Editing Roy Jenkins (section)

==Shadow Cabinet (1970–1974)==
After Labour unexpectedly lost power in 1970, Jenkins was appointed [[Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer]] by [[Harold Wilson]]. Jenkins was also subsequently [[1970 Labour Party deputy leadership election|elected to the deputy leadership]] of the Labour Party in July 1970, defeating future Labour Leader [[Michael Foot]] and former Leader of the Commons [[Fred Peart]] at the first ballot.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 361.</ref> At this time he appeared the natural successor to [[Harold Wilson]], and it appeared to many only a matter of time before he inherited the leadership of the party, and the opportunity to become prime minister.<ref name="G 8-1-03 RJ obit" /><ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', pp. 361–362.</ref>

This changed completely, however, as Jenkins refused to accept the tide of anti-European feeling that became prevalent in the Labour Party in the early 1970s. After a special conference on the EEC was held by the Labour Party on 17 July 1971, which Jenkins was forbidden to address, he delivered one of the most powerful speeches of his career.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 375.</ref> Jenkins told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party on 19 July: "At conference the only alternative [to the EEC] we heard was 'socialism in one country'. That is always good for a cheer. Pull up the drawbridge and revolutionize the fortress. That's not a policy either: it's just a slogan, and it is one which becomes not merely unconvincing but hypocritical as well when it is dressed up as our best contribution to international socialism".<ref>'Jenkins attack on Australia staggers party meeting', ''The Times'' (20 July 1971), p. 4.</ref> This reopened the old Bevanite–Gaitskellite divide in the Party; Wilson told Tony Benn the day after Jenkins' speech that he was determined to smash the Campaign for Democratic Socialism.<ref>Tony Benn, ''Office Without Power: Diaries, 1968–1972'' (London: Hutchinson, 1988), p. 358.</ref>

At the 1971 Labour Party conference in Brighton, the NEC's motion to reject the "Tory terms" of entry into the EEC was carried by a large majority. Jenkins told a fringe meeting that this would have no effect on his continued support for Britain's entry.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 377.</ref> Benn said Jenkins was "the figure dominating this Conference; there is no question about it".<ref>Benn, ''Office Without Power'', p. 377.</ref> On 28 October 1971, he led 69 Labour MPs through the [[division lobby]] in support of the Heath government's motion to take Britain into the EEC. In so doing, they were defying a three-line whip and a five-to-one vote at the Labour Party annual conference.<ref name="G 8-1-03 RJ obit" /> Jenkins later wrote: "I was convinced that it was one of the decisive votes of the century, and had no intention of spending the rest of my life answering the question of what did I do in the great division by saying 'I abstained'. I saw it in the context of the [[Reform Act 1832|first Reform Bill]], the repeal of the [[Corn Laws]], Gladstone's [[Irish Home Rule movement|Home Rule]] Bills, the Lloyd George [[People's Budget|Budget]] and the [[Parliament Act 1911|Parliament Bill]], the [[Munich Agreement]] and the [[Norway Debate|May 1940 votes]]".<ref>Jenkins, ''A Life at the Centre'', p. 329.</ref>

Jenkins' action gave the European cause a legitimacy that would have otherwise been absent had the issue been considered solely as a party political matter. However, he was now regarded by the left as a "traitor". [[James Margach]] wrote in the ''Sunday Times'': "The unconcealed objective of the Left now is either to humiliate Roy Jenkins and his allies into submission – or drive them from the party".<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 380.</ref> At this stage, however, Jenkins would not fully abandon his position as a political insider, and chose to [[1971 Labour Party deputy leadership election|stand again for deputy leader]], an act his colleague [[David Marquand]] claimed he later came to regret.<ref name="G 8-1-03 RJ obit" /> Jenkins promised not to vote with the government again and he narrowly defeated Michael Foot on a second ballot.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', pp. 382–383.</ref>

