THURSDAY’S VOTE - ECHO’S OF 1975

The sad and senseless death of MP Jo Cox, days before the IN/OUT European referendum brought back macabre echo’s from a previous European referendum.

In 2003, the Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death whilst out shopping four days before the Swedish referendum on adopting the Euro.

This tragic event saw both camps suspend their campaigns, with each  promising to take stock of the voracity of their arguments. 

Today, after both sides of the argument agreed to resume their campaigning, albeit taking a more factual and calmer approach, the first words uttered by the so called ‘neutral’ BBC, was to point out how Boris Johnson had once favoured the remaining in the ‘free trade market’ and now leads the ‘brexit’ campaign for the UK to leave.!

Strange though, they missed the opportunity to remind us of other politicos who appear to have had similar Damascus moments. Forty-one years ago, in Britain’s last referendum on Europe, has plenty of similarities with the current bitter and closely-fought debate.

Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson called the referendum on June 5, 1975, as a way of trying to appease the euro sceptic wing of his fractured party, and urged Britons to stay in after securing concessions from Brussels.

This time around, it is Conservative premier David Cameron who is holding a vote to try to heal party splits, and who is campaigning to “Remain” on the basis of a renegotiated EU settlement.

Back then, the left wing of Wilson’s Labour party wanted to leave the Common Market, among them current leader Jeremy Corbyn — who now advocates staying in.

Earlier on April 26 1975, Labour held a special conference on Europe where Michael Foot made the concluding speech, quoting Nye Bevan and the Leave position won by 3.9 million to 1.7 million.

There was also another Labour meeting in Cardiff organised by Neil Kinnock to campaign for a No to Europe vote. He changed his views and later both he and his wife, became European Commissioners!

So, let’s not get sidetracked by pointing fingers at people who change their minds. After all, during the last referendum, the EEC (as it was known then) had six founding members and membership had risen to nine by 1975. Today EU has grown to 28 members, with others knocking on its door.

Back in 1975, Harold Wilson only had to negotiate more favourable terms with those nine countries. Today, the stakes of voting on EU membership are higher than in 1975!

With 28 differing member states, mostly from within the Euro-zone, with Europe engaged in such a complex and changing number of political priorities and directions, any attempted renegotiations for the UK will obviously become a more difficult task for Cameron than Wilson faced forty one years ago.