Rejected By Baby Boomers And Generation X

After the dust settles and the establishment recovers from its collective thrombosis over the failure of the British public to vote to remain in the European Union .....

Britain Had Toyed With The Idea Of Joining The EU Since 1961 - We Were Rejected.

..... there is still one issue that is worth further examination .... not what happens next, that will unwind over the next 2 or 3 years. No I am referring to why the generation that took us into to EU, did so much to ensure we left it again and why the Labour Party supporters also voted for Brexit.

Let's start with some simple historical facts;

Ted Heath Signed Us In To The EEC Without A Referendum .... Just 8 Vote Majority In Parliament.

The UK never voted to take us in to the then European Economic Community (EEC), it was Parliament that took us into the EEC ... we had no popular vote of support from the population i.e. a Referendum. The then Conservative Government under Prime Minister Edward Heath, was only mandated to get the best possible terms for entry, and then put them to the British people ... But in an act of betrayal he didn't do that, and just sent the terms to Parliament, who very narrowly passed them (by just 8 votes), and next thing we know we were in the EEC.

Entry Into The EEC Was Low Key .......

Hardly any fanfare and a much muted response .... It was because the then Labour Party, had opposed that entry without referendum, that the next Labour government under Harold Wilson, did a bit of negotiating (little more than lip service tinkering), and then we had the 1975 referendum.

It was only then that many of the voters in the 2016 referendum, got their first say on the EEC / Common Market, as the EU was rather misleadingly called then. They voted in favour of remaining, but to say that 67% of those who voted in and supported that campaign to stay in the EEC, is to tell you only half the story. There is little doubt that at that time, few did so on the grounds of a deep belief in the organisation, but rather it was one of rather perceived narrow economic interest.

We were at that time a nation in physical and economic decline, a nation which had lost its way and focus .... The Empire had finally gone in the decade before, and our major industries such as the car and ship makers, were now uncompetitive and slowly collapsing, and in fact, a rather miserable decade was heading towards the 'Winter of Discontent' ... many people felt that it would only be inside the EEC protectionist life raft, that our beleaguered economy could find a safe berth. Maybe that was true, or maybe not .... but whatever the truth of the matter, the UK voters didn't want to take a risk, and voted to remain in the EEC. But there was still no great love of the organisation.

We never got asked our opinion again, even when the Maastricht Treaty changed the terms and conditions, and created the Economic Union (EU), and for the next 45 years remained in the EU. Plenty of time for those who originally voted to stay in a economic trading block, to see it evolve into what it is today ... a federalist organisation, dominated economically by the new Germany under Mrs Merkel, and politically by Germany and France.

The UK never seemed to get our way against these two nations, and our interests always seemed misaligned with their aims for the ever closer political union they envisaged ... our veto vote either never worked, or was never used, and the best we got was temporary opt outs, such as the Euro-zone. Somehow we never made any firm and true allies, even though other nations shared some of our concerns, and in the shifting internal politics, we were often left isolated or outmanoeuvred. But the trend towards ever closer political and economic union, just seemed to grind relentlessly onwards and eastwards, with majority voting being introduced to remove he veto, leaving us even more easily outvoted on our concerns in many areas of policy.

The UK/EU elite thought that the great British public were content with this, that holidays inside the EU (never passport free as we skipped that bit .. luckily as it turned out), and having cheaper plumbers via Polish immigrants, was enough to end our concerns with the organisation. Our press, after initially campaigning to enter (including the Daily Mail!), soon started to sour of the idea of the EU, with most of them later campaigning to leave the EU (I am not sure why the papers never grew to like it, after all it was 45 years ago). But somehow the EU was never sold to the English, who just didn't see it as relevant to their lives, except in so far as it interfered in some way or other.

The Scottish however are a different kettle of fish, being a relentlessly socialist state since the 1950's, and therefore never having anything but Labour or the SNP to rule them ... and support for the EU and and increasingly for an independent Scotland with in it has grown. It should be noted they also escaped the majority of the EU migrant invasion that much of England felt it was getting, so a rosier view existed.

Perhaps if the Euro-Zone had been a roaring success (thus preventing millions of Europeans from coming to the UK looking for work), things may have been different, but it largely economically failed in 2008 (with a few exceptions e.g Germany), with the consequence that workers from many EU states came here (one country), rather than spreading across the continent. This caused very large swathes of the UK to feel that they were losing their identity, especially in the eastern part. Whether this was more perception rather than reality I can't judge ... where I lived it was just a few hard working Polish people, and it wasn't a driver for my opinions.

However it was apparently how many UK natives felt, and those many felt that no one listened ... least of all the EU which said 'freedom of movement was fundamental'. The result of all this is that many French and other European nationals came to the UK to work ....personally this didn't bother me, but its noticeable that in the east of England, the largest numbers of Brexiters were found (along with the largest numbers of East Europeans).

Had these issues been addressed by David Cameron's 'EU reforms', I doubt that the Brexit campaign would have won, but they weren't, and so that, and the fact that the EU had never won a fan base here meant that the tinder was primed for the political explosion that followed.

The spark that allowed it to ignite, was that the Remain campaign was always going to rely on the Labour Party to mobilise its voters in the North and East to vote to Remain in. They didn't, because at this one vital time for it (and some might say the EU and UK), it had a leadership who would not address the immigration issue, except to say (truthfully), that if we remained in the EU we would not be able to stop freedom of movement. They gave no real reasons to vote remain, so their voters either voted against it, or didn't vote at all .... on such slender margins are elections and referendums won or lost.

So all those who had never loved the EU, and now resented the way the it had evolved, and all those who felt threatened by its migration policies, voted with their hearts, and maybe not with their heads .... they felt that they had nothing to gain by staying in (what price a few London city jobs going to Frankfurt or Dublin - how would that impact those in Sunderland?), and that by voting leave, they could possibly stop that which they most disliked about the EU (even a very close vote to stay in would possibly have served), via a protest vote.

So because of a succession of political misjudgements in the EU and UK, we ended up with the UK, to everyone's surprise, leaving the EU. You cant help but be reminded of the poem .....

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the political message was lost.
For want of a message the campaign battle was lost.
For want of a battle the EU was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.