Federal Union

This volume examines the first eighteen months of the Federal Union, the first federalist movement organised on a popular basis. The contribution of the Federal Union to the development of federalism in Britain and Europe was to express and organise the beginning of a new political behaviour: the aim of the political struggle was no longer the conquest of national power but the building of a supranational institution, a federation (not a league) of nations. The study of the formation of ideas and positions which dominated the first months of the war, enabling the federalist project to cross the threshold of the Foreign Office and Downing Street, offers an important contribution to the understanding of the background to Churchill's famous offer of "indissoluble union".