United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975

Background

When the European Coal and Steel Community was instituted in 1952, the United Kingdom decided not to become a member. The UK was still absent when the Treaty of Rome was signed, creating the European Economic Community (the Common Market). However, in the late 1950s the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan dramatically changed its attitude and appointed Edward Heath to submit an application and lead negotiations for Britain to enter the Common Market. At a meeting in January 1963, the French president Charles de Gaulle rebuffed and vetoed Macmillan's request to join the Common Market. Despite the veto, Britain restarted talks with the European Communities countries in 1967; and in April 1970, shortly before the 1970 general election campaign, Heath—who by this time was the Conservative Party leader—said that further European integration would not happen "except with the full-hearted consent of the Parliaments and peoples of the new member countries". Heath became Prime Minister, and personally led many of the negotiations: he struck up a friendship with the new French president Georges Pompidou, who oversaw the lifting of the veto and thus paved the way for UK membership. Between 21 and 28 October 1971 the House of Commons debated whether or not the UK should become a member of the EC, with then Prime Minister Edward Heath commenting just before the vote:

The House of Commons voted 356-224 in favour of the motion, with the Prime Minister commenting straight afterwards on behalf of the house.

No referendum was held when Britain agreed to an accession treaty on 22 January 1972 or when the European Communities Act 1972 went through the legislative process, on the grounds that to hold one would be unconstitutional. The United Kingdom joined the European Communities on 1 January 1973, along with Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. This would later became the European Union.

Throughout this period, the Labour Party was divided, both on the substantive issue of EC accession and on the question of whether accession ought to be approved by referendum. In 1971 pro-Market figures such as Roy Jenkins, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, said a Labour government would have agreed to the terms of accession secured by the Conservatives. However, the National Executive Committee and the Labour Party Conference disapproved of the terms. In April 1972 the anti-EC Conservative MP Neil Marten tabled an amendment to the European Communities Bill, which called for a consultative referendum on entry. Labour had previously opposed a referendum, but the Shadow Cabinet decided to support Marten's amendment. Jenkins resigned as Deputy Leader in opposition to the decision, and many Labour MPs abstained on the division.

At the February 1974 general election, Labour's manifesto promised renegotiation of Britain's terms of membership, to be followed by a consultative referendum on continued membership under the new terms if they were acceptable. In the October 1974 manifesto, this was changed to the promise that Labour would "give the British people the final say, which will be binding on the Government – through the ballot box – on whether we accept the terms and stay in or reject the terms and come out." This could be interpreted as including the option of an election in 1975; however, Labour won a working majority, and had no need of another general election.

Legislation

The government produced a white paper on the proposed referendum on 26 February 1975 which recommended core public funding for both the "Yes" and "No" sides, voting rights for members of the armed forces and members of the House of Lords and finally a proposed central count. This white paper was approved by the House of Commons. On March 26 a Referendum Bill was introduced to the Commons with its second reading on April 10 in MPs voted 312-248 in favour. Prior to this bill's passing there was no procedure or legislation within the United Kingdom for holding any such plebiscite. The vote, the only nationwide plebiscite to be held in the UK during the 20th century, was of constitutional significance. Referendums had been widely opposed in the past, on the grounds that they violated the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. The first major referendum to be held in any part of the UK had been the sovereignty referendum in Northern Ireland in 1973. The issue of how the votes were to be counted caused much division as the Bill went though Parliament. The Government were of the opinion that as it was substantially different from that of a general election and that as a national referendum the United Kingdom was a single constituency and favoured a single national count of votes for the whole country to take place at Earls Court in London over several days with a single declaration of the final result by the National Counting Officer (later in the legislation the title was changed to Chief Counting Officer) but the proposal didn't have the wider support of the Labour Party or the opposition parties; the Liberal Party favoured individual counts in each of the parliamentary constituencies and tabled an amendment but was defeated by 263 to 131 votes in the House of Commons; however, another amendment in the Commons—tabled by Labour MP Roderick MacFarquhar—which sought to have counts by administrative regions (the post-1974 county council areas) won cross-party support, and was carried by 272 to 155 votes. The Act did not specify any national supermajority of "Yes" votes for approval of the terms; a simple majority of 50% + 1 vote would suffice to win the vote. It received royal assent on 8 May 1975, just under a month before the vote took place.

During the legislative process, the Government also held informal talks with the Governments of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey to discuss the possibility of holding simultaneous referendums of their own on continued EC membership; however, the idea was dropped because the UK Parliament had no jurisdiction to pass or impose legislation on those islands, being as they were (and are) Crown dependencies.

Referendum question

The question that was asked to the British electorate that was set out in the Act was:

The Government has announced the results of the renegotiation of the United Kingdom's terms of membership of the European Community.

permitting a simple YES / NO answer (to be marked with a single (X)).

