Talk:1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum

"Britishing history"
This article appears to be subjected to a number of historical Britishing, and by that I mean that the British have decided where the European project is concerned, they have decided to create their own special British history that supports their political agenda. This can be seen in some of their academic work, some of their professional historian work, and throughout their media.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia isn't just for British people.

Today I remove "Negotiations on joining the EC first began on 30 June 1970 (coincidentally the same day that the Common Fisheries Policy first came into being)"

The Common policy for the structure of the fishing industry was established with 2141/70 introduced on the 20th October, 1970. It was then not French, German, Dutch, in fact people from all over Europe and the world can read the date on the legislation, it in bold at the top, but not it would seem British people. In the Council session being referred to 29-30th the Council adopted a resolution to finalise the common fisheries rules before 1st November 1970. Rules which were 2 years in the making. It did not come into effect until the 1st February 1971.

I appreciate that British people enjoy inventing a fantasy world around the European project, hence I am going to leave a large part of this untouched. If they want to remove their history, fine, but they do not get to warp the history of the rest of Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:D701:E000:D05B:987D:F717:62B2 (talk) 13:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Removal of Sovereignty Issues
The European Communities are a source of political polarisation, and as a consequence a number of conspiracy theories have been created alongside a number of dubious political arguments. It seems someone added a reference to the FCO document on Sovereignty some time after the 2016 UK Referendum. This was a time when such conspiracy theories were getting coverage in the Eurosceptic media, and this was one of them.

The history of this is that on 24th May 1971 Edward Heath made a speech about his discussions with President Pompidou. In it he refers to agreeing to the wording of the voting procedure laid down under Article 148 of the Treaty of Rome. In conclusion he said: "It provides a clear assurance, just as the history of the Community provides clear evidence, that joining the Community does not entail a loss of national identity or an erosion of essential national sovereignty." It was not a general comment about sovereignty, but a very specific argument about the UK governments control over legislation made in the council that was in the national interest.

This is understood to the extent that Michael Foot said in parliament 25th October 1971 "The right hon. and learned Gentleman tried to deal with this question precisely. He said that we do not have to fear any erosion of essential sovereignty, because of what he called today the process of consultation in the Community whereby these decisions are reached, and because of the understanding which the Prime Minister has with President Pompidou and the arrangement that has been made that the individual will of a single nation will never be overriden by the power of the majority."

However, Michael Foot is one a large number of MPs who, in 1972, claim that they believed the sentence to mean that they didn't have to accept legal instruments That they had been confused into believing the sentence somehow changed the treaty they had been reading for years. This had no weight in parliament, as MPs are reminded that all of this had been explained 10 years before, that it had been laid out in Command Paper 3301 and been debated at the time. It did, however, get some traction with the Eurosceptic supporters.

Edward Heath was probably, as Prime Minister, the most cited person on sovereignty in 1971. Not the 'essential sovereignty' quote, but his 1966 quote about how the government should frankly recognise the sacrifice of sovereignty. It's not a quote that gets much airing in 1972.

During the Maastricht debates this sentence was combined with a 'modified' sentence, in a speech made by Edward Heath at Wilton Park in 1971, to argue this had all been hidden from the public. Every paper that shows people knew about sovereignty has since been heralded as proof that Edward Heath knew and lied. This includes the file which this page referenced.

Almost everything in that file is public domain. It is either in the treaty itself, in the Constitutional and Legal Implications white paper, the European Political Union white paper, or the white paper covering the terms of the deal. All of these were released to the public, and anyone who has studied the debate knows that the information in there was pretty standard.

Even if the file was relevant, it's not relevant to the Referendum without referring to the fact that Sovereignty is also covered in the negotiation White paper. Including a section about the primacy of law.

Unfortunately the FCO has been made famous by conspiracists and the British media, and people believe it's significant, but there is nothing notable about the government having reference documents, and there is nothing relevant about the 1973 documents to a 1975 referendum that was held by a different government.

I have, therefore, deleted the whole section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:261D:BE00:C837:1C22:D0E3:3F3F (talk) 20:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Query
"The majority of the Labour Party leadership was strongly for continuing membership," but 38 members of the Government were to vote against continuing membership.Jatrius 20:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect the statement refers to the Cabinet, and in particular the senior Ministers (Wilson, Healey, Jenkins, and to a lesser extent Callaghan), though I think it should be sourced. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Article tone concern
I have a niggling concern that this article has fallen prey to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and is trying to write about the referendum in terms relevant to the European debate of today. In doing so it is dangerously close to endorsing a point of view, for instance the apparent surprise that the centre-right newspapers like the Telegraph and the Mail supported a Yes vote. If there was a referendum today, that might be a surprise, but it was certainly no surprise in 1975. Then the passage on the Labour Party's decision seems to be missing a crucial source - who says that if the special party conference had voted by over two to one, the party machine would have campaigned? Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Spectator anti-Europe.gif
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

UK Referenda
Unless I'm mistaken, this referendum is the only nationwide referendum ever to be held in the UK? If so, I think that merits some mention in the article, as this is a big difference between the UK and countries like the Republic of Ireland or Switzerland that have held numerous important referenda in their modern history. --Benwilson528 (talk) 16:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Rigged
Why is there no mention of the fact that the referendum was rigged? (92.7.23.103 (talk) 17:42, 11 October 2012 (UTC))
 * If it is a fact then please provide a source. Road Wizard (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

