Confirmation of quite how keen was de Gaulle to obstruct enlargement of the EEC came on 16 May. In the first of two press conferences that would dictate the fate of the membership bids, the French president spoke at length about the ‘formidable’ obstacles facing British entry. None of what was said, admittedly, amounted to an outright non. De Gaulle himself claimed somewhat confusingly that ‘there could not be, and, moreover, has never been, any question of a veto’. And confirming earlier SD doubts, he did also seem to leave open the possibility that Britain and Denmark might be allowed to join first as associate members before negotiating full entry at a later date. But his insistence that British membership would upset ‘the equilibrium of the Common Market’, and would in the process risk the functioning of the CAP, left many wondering whether this was not a veto in all but name.

Unlike in 1963, however, it took a second press conference on 27 November for the French president finally to confirm that enlargement would in his mind pose such a danger to the Community, its institutions and its existing policies that he had little choice but to veto. The first part of this chapter must therefore concentrate on the way in which Labour and the SD each responded to the two press conferences by first refusing to take no for an answer and later choosing to keep the applications on the table. It will in other words confirm that neither party was prepared publicly to accept that either the so-called velvet veto of May 1967 or the actual veto delivered six months later sounded the end of the membership bids.

Beneath these sentiments, though, existed a clear frustration on the part of the SD that Denmark's hopes of joining the Six had once again been jettisoned by maintaining so close a relationship with Britain. And this was matched by the consternation of some in Labour with the virtues of retaining a bid for membership with de Gaulle having so spectacularly once again rejected the British. The second half of the chapter must therefore review both the decision by Krag to pursue a Nordic alternative to the Six and the disputed Labour response to the veto.