Reflecting on the 1975 referendum
- 2016-03-14
- By ReimaginingEurope
- Posted in Dick Newby, The vote
In the 1975 referendum on whether to remain members of the EEC, the Harold Wilson Government distributed a 16-page pamphlet to every household. It set out the five main reasons remaining in. They were:
- To bring together the people of Europe
- To raise living standards and working conditions to promote growth and boost world trade
- To help the poorer regions of Europe and the rest of the world
- To help maintain peace and freedom
They’re worth quoting, in part because many who support Brexit claim that “we only joined a common market”. This is simply false. Britain’s aspirations for the kind of Europe we wished the EEC to promote went far beyond the economic.
They’re also worth remembering because, as the current referendum campaign inevitably focuses on economics, we need to remember the broader aims of bringing people together and maintaining peace and freedom. As a father of two sons aged 28 and 30, I am very conscious of the fact that, had my children been born 100 years earlier, there is a strong likelihood that one or both of them would have been killed or wounded in a European war. The EU has made European war impossible, because it has brought together the leading politicians of the continent on a very regular basis to negotiate solutions to common problems with a strong emphasis on reaching compromise. This in itself is a revolutionary change.
And, as the recent Balkan and Ukrainian hostilities demonstrate, Europe still has the capacity for war. As former combatants Serbia and Bosnia now seek to join Croatia in the EU, the organisation’s credentials as the world’s most successful peace process are still highly relevant.
The EU has also been extremely successfully in entrenching democracy across the content. When the UK joined, so did Spain, Portugal and Greece, all new democracies, following periods of military dictatorship. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the countries of Eastern Europe, some of which had barely ever known democracy, all enthusiastically embraced the freedom which democracy brings and saw the EU as helping them develop it. None of this was inevitable, but it is certainly now irreversible.
And the EU is underpinned by the concept of freedom and equality of individual. St Paul’s assertion that “there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, but all are one”, which forms the bedrock of what we think of as Western values, has been made tangible within Europe by the Human Rights Convention and Court, but also by the EU Social Chapter. The Social Chapter covers amongst other things fair pay and working conditions, equal treatment of men and women, protection for children, older people and disabled people, and health protection and workplace safely. Some of the rules are contentious, others are unglamorous. But between them they provide common standards of decency and human dignity.
In all these non-economic areas, the UK has played a positive role – and in some cases a role model. This helps explain why so many Europeans want Britain to remain in the EU. Perhaps as the referendum battle intensifies and the economic statistics fly, we should spend some time thinking about peace, freedom and human dignity. We should reflect that these are not the conditions in which many of the world’s people live. And acknowledge the EU’s vital past and its current and future role in promoting them.
About the author
Born in Rothwell, West Yorkshire Dick Newby attended Rothwell Grammar School before studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics at St Catherine’s College Oxford. He grew up in a Labour stronghold and was a member of the Labour Party at university and in several London Boroughs. During the 1975 European referendum, He was General Secretary of Young European Left, the pro-European youth wing of the Labour Party. He was created a Lib Dem life peer with the title Baron Newby, of Rothwell in the County of West Yorkshire in 1997.He is married to Ailsa, the Rector of St Mary’s Putney, venue of the famous Civil War Army debates and have two adult sons. He received an OBE in 1990 for his service to politics.
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St Paul’s assertion is not a political statement. It. Is principally theological. But either way it cannot mean that the gender of persons in Christ is obliterated or that people’s ethnic or religious origins are irrelevant or to be disregarded. I think the text implies that in Christ there is a new and glorious richness and harmony. Obliterating the individuality, and cultural and historic richness of the nation state and its right to self- determination in the interest of political and economic homogenisation is the stated aim of the EU and as such does not advance human well-being. We should not confuse the clear need for international cooperation in all spheres with the bureaucratic self-interest of those who promote supranationalism in Europe.
The term ‘Ever Closer Union’ was not used in 1975 and there was plenty of leeway to imagine that we were in an advanced free trade area not a union of states which would so restrict the actions of those states that the friction caused would exceed any benefits accruing.
I agree with Stephen Taylor’s analysis and conclusions above. The structure of the EU with some in a single currency and some not is not sustainable without major change and, however painful and drawn out exit will be, it is the better long term option
Having served 22 years, in the British Army, many of them in Germany, I can state that membership of the EU, had ZERO effect on the peace, which has been enjoyed by large parts of Europe, since the end of WW2.
What did maintain peace, was NATO. The Soviet Union knew, that if it invaded Germany, then all NATO members would defend it, as they knew, that if Germany fought alone, it would lose, & then the Soviets, would attack the other European countries, and swallow them up too.
As to the claim of EU entrenching democracy. That reminds me of trying to remove a speck, from a friends eye, when a plank is already in mine!!!
Since when has the EU itself been democratic?
When did the EU people, vote for who they wished as Commissioners?
How does a MEP, propose legislation?
In my opinion, the EU is as democratic, as the Peoples Republic of China.
Perhaps Mr Gaines should check his facts. For example EU law is decided NOT by EU Commissioners but by ministers from every EU country meeting together in the Council of Ministers and in most cases co-responsible with the European Parliament, made up of elected representatives from each country. What is undemocratic about such a process?
It is easy to be misled about this because UK ministers are loath to admit joint responsibility for laws which may be unpopular in some circles while claiming more popular measures as UK laws, even if they are just implementing EU laws. This is compounded by misinformation in much of the media and by the lack of systemic teaching about the way the EU works in UK schools.
Just to pick up on a couple of comments above, one by Stephen Taylor and the other by John Gaines. Stephen Taylor says: “Obliterating the individuality, and cultural and historic richness of the nation state and its right to self- determination in the interest of political and economic homogenisation is the stated aim of the EU”. I think that is a rather far fetched reading of ‘ever closer union’ which is what I presume that he is referring to . I lived in Belgium for many years and regularly visit France and Germany amongst many others. I do not find that after some 60 years the French are less french or the Germans less German culturally or in other ways. Is it that our culture is now so diminished that we should fear these things for ourselves
John Gaines is perhaps missing the point that is being made. Of course NATO has had a profound role in keeping the West free through those years. But it is also true to say that it was the prosperity and freedoms of the EU, (along with American military ‘outspending’) which provided the rationale for the satellites to want to break away. If there had been no such incentives, the military aspect would have been barren.
Dick Newby’s point though, is that it was the EU which was responsible for bringing Greece, Spain and Portugal in from dictatorship, and evidently not NATO. No country can become a member of the EU without being a democracy and signing up to the European Convention on Human Rights. The accession of the former Soviet satellites and their transformation into democracies is one of the great achievements of the European nation states through the the EU