The question that was used was one of the options in the Government White Paper of February 1975, although during the passage of the Referendum Bill through Parliament, the Government agreed to add the words "Common Market" in brackets at the end of the question. It should be noted that the referendum took place 25 years before the passing of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 by the then Labour Government of Tony Blair, which introduced into British law a general procedure for the holding of UK-wide referendums with the creation of the Electoral Commission which could oversee such votes and also test and research proposed referendum questions.

Campaigning

The referendum was called in April 1975. Since Prime Minister Harold Wilson's cabinet was split between supporters and opponents of the Common Market, and since members of each side held their views strongly, he made the decision, unprecedented outside coalition government, to suspend the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective responsibility. Cabinet members would be allowed to publicly campaign against each other. In total, seven of the twenty-three members of the cabinet opposed EC membership. Wilson's solution was that ministers speaking from the despatch box would reflect government policy, i.e. support for EC membership, but that they would be allowed to speak freely otherwise. This compromise avoided mass dismissals of Cabinet ministers, with only Eric Heffer among all government ministers being obliged to resign, because of his speaking against EC membership in the House of Commons.

Yes campaign (Britain In Europe)

The "Yes" campaign was officially supported by Wilson's Government and the majority of his cabinet, including the holders of the three other Great Offices of State: Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; James Callaghan, the Foreign Secretary; and Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary. It was also supported by the majority of the Conservative Party, including its newly elected leader Margaret Thatcher—249 of 275 party members in Parliament supported staying in the EC in a free vote in April 1975—the Liberal Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party.

No campaign (National Referendum Campaign)

The influential Conservative Edward du Cann said that "the Labour party is hopelessly and irrevocably split and muddled over this issue". The "No" campaign included the left wing of the Labour Party, including the cabinet ministers Michael Foot, Tony Benn, Peter Shore, Eric Varley, and Barbara Castle who during the campaign famously said "They lured us into the market with the mirage of the market miracle". Some Labour "No" supporters, including Varley, were on the right wing of the party, but most were from the left. The No campaign also included a large number of Labour backbenchers; upon the division on a pro-EC White Paper about the renegotiation, 148 Labour MPs opposed their own government's measure, whereas only 138 supported it and 32 abstained.

"Many Conservatives feel the European Community is not good for Britain ... The Conservative party is divided on it too", du Cann—head of the Conservatives' 1922 Committee—added, although there were far fewer Eurosceptic figures in the Parliamentary Conservative Party in 1975 than there would be during later debates on Europe, such as the accession to the Maastricht Treaty. Most of the Ulster Unionist Party were for "No" in the referendum, most prominently the former Conservative minister Enoch Powell, who after Benn was the second-most prominent anti-Marketeer in the campaign. Other parties supporting the "No" campaign included the Democratic Unionist Party, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, and parties outside Parliament including the National Front and the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Official party positions

Conservative and Liberal Party conferences consistently supported EC membership for several years up to 1975. At a Labour Party conference on 26 April 1975, the Labour membership rejected continuing EC membership by almost a 2:1 margin. Tony Benn said, ‘We have had a conference and the decision is clear ... It is very clear that there now must be a move for the Labour Party to campaign’. The majority of the Labour Party leadership was strongly for continuing membership, and the margin of the party vote was not a surprise, since only seven of forty-six trade unions present at the conference supported EC membership. Prior to the conference, the party had decided that if the conference voted by a margin of 2:1 or more in favour of a particular option, it would then support that position in the referendum campaign. Otherwise, the ‘party machine’ would remain neutral. Therefore, the Labour Party itself did not campaign on either side.

The campaign, funding and media support

The government distributed pamphlets to every household in Britain written by the official Yes and No campaigns, together with its own pamphlet which argued in support of EC membership. According to this pamphlet, "the most important (issues in the renegotiation) were FOOD and MONEY and JOBS".

During the campaign, almost the entire mainstream national British press supported the "Yes" campaign. The left-wing Morning Star was the only notable national daily to back the "No" campaign. Television broadcasts were used by both campaigns, like party political broadcasts during general elections. They were broadcast simultaneously on all three terrestrial channels: BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV. They attracted audiences of up to 20 million viewers. The "Yes" campaign advertisements were thought to be much more effective, showing their speakers listening to and answering people's concerns, while the "No" campaign's broadcasts featured speakers reading from an autocue.

The "Yes" campaign enjoyed much more funding, thanks to the support of many British businesses and the Confederation of British Industry. According to the treasurer of the "Yes" campaign, Alastair McAlpine, "The banks and big industrial companies put in very large sums of money". At the time, business was "overwhelmingly pro-European", and Harold Wilson met several prominent industrialists to elicit support. It was common for pro-Europeans to convene across party and ideological lines with businessmen. John Mills, the national agent of the "No" campaign, recalled: "We were operating on a shoe-string compared to the Rolls Royce operation on the other side". However, it was also the case that many civil society groups supported the "Yes" campaign, including the National Farmers Union and some trade unions.

Much of the "Yes" campaign focused on the credentials of its opponents. According to Alastair McAlpine, "The whole thrust of our campaign was to depict the anti-Marketeers as unreliable people – dangerous people who would lead you down the wrong path ... It wasn't so much that it was sensible to stay in, but that anybody who proposed that we came out was off their rocker or virtually Marxist." Tony Benn controversially claimed there had been "Half a million jobs lost in Britain and a huge increase in food prices as a direct result of our entry into the Common Market", using his position as Secretary of State for Industry as an authority. His claims were ridiculed by the "Yes" campaign and ministers; the Daily Mirror labelled Benn the "Minister of Fear", and other newspapers were similarly derisive. Ultimately, the "No" campaign lacked a popular, moderate figure to play the public leadership role for their campaign that Jenkins and Wilson fulfilled in the "Yes" campaign.

Counting areas

The referendum was held nationally across all four countries of the United Kingdom as a single majority vote in 68 counting areas under the provisions of the Referendum Act 1975, for which the then administrative counties of England and Wales and the then newly formed administrative regions of Scotland were used with Northern Ireland as a single counting area.

The following table shows the breakdown of the voting areas for the referendum within the United Kingdom.

Result

Voting in the referendum took place across the United Kingdom on Thursday 5 June between 0700 and 2200 BST. All counting areas started their counts the following day on Friday 6 June at 0900 BST. The final result was announced late on Friday 6 June just before 2300 BST by the Chief Counting Officer (CCO) Sir Phillip Allen at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London, after all 68 counting areas had declared their totals. With a national turnout of 64% across the United Kingdom, the target to secure the majority win for the winning side was 12,951,598 votes. The decision by the electorate was a decisive "Yes" to continued EC membership, which won by a huge majority of 8,908,508 votes (34.5%) over those who had voted "No" to reject continued membership.

In total, over two-thirds of voters supported continued EC membership. 67.2 percent voted Yes and 32.8 percent voted No. At council level, support for EC membership was positively correlated with support for the Conservative Party and with average income. In contrast, poorer areas that supported Labour gave less support to the question. Approval was well above 60% in almost every council area in England and Wales, with the strongly Labour-supporting Mid Glamorgan being the exception. Scotland and Northern Ireland gave less support to the question than the British average. Once the voting areas had declared, their results were then relayed to Sir Philip Allen, the Chief Counting Officer, who later declared the final result.

All the counting areas within the United Kingdom returned large majority votes in favour of "Yes" except for two Scottish regions, the Shetland Islands and the Western Isles, which returned majority votes in favour of a "No" vote.

TV coverage

Both the BBC and ITV provided coverage throughout the following day, and the BBC programme was presented by David Dimbleby and David Butler. There were several programmes throughout the day. Part of the coverage was repeated to mark the 30th anniversary of the referendum in June 2005, and was also shown to mark the 40th anniversary in June 2015 on the BBC Parliament channel and was to be shown again to mark the 41st anniversary ahead of the 2016 EU Referendum.

Reactions and consequences

On Friday 6 June 1975 at 1830 BST the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, gave his reaction outside 10 Downing Street as counting continued, although by this point the result was clear:

Enoch Powell gave this comment to the result in a newspaper a few days after the referendum:

Roy Jenkins said ‘It puts the uncertainty behind us. It commits Britain to Europe; it commits us to playing an active, constructive and enthusiastic role in it’. Tony Benn said, ‘When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that's certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum’. Jenkins was heavily rewarded for successfully leading the campaign for Britain to remain a member of the European Communities when two year later he became the first and to date only British politician to hold the post of President of the European Commission which he held for four years from 1977-81.

The result strengthened Harold Wilson's tactical position, by securing a further post-election public expression of support for his policies. According to Cook and Francis (1979), ‘The left of his party had been appeased by the holding of a referendum, the right by its result’. Following the result, the Labour Party and British trade unions themselves joined European institutions, such as the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, to which they had been reluctant to commit before public approval of EC membership.

In the House of Commons, the issue of Europe had been effectively settled for two years, until the debate about direct elections to the European Parliament began in 1977.

The result went on to provide a major pro-European mandate to politicians, particularly in the UK Parliament, for the next forty-one years until the United Kingdom 2016 EU membership referendum was held on Thursday 23 June 2016 with the UK voting by 51.9% to 48.1% to leave the European Union. On that occasion the relative difference of enthusiasm for membership was reversed—with England and Wales voting to leave, whilst Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

Thirty-year rule

The question of sovereignty was discussed in an internal document of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO 30/1048) before the European Communities Act 1972, but was not available to the public until January 2002 under the Thirty-year rule. Among "Areas of policy" listed "in which parliamentary freedom to legislate will be affected by entry into the European Communities" were: Customs duties, Agriculture, Free movement of labour, services and capital, Transport, and Social Security for migrant workers. The document concluded (paragraph 26) that it was advisable to put the considerations of influence and power before those of formal sovereignty.