Jim B wrote: ↑Sun Apr 16, 2017 2:30 pm
5th June 1975. UK European Communities membership referendum.
...As I said earlier many leave leaders have been actively campaigning to leave the EU from 1975 when there was a Yes vote of 67.23%; now I look at that as their democratic right just as I look at it as my democratic right to try and overturn the second referendum. That is democracy
You are deliberately confusing the two issues. In 1975 I voted 'Yes' and if the
same Referendum had been run in 2016, I would have voted 'Yes' again.
However, as the first part of your post pointed out, the 1975 Referendum was whether or not to to stay in the
EEC so it is totally incorrect to say that leave campaigners have been actively campaigning to leave the
EU from 1975. It simply did not exist then.
It was John Major who took us into the proposed
EU via the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. Maastricht fundamentally changed the constitutional position of the British people who were NOT afforded the right to decide whether they agreed with it or not. I wonder how the Supreme Court would have ruled if that decision had been challenged then. Nevertheless, 1993 was the start of the slippery slope of Brexiteers asserting that it was not our will to remain in the EU and that a 'second' referendum should be held to find out the will of the people. Actually, as the subject of the two referenda were different (EEC and EU), it cannot really be classed as a second Referendum. 2016 was the first and only one about continued UK membership of a European State.
Also bear in mind, that in 1993, the EU consisted of just 12 countries - not the 28 as at present.
