It has often been said that Britain’s second application to the European Communities in 1967 was doomed to failure. Harold Wilson is accused of applying for all the wrong reasons: to unite his Party, to steal a march on the Conservatives, and to distract attention from the recent devaluation of sterling. A similarly negative picture of technological collaboration under Wilson is portrayed: within a month of proposing the European Technological Community, Britain had excluded France from a tripartite agreement on the production of a gas-centrifuge, caused severe crises in ESRO, ELDO and CERN, and offended the committee of the European Atomic Energy Community. Significantly, however, Wilson’s science and technology policy is often viewed without reference to that of earlier governments. Examining the effects of earlier policy, this paper will determine the extent to which Wilson stymied the negotiations himself by rushed announcements of new policy, and the extent to which Wilson was forced into acting by unfavourable circumstances created in part by the expediency of the previous Macmillan government.