Originally posted by NickFitz
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EU referendum: Did 1975 predictions come true? - BBC News
Enoch Powell, the maverick right wing Tory who had just become an Ulster Unionist MP, and left wing Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn - the loudest voices in the Out campaign - talked endlessly about it.
In its leaflet to voters, the Out campaign warned that the Common Market "sets out by stages to merge Britain with France, Germany, Italy and other countries into a single nation," in which Britain would be a "mere province".
The In campaign openly acknowledged that being a member of the EEC involved "pooling" sovereignty with the eight other nations who were members at the time.
But it said Britain could not go it alone in the modern world and it assured voters that British traditions and way of life were not under threat.
The In campaign also stressed that all the big decisions in Europe would be subject to a prime ministerial veto - something that no longer holds true 41 years later - and that there was no need for Community-wide laws apart from for a "few commercial and industrial purposes". Today's Leave campaigners would take issue with that "few".
Enoch Powell was asked to explain why the British people had ignored his warnings about giving up the power to determine laws, as it became clear that his side had lost.
"It is a thing so incredible to them that I am not inclined to blame them overmuch," he told the BBC.
In its leaflet to voters, the Out campaign warned that the Common Market "sets out by stages to merge Britain with France, Germany, Italy and other countries into a single nation," in which Britain would be a "mere province".
The In campaign openly acknowledged that being a member of the EEC involved "pooling" sovereignty with the eight other nations who were members at the time.
But it said Britain could not go it alone in the modern world and it assured voters that British traditions and way of life were not under threat.
The In campaign also stressed that all the big decisions in Europe would be subject to a prime ministerial veto - something that no longer holds true 41 years later - and that there was no need for Community-wide laws apart from for a "few commercial and industrial purposes". Today's Leave campaigners would take issue with that "few".
Enoch Powell was asked to explain why the British people had ignored his warnings about giving up the power to determine laws, as it became clear that his side had lost.
"It is a thing so incredible to them that I am not inclined to blame them overmuch," he told the BBC.
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