In accordance with the party whip, Jenkins voted against [[European Communities Bill]] 55 times.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 384.</ref> However, he resigned both the deputy leadership and his shadow cabinet position in April 1972, after the party committed itself to holding a referendum on Britain's membership of the EEC. This led to some former admirers, including [[Roy Hattersley]], choosing to distance themselves from Jenkins. Hattersley later claimed that Jenkins' resignation was "the moment when the old Labour coalition began to collapse and the eventual formation of a new centre party became inevitable".<ref>Roy Hattersley, ''Who Goes Home? Scenes From A Political Life'' (London: Little, Brown, 1995), p. 109.</ref> In his resignation letter to Wilson, Jenkins said that if there were a referendum "the Opposition would form a temporary coalition of those who, whatever their political views, were against the proposed action. By this means we would have forged a more powerful continuing weapon against progressive legislation than anything we have known in this country since the curbing of the absolute powers of the old House of Lords".<ref>'Jenkins letter warns Mr Wilson of danger of referendum principle as weapon against progressive legislation', ''The Times'' (11 April 1972), p. 11.</ref>

Jenkins' lavish lifestyle&nbsp;— Wilson once described him as "more a socialite than a socialist"&nbsp;— had already alienated much of the Labour Party from him.

In May 1972, he collected the [[Charlemagne Prize]], which he had been awarded for promoting European unity.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 385.</ref> In September an ORC opinion poll found that there was considerable public support for an alliance between the 'moderate' wing of the Labour Party and the Liberals; 35 per cent said they would vote for a Labour–Liberal alliance, 27 per cent for the Conservatives and 23.5 per cent for 'Socialist Labour'. ''The Times'' claimed that there were "twelve million Jenkinsites".<ref>'Twelve Million Jenkinsites', ''The Times'' (30 September 1972), p. 15.</ref> During the spring and summer of 1972, Jenkins delivered a series of speeches designed to set out his leadership credentials. These were published in September under the title ''What Matters Now'', which sold well.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 399.</ref> In the book's postscript, Jenkins said that Labour should not be a narrow socialist party advocating unpopular left-wing policies but must aim to "represent the hopes and aspirations of the whole leftward thinking half of the country", adding that a "broad-based, international, radical, generous-minded party could quickly seize the imagination of a disillusioned and uninspired British public".<ref>Roy Jenkins, ''What Matters Now'' (London: Fontana, 1972), p. 122.</ref>

Following [[Dick Taverne]]'s victory in the [[1973 Lincoln by-election]], where he stood as "[[Democratic Labour Party (UK, 1972)|Democratic Labour]]" in opposition to the official Labour candidate, Jenkins gave a speech to the Oxford University Labour Club denouncing the idea of a new centre party.<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 401.</ref><ref>'Mr Jenkins and Mr Taverne reject centre party proposal', ''The Times'' (10 March 1973), p. 1.</ref> Jenkins was elected to the shadow cabinet in November 1973 as [[Shadow Home Secretary]].<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 407.</ref> During the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974 election]], Jenkins rallied to Labour and his campaign was described by [[David Butler (psephologist)|David Butler]] and [[Dennis Kavanagh]] as sounding "a note of civilised idealism".<ref>David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, ''The British General Election of February, 1974'' (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 162.</ref> Jenkins was disappointed that the Liberal candidate in his constituency won 6000 votes; he wrote in his memoirs that "I already regarded myself as such a closet Liberal that I naïvely thought they ought nearly all to have come to me".<ref>Jenkins, ''A Life at the Centre'', p. 367.</ref>

Jenkins wrote a series of biographical essays that appeared in ''The Times'' during 1971–74 and which were published as ''Nine Men of Power'' in 1974. Jenkins chose Gaitskell, [[Ernest Bevin]], [[Stafford Cripps]], [[Adlai Stevenson II]], [[Robert F. Kennedy]], [[Joseph McCarthy]], [[Lord Halifax]], [[Léon Blum]] and [[John Maynard Keynes]].<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', pp. 364–365.</ref> In 1971 Jenkins delivered three lectures on foreign policy at [[Yale University]], published a year later as ''Afternoon on the Potomac?''<ref>Campbell, ''Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life'', p. 368.</ref>