Neil recently joined a panel discussion at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University London, hosted in partnership with the Edward Heath Forum to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1975 EU referendum. The event drew strong audience participation and generated a frank, historically grounded conversation about one of the defining questions in modern British political life.
The 1975 referendum — won convincingly by the “Keep Britain in Europe” campaign — offers a revealing point of comparison with the 2016 vote that took the UK out of the European Union. The contrast between the two is not merely one of outcome. It is a contrast in the quality of political leadership, the organisation of campaigns, and the seriousness with which the national interest was placed at the centre of proceedings.
In 1975, the campaign to remain was cohesive, well-organised, and backed by a formidable coalition of institutional support — the CBI, the NFU, and a wide range of economic and civic bodies — fronted by figures of genuine political stature, most notably Edward Heath and Roy Jenkins. Whatever one’s view of the European question itself, the campaign was conducted with a clarity of purpose and a command of the arguments that reflected well on those who led it.
2016 was, as Neil noted at the event, a considerably more tawdry affair — on both sides. But the responsibility for what followed does not fall equally. David Cameron’s decision to call the referendum was, in Neil’s view, an act of profound political misjudgement: the subordination of the national interest to the narrow interests of the Conservative Party. The consequence — what Michael Bloomberg famously described as the “stupidest thing any country has ever done” — was a verdict Cameron did not foresee and could not contain. Nor, crucially, did the gamble achieve even its intended domestic purpose. Far from saving the Conservative Party from its internal divisions, it accelerated them. The party now faces what looks increasingly like an existential threat.
Harold Wilson’s handling of 1975 offers a more ambiguous lesson. He secured the result — a convincing endorsement of continued membership — but did so at a cost. The seeds of serious division within the Labour Party were sown during that campaign, divisions that eventually produced the breakaway Social Democratic Party. Success, in politics, is rarely without its complications.
On the question of where Britain goes from here, the panel was clear-eyed. Talk of a third referendum or some other mechanism to reverse Brexit runs into the hard realities of party politics and the entrenched nature of the UK’s disengagement from the EU. A full reversal, in any near-term political timeframe, is not a realistic prospect. At best, incremental steps — some of which the current government is already taking — represent the most that can be expected. It is not a satisfying conclusion for those who believe Brexit was a historic error, but it is an honest one.
“Excellent panel discussion and strong audience participation at the Mile End Institute (Queen Mary University London) with the Edward Heath Forum in support, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1975 EU referendum — won convincingly by ‘Keep Britain in Europe’ — and which was compared to the ill-fated 2016 referendum. David Cameron, in subordinating the national interest to the interests of the Conservative Party, not only enabled the ‘stupidest thing any country has ever done’ but also signally failed to save the Conservative Party from itself, which now confronts an existential threat.”
— Neil Carmichael, UCEC
UCEC has consistently argued that Britain’s economic strength and global influence depend on maintaining serious, sustained international relationships — with Europe and beyond. The 50th anniversary of the 1975 referendum is a timely moment to reflect not just on what was lost in 2016, but on the kind of political leadership and institutional seriousness that a different outcome would have required. Those qualities are not gone. But they need to be rebuilt.
