The EU was first known as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), when it was founded in 1952.
Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee told parliament in 1950 his party was “not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody”.
There was also concern it might prejudice close ties with the United States and the Commonwealth group of mainly former territories. Britain also stayed out of the European Economic Community (EEC) when it was formed from the ECSC in 1957.
Britain joined the EEC in 1973 after France dropped its objection’s following de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969.
As he signed the treaty taking Britain into the common market, Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath said “imagination will be required” to develop its institutions while respecting the individuality of states. Application for membership was not in the manifesto.
In 1975, new Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, faced with splits among his ministers on Europe, decided to hold an “in-out” referendum on membership. He backed staying in after saying a renegotiation on terms of membership had “substantially though not completely” achieved his objectives.
Britons voted 67 percent to 33 percent to stay in the Common market in 1975.
Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher backed the campaign to stay in the bloc in 1975, but her party become increasingly divided by the issue and her own relationship with European leaders was tense at times.
She attacked the idea of a single currency and too much power being centralised in EU institutions, telling the then-Commission President Jacques Delors “no, no, no” over his plans for more European integration in 1990.
The ultimate goal for the EU is to create a country called Europe, a United States of Europe, but the leaders of Europe only admitted that in recent years.
If they had been honest from the outset and went about it, little by little, taking perhaps as much as a century, (it took the US longer,) we might not have the full blooded arguments that we now confront, who knows.
Edward Heath and Harold Wilson should have controlled their respective parties better and dealt with the splits. Now, thanks to them, the divisions run deeper still.
