Federalist TheoryHistory

Federal Union: when Britain tried to create a European Federation

In 1938, the European powers were desperately trying to restrain Hitler from further implementing its expansionist plan. In the shadow of this confrontation, three young British men gave birth to a groundbreaking organization: the Federal Union.

As the Sudeten crisis brewed, Derek Rawnsley and Charles Kimber – colleagues and fellow students – decided to speak out against the state of anarchy of the international system. According to them, this left unpunished the criminal actions taken out by the authoritarian regimes. The object of the critique was the League of Nations. Already in the Twenties, men like Kurt Tucholsky and Richard Von Coudenhove-Kalergi had argued how the anomalous structure of the League paralyzed it.

Part of the drawing on the Federal Union’s membership leaflet (1940)

The setting up of the League of Nations followed Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points declaration in 1918. Here, the idealist American President outlined a new order based on the principles of peace and liberty supervised by an international organization

The experiment ultimately failed, as the League lacked of its own armed forces. No country was willing to give up its sovereignty to defend collective security. Moreover, also due to the neo-isolationist wave that took on the country, the United States never became a member.

No military intervention was forthcoming to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. When Fascist Italy declared war on Ethiopia (itself a member of the League) and unleashed chemical weapons against the population, only ineffective economic sanctions followed. The impunity of these two regimes, as Hitler himself claimed, assured Germany that it would not have found any obstacle on its way for Lebensraum.

According to federalists and radical internationalists, the League was clearly not enough. The world needed a democratic supranational government that could preserve peace and face the belligerence of nation-states.

A New Constitutional Project

Rawnsley and Kimber got to know Patrick Ransome, a journalist with a degree in international law, and invited him to join the adventure. The three began distributing pamphlets explaining the goal of the organisation: a democratic European federal union. Soon, hundreds of people showed their interest in Federal Union. At its peak, the organization could count on 200 branches and thousands of members.

A Panel of Advisers was formed, consisting of academics and political figures. Two of them were Lord Lothian, secretary of the UK Prime Minister at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Lionel Curtis, founder of the Royal Institute for International Affairs. These two were already active in the federalist landscape with several articles to their name. They were engaged in spreading the ideas contained in Union Now. This publication by New York Times journalist Clarence Streit called for a federal union between the United States, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Federal Union kept growing and the founders decided to split it into different departments. Amongst these, a Research Institute, a Public Relations Department and a Central Office. Inspired by the Federal Convention of Philadelphia – which gave the USA its current federal structure – the organization drafted a federal constitution. The idea was to submit the document to all democratic countries that, if willing, would have called for a referendum on it. In case of a positive outcome, the Federal Union would have asked one of these countries to host an Institutional Conference to establish the definitive Constitution of the future federation together with the other agreeing states.

Part of the drawing on the Federal Union’s membership leaflet (1940)

The Death of Federal Union

The constitutional project had little success. Ultimately, the organization became less and less important due to internal fights and diverging ideas. Additionally, they faced a lack of support from politicians and institutions both in Britain and abroad. What would prove to do its undoing, though, was the inability to find a compromise between Europeanists and Atlanticists.

In their enthusiastic support for unity, the British federalists somehow anticipated the mainland’s movement Paneuropean Union. However, the latter was more elitist and driven by a general sense of confederal unity rather than a federalist one.

This story sends an important message to the British people on the first anniversary of the Brexit referendum:. Don’t give up, there will always be a place for Britain in Europe. The Federal Union still exists today, you can visit its website here.

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Bruno Formicola

Former policy trainee at the European Parliament. Master graduate in International Relations and European Union Studies at the University of Leiden, co-founder of My Country? Europe. Information junkie.

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