Euroscepticism v. Euro-Enthusiasm: 50 Years on from the Common Market Referendum

This year sees the 50th anniversary of the referendum to leave or remain in the Common Market, as the EU was then called, and which the UK had joined two years earlier. The referendum was Labour Prime Minister’s Harold Wilson’s gambit to overcome the party’s deep divisions on Europe and he allowed cabinet ministers to take opposing sides in the campaign.

It was led on the left by my teenage heroes, Neil Kinnock and Tony Benn. I believed that the Common Market would kybosh the party’s alternative economic strategy (AES), often called a “socialism in one country” that encompassed protectionism, planning, and public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy.

Brexit lost by a large margin, but the drive to quit the Common Market persisted as a left-wing priority and in our manifestoes for many years with diminishing credibility and conviction.

Left fury on Europe began fading from 1983 when Labour’s manifesto was dubbed “the longest suicide note in history,” largely due to the pledge to reverse the referendum of just 8 years before. Labour narrowly kept second place in the national vote against a challenge from the Social Democratic Party that had been founded on differences about withdrawal.

Colm Murphy’s excellent book excavates the archives of left thinkers as they moved from Euroscepticism to Euro-enthusiasm. He cites influential Benn adviser Frances Morrell, who described the AES in 1981 as “a seizure of power over the City and over multinational business” and “the liberation of Britain,” but who later rightly mocked leaders “who never tire of quoting dead heroes, mourning past defeats, and above all arguing for obsolescent economic and industrial strategies.” (1)

The main author of the AES was Stuart Holland, one of my university tutors. He came to work with Jacques Delors, later the energetic President of the European Commission, to embrace Eurosocialism. Delor’s vision of a Social Europe impressed the TUC and those who thought that there was something going for Mrs Thatcher’s critique of EU policies as “socialism by the backdoor.”

The hard left was slower to adapt. In 1991 I drafted a controversial Guardian article for my MP Harry Barnes and Ken Livingstone, who were in the Socialist Campaign Group. This article advocated fully-fledged federalism to counter the power of capital and was seen as a significant shift.

By the 1990s, Labour had reached a settled view in favour of EU membership. But some right-wingers kept the flame of withdrawal alight by adopting Bennite arguments about national sovereignty. One of these was Alan Sked, an academic who listlessly led the UK Independence Party, the forerunner of the Brexit and Reform parties. The rather more charismatic Nigel Farage replaced Sked who called him “a preposterous mountebank.” Farage and the scare-mongering Brussels Correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson provided oodles of oomph for Euroscepticism.

David Cameron foolishly thought he could spike Eurosceptic guns by abandoning the centre-right group in the European Parliament and promising a referendum as another gambit. Cameron complacently spurned blue on blue action against Johnson and Michael Gove in the referendum because he reckoned they would all have to work together after EU membership was validated.

Sadly, we were also saddled with Jeremy Corbyn who failed to put enough ‘oomph’ into the remain campaign, so much so that many party members and voters were unaware of our official position of remaining in the EU. Given the narrow margin of the Brexit result, it was another nail in the coffin of our membership.

Reflecting on two referendums where I was on the losing side, it’s clear that small groups matter massively in acts of omission and commission. Important left thinkers knew we should abandon withdrawal many years before we did, but it was a treasured totem for many members. Labour’s tortuous tradition of spying cowards who flinch and traitors who sneer to keep the red flag flying obstructed fresh and speedy thinking.

Social democrats have eternal principles which require different tactics according to circumstances. We should either test our ideas, present them more convincingly, or adapt and revise where necessary. The inertial inertia on European policy after 1975 lumbered us with an albatross around our necks but fortunately Kinnock sorted it in the end.

As geopolitics becomes ever more volatile, we must be ever more agile. We cannot know how the EU will evolve while security issues may necessitate new European partnerships. Today’s stunning geopolitical sandstorms may demand quicker and more imaginative responses.

 

If you enjoyed this piece, click here to read Gary’s previous piece on the importance of preserving social democracy. 

 

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  • Gary Kent

    Gary Kent is an international relations expert and Labour Party member. His column for PB highlights Labour's foreign policy challenges.  

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