because of his assumption of direct responsibility for the economy shortly before the pound was devalued (November 18, 1967). His government outlawed capital punishment (1965) and began the Open University for continuing education. Wilson steered Britain clear of direct military involvement in the Vietnam War, though he gave verbal support to the U.S. In 1965 Wilson was unable to avert an illegal declaration of independence by the white minority government of the British colony of Rhodesia, and his subsequent efforts to topple the rebel government by the use of economic sanctions rather than by military force failed. He worked to consolidate the party, and after Labour won the general election of 1964, he became prime minister. This failed, but after Gaitskell died in 1963, Wilson was elected leader of the Labour Party. ![]() He became Labour’s spokesman on finance and foreign affairs, and in 1960 he mounted a left-wing challenge to Hugh Gaitskell for the party leadership. Wilson resigned his post in April 1951 in protest against the introduction of national health service charges to finance rearmament for the Korean War. Wilson was first elected to the House of Commons in 1945 and was appointed president of the Board of Trade in 1947, becoming, at age 31, Britain’s youngest cabinet minister since William Pitt the Younger in 1792. Find out who really invented movable type, who Winston Churchill called "Mum," and when the first sonic boom was heard. Get hooked on history as this quiz sorts out the past.
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