Today is Brexit day, when the UK officially leaves the political structures of the EU. The event seems the moment to reflect on Christopher Layton, an intriguing and in many ways pivotal British public servant in Europe, in those distant days when UK was trying to join what was then the EEC.
Layton was chef de cabinet to the Anglophile commissioner for research of the time, Alberto Spinelli. This is what Luca Gazetti’s official history of European research policy says about Layton:
[In Layton’s view] the Common Market should be enlarged by the addition of Great Britain and other countries, and as a matter of urgency it should become a real economic union, with uniform legislation in patent law and social matters, harmonisation of fiscal systems, and common standards. Finally, the states should abandon their policies of supporting national businesses and launch a ‘Buy European Policy’ which would encourage the formation of European companies large enough to compete in the world market.
The official history goes on to point out that like another apparently influential science policy-type figure of the period, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Layton believed there was a ‘technological gap’ hampering European economic advance vis-a-vis the USA, and that the European Communities was ‘the key to the solution of the problem’.
Layton’s 1969 book, European Advanced Technology: a Programme for Integration, is both up-to-the minute and dated. It makes all kinds of arguments about the importance of nuclear power and rockets, which seem dated today in regard to the technology named. But change ‘rockets’ for ‘AI’, and in some ways it could be written now. Read further, and his rhetoric about the American challenge sounds much like the rhetoric about the Japanese challenge in the 1980s, and the Chinese challenge today. As often with rhetoric on innovation policy, the striking feature is the lack of innovation.
According to Layton, the British Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, tried to use perceived British prowess in scientific research, particularly around nuclear energy and weapons, to ‘sell’ UK entry to the European Communities.
Layton was clearly rated highly by Spinelli, as he was able to join the Commission even before the UK joined the EEC, in prominent Federalist John Pinder’s account:
Spinelli’s Chef de Cabinet, Gianfranco Speranza, died suddenly and he [Spinelli] nominated as successor Christopher Layton, whom he had got to know well…This caused consternation in the Commission, as it would give the post to a British national over a year before the UK was to join the Community. Commission President Malfatti reflected the views of other Commissioners and senior staff when he demurred, pointing out that such posts were always given to nationals of member states and that, following the normal practice, Layton would moreover participate in meetings of the Commission itself when Spinelli was unable to attend. Spinelli stood his ground, affirming that “it would be difficult to find somebody better suited to this function”. So he told Malfatti that the minimum he could accept would be a provisional status for Layton, to become definitive when the Treaty was signed a few weeks later. Rather than face a confrontation in the Commission, Malfatti consented and Layton started work.’
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