Title: The EU: so where did it all go wrong?
Headings: The EU: so where did it all go wrong?
The EU: so where did it all go wrong?
Content: and co-ordinated demonstrations of “Continental cooking” at Scottish gas and electricity board showrooms. Three hundred anti-EEC demonstrators gathered outside the Royal Opera House, booing and chanting “Sieg Heil” as the Queen, Prince Philip and Heath arrived for a gala performance to celebrate the new dawn. Yