The Wrong Question

It is only three hours since I set out what ought to be proposed instead of a misguided referendum on continuing membership of the EU, like any referendum a cession of the decision to the BBC, just as happened in 1975, when an initial two-to-one against in the polls became an eventual two-to-one in favour at the polls. But speaking of 1975, it is clear from the appearance of Andrew Rosindell (yes, him again) on Newsnight that the pro-referendum "argument" is to be that hoary old chestnut about only ever having signed up for "a free trade area" called "the Common Market".

No organisation by that name has ever existed, the Attlee Government had rejected even the European Coal and Steel Community as "the blueprint for a federal state" which "the Durham miners would never wear", the principle of ever-closer union occurs in the first line of the Preamble to the Treaty of Rome, the establishment of the supremacy of European over British law in the legislation taking us in is a textbook definition of a federal state, and - now, this is the killer line - that was made perfectly clear by opponents of that legislation both during its parliamentary progress and during the subsequent referendum campaign.

Furthermore, no proponent (and they included a very enthusiastic Margaret Thatcher at the time) ever used the term "free trade area". Find a specific example of any of them saying it. Go on. I know for a fact that you never will, because they never did say it. They never lied. If you chose not to listen, both to them and to their (mostly Labour) opponents, then you have only yourselves to blame.