Editing Clement Attlee (section)

==Retirement==
[[File:President John F. Kennedy with Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, Former British Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader (02).jpg|thumb|right|Attlee with [[John F. Kennedy]] in 1961]]
He subsequently retired from the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] and was elevated to the peerage as '''[[Earl Attlee]]''' and '''Viscount Prestwood''' on 16 December 1955,<ref name="C. Whiting 1967"/> taking his seat in the [[House of Lords]] on 25 January.<ref>{{Hansard|house=lords|url=1956/jan/25/earl-attlee}}</ref> He believed Eden had been forced into taking a strong stand on the [[Suez Crisis]] by his backbenchers.{{sfn|Bew|2016|p=538}} In 1958, Attlee, along with numerous notables, established the [[Homosexual Law Reform Society]]: this campaigned for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in private by consenting adults, a reform that was voted through Parliament nine years later.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Brian |title=Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951—1970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oVH0fVcMx5cC&pg=PP166 |year=2009 |page=166 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=9780191606786}}</ref> In May 1961, he travelled to Washington, D.C., to meet with [[President Kennedy]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Rowe |first=Abbie |title=MEETING WITH CLEMENT ATTLEE, 1ST EARL ATTLEE, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER AND LABOUR PARTY LEADER, 12:00PM |url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1961/Month%2005/Day%2016/JFKWHP-1961-05-16-B |website=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum |date=16 May 1961 |access-date=19 January 2021 |archive-date=26 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210526083048/https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHP/1961/Month%2005/Day%2016/JFKWHP-1961-05-16-B |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1962, he spoke twice in the House of Lords against the British government's application for the UK to join the [[European Communities]] ("Common Market"). In his second speech delivered in November, Attlee claimed that Britain had a separate parliamentary tradition from the [[Continental Europe]]an countries that comprised the EC. He also claimed that if Britain became a member, EC rules would prevent the British government from planning the economy and that Britain's traditional policy had been outward-looking rather than Continental.<ref>{{Hansard|1962/nov/08/britain-and-the-common-market|house=lords|access-date=28 April 2020}}</ref>

He attended [[Death and state funeral of Winston Churchill|Winston Churchill's funeral]] in January 1965. He was frail by that time, and had to remain seated in the freezing cold as the coffin was carried, having tired himself out by standing at the rehearsal the previous day. He lived to see the Labour Party return to power under [[Harold Wilson]] in 1964, and also to see his old constituency of [[Walthamstow West]] fall to the Conservatives in a [[1967 Walthamstow West by-election|by-election in September 1967]].<ref>Beckett 2015, p.467</ref>