All the sources say the vast majority of people voted for withdrawal from the Common Market, but the result was changed by the government. (92.7.23.103 (talk) 20:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC))
 * I have checked a couple of the sources listed in the article and they make no such claim. Can you please identify a particular source that supports your statement? Road Wizard (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 17 November 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Consensus is against moving. Natg 19 (talk) 00:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975 → United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum 1975 – The comma is normally dropped or omitted before the year in modern standard British English, such as when we in Britain (in the United Kingdom) have to write out the date in full with both words and numbers. No reason to "harmonise" every single title of articles about all of the World's elections effectively with American English. We don't have "New World Order" and "One World Government" yet, for sweet Fanny's sake! -- Urquhartnite (talk) 12:46, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is clearly in violation of the naming guideline WP:NC-GAL, which requires a comma to be used (as it is in all other referendum articles where the year is present, e.g. United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011). Additionally, I'm a native British English speaker and see no problem with the comma. Number   5  7  12:58, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not a member of the NUT, and are you?! Well, anyway, if you are by your own confession a geek, you wouldn't really be the most grammatically-correct person, now, would you?! And didn't Jihadi John also have British English as his native or near-native tongue (bar a clear London ethnic/immigrant accent) as well?! Oh, well, whatever counts as British these days?! Mind you, some people probably did actually try to claim, in public, him as "British-born" to score left-wing political brownie point! -- Urquhartnite (talk) 13:13, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no idea how being a geek supposedly has an adverse effect on my grammar. Also, your latter comments suggest you need to be reminded of WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Number   5  7  13:37, 17 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose, no valid reason given for the move. Please cut out the personal abuse, Urquhartnite. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:48, 17 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose, per naming guideline.  Jolly  Ω   Janner  17:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose. British English uses both forms. And yes, I'm British, and I'd probably use a comma. The only things that almost never do are Acts of Parliament. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:37, 18 November 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Map error
I'm pretty sure there's a mismatch between the key to the map (as text under the diagram) and the key in the map itself. The very dark patch is listed as "75-80" on the map diagram itself, which means 75%-80% yes, but the key under the map has this colour as No > 75%.

BristolChris (talk) 17:21, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Counting areas
The role of the counting areas is not entirely clear to me. Were they only used for organising the count, or were they comparable with constituencies, as the text suggests? That would mean that for each area a result was determined (either yes or no) and that the national result was the total of those area decisions? It seems that the official result would be 66 – 2 in that case, with only Shetland and the Outer Hebrides voting no. Bever (talk) 00:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

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1974-75 EC renegotiation
What are the line of thoughts in the idea of setting up a separate article about the EC renegotiation of 1974-75 similar to the article UK renegotiation of EU membership, 2016 as currently the 1975 EC referendum article does not  currently contain much information about what happened during the renegotiation itself. I would title the article UK renegotiation of EC membership, 1975. (talk) 17:29, 24 December 2016 (UTC))

Booker and North's book
The Books section contains two references to well documented histories of the lead up to the 1975 referendum and its repercussions. I don't think including Booker and North's conspiracy theory laden book helps readers. My two-cents. It's sort of like redirecting people to a 9/11 truther for further reading on september 11th. It's not very encyclopaedic. EU explained (talk) 20:01, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 8 February 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: do not move. (closed by non-admin page mover) Warm Regards, ZI Jony  (Talk) 19:25, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum → 1975 United Kingdom European Communities (Common Market) membership referendum – I propose this minor change to the title of the article to add the words “Common Market” in brackets to reflect the fact that to many people it was known to many people as the “Common Market Referendum” and was included in brackets on the actual allot paper partically as the EU back then was mostly known thoughtout the English speaking world at that time as the “Common Market” rather than the European Communities. I just want to make it very clear this is simply a proposal from me and and if it is not met with approval then I completely understand and will rest my case. MOTORAL1987 (talk) 18:34, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Completely unnecessary complication of the title. See also 1982 Greenlandic European Communities membership referendum, 1972 Norwegian European Communities membership referendum. Number   5  7  19:06, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Unnecessary change which just complicates the title. If this change was to go ahead, many other changes would have to be made to other referendum articles for consistency. Lancashire2789 (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose as an uneeded complication, not convinced that "Common Market Referendum" was that common as it was mainly known as the "EEC Referendum" as far as I can see. MilborneOne (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Map Colour
Hi,

Sorry but the map colour key is not very colour blind friendly, it would be useful if different colours were used rather than the red and green.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.34.9.74 (talk) 10:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Replacement map
I've created a new version of the first map on the page. I took most of the boundaries from the 1991 census. I think those are the same as in 1975. I'm thinking of replacing all of the maps on the page with something in the same style, but I'd like to see what people feel about it first. Changes include:


 * More accurate boundaries, particularly with Avon and in Wales. I think this is enough reason to replace the map with something else
 * Fewer colours. I've had it change every 5% instead of every 2.5%. What do people think of this?
 * Colours change red to blue rather than green. Is it easy enough to see?

My plan is to replace all of the maps on this page with something in the same style (the 2016 referendum results have a wider range, but I can use the same spectrum there), but I though I should check what people think of it first. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 18:25, 3 May 2023 (UTC)