the party's balance of power tipped decisively in favour of a referendum." Along with Forsyth, Paul Goodman of ConservativeHome and Leo McKinstry of the Daily Express have cited the success of the campaign as a main reason why a referendum became a possibility. Background In January 1973, on its third application, Britain was accepted into the European Economic Community. The 1975 European Communities membership referendum was held after that, following a change in government from the Conservatives under Edward Heath who had led the application process, to the minority Labour government of Harold Wilson, who had made a referendum an election promise. The referendum found 67% to be in favour, on a 65% turnout. Subsequent treaties leading to the development of the European Union were signed into law without recourse to a referendum. According to the campaign, all three major British political parties withdrew promises of a referendum on the last major European treaty, which proposed the creation of a European Constitution, after it was re-drafted as the Treaty of Lisbon, and subsequently ratified by the UK on 19 June 2008 by the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. The subsequent 2010 general election unusually produced a hung parliament, leading to a Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition government bound by an agreement that there would be "no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament", and to cover for future terms, proposed the introduction of the European Union Bill 2010, which sought to "amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that treaty". The coalition did not however commit to holding a referendum on the status of the existing membership. A YouGov poll conducted in September 2010 of 1,948 adults in the UK found that if there was a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, 47% would vote to leave, compared to 33% who would want to remain. Launch The People's Pledge campaign was launched in Westminster on 15 March 2011. The campaign website had been launched two days earlier. The campaign described its views citing five key reasons why a referendum was needed: that nobody under the age of 54 had ever been given the chance to vote on the issue (i.e., those aged 18 or over in 1975), that the EU now made the majority