People finally coming to their senses?

muckles:

Winseer:

muckles:

Winseer:
Agreed. There was an almighty slump in 1975, right after we were fooled into joining the EEC. Property prices crashed, The stock market crashed, unemployment started to rise sharply, and inflation took off as well. Four years later, this country was on it’s knees, and voted for Thatcher to make the “Nasty” decisions to get us out of it…

We joined the EEC in 1973, (not 1975) under a Covservative government, it was the Labour government elected in 1974 that then held a referendum in 1975 on whether we should stay in, and very much like the last referendum, it had more to do with internal party politics than democracy for the people. In this referendum Margret Thatcher campaigned on the Stay In side.

Margret Thatcher wasn’t anti EEC/EU she wanted the trade benefits, but was more skeptic about its social polices. During the 1980’s leaving the EEC was Labour Party policy, not the Conservatives.

Back then, the incoming Labour government COULD have turned over our entry into the EEC - by scrapping that referendum held on their watch. They didn’t
I would then expect at very least for the Labour Party TODAY to announce that it will absolutely NOT “turn over the result of the referendum” by either holding a second one, or dropping the implementation of Brexit in any way" upon taking office. This needs to be their manifesto committment OR they need to clearly state the opposite, that "Labour, upon being elected - will turn over Brexit with immediate effect:

A) I was commenting on your historical inaccuracies.

B) you really don’t get it do you? The Labour Goverment elected in 1974 had the same internal divisions on the EEC as the Tory party of today, hence the 1975 referendum, hokding the referendum was part of the election deal, the same as Cameron promised one as part of his 2015 election campaign, it wasn’t until the 1980’s that Labour had leaving the EEC as part of their election manifesto.

And the Labour Party today still has the same internal divisions on the EU, but maybe not as likely to tear the party apart as it could the Conservative party, but it has other things which pull it apart.

How old are you btw? I remember my parents arguing about the entire purpose of the 1975 referendum. I remember the NO campaign, and EEC NO being painted on railway overbridges at places like pepper hill. The public got totally lied to, misled, and the immediate slump that happened right after - proved what a totally stupid idea it had all been. In effect, ratifying in 1975 actually led to the scare stories coming TRUE that time around - which was NOT the case with Project Fear’s machinations this time around, when we have finally tried to repair the damage of the past 40 years that gave us slumps, asset bubble boom & bust, Thathcher, unelectable Labour, Bank Bailouts, Multi Culturalism, and now (for the time being until we are out) - everlasting austerity.

My family were Liberal activists (disaffected former Tory Voters) involved with the local Liberal Party (fielding candidate Mary Black) in the first of the 1974 elections. You are correct when you bring attention to BOTH Tories and Labour being as bad as each other here - but I’ve told you my own experience as a kid at the time, on how local politics appeared. I remember my mum uttering “Bugger Mr Heath!” when he refused to go into coalition with Jeremy Thorpe after the first 1974 election ended with a hung parliament. Thorpe should have had balance of power there, and been kingmaker. HEATH bloody well capitulated to Wilson instead, despite the election result giving Heath only 4 seats less than Wilson AND Heath winning the popular vote! If people moan about the 2016 EU referendum result being “so close, as to cause even further divisions”- then the Febuary 1974 election - was the most devisive thing EVER in this country politically, and a turning point in my own childhood, as the slump came to bite the following year, proving our fears to be well-founded. Mortgage rates rose, House prices slumped, unemployment rose sharply… I was just starting Grammar School, only to be faced with deep cuts, thanks to elected local Labour MP Bob Bean pushing the party “Anti Grammar School” line. He got the boot in 1979 of course, and Thatcher’s victory - but by that point, the damage was well and truly done! There WAS no “Project Fear” in the run-up to the 1975 referendum as I recall. We were led like lambs to the slaughter, with no one explaining any risks of “voting in”. The British Working Public got slammed into the brick wall (all the worst fears of todays project fear) by BOTH mainstream parties - and it has taken over 40 years to get back to the point where we made that momemtously bad decision to “trust our mainstream parties to get it right” in 1974. Labour ended up taking our local seat off the Tories, and then the vote switching back again in the 2nd election later that year. The Liberals got sidelined, having missed their chance to get into a coalition government, because essentially Heath lost a handful of seats too many to make a Con/Lib coalition feasible, because others like the UUP and NI Vanguard party (along with maybe Plaid Cymru) would have been needed to make up the numbers to 318 seats, the majority line of the day. “Those that could see if coming” then as now - are as a voice crying in the wilderness. The LIberals only won 14 seats in the Feb 1974 election, although that was nearly double their previous tally. It wasn’t enough to put them into government though, and I suspect UKIP’s tally at the next election, will be a rather similar experience for us, with a shafting straight after, “having not got UKIP involved”.

Thus, I reckon the EU are hoping our mainstream parties today are going to actually do a repeat of what they did in 1974! - Shaft us all over again, and then all be dead by the time another 40 years has passed - before we get another shot at it. :angry: :imp: Theresa May has already kicked the next election down the road (so she thought) to 2022, but now we have a resurgent Labour already threatening to “vote against the Brexit deal” regardless of what it is, which surely will force another election before Christmas, if they stick to this new “Hard Remain” policy roll-out.

Thus the “History” as you see it, and I saw it - are going to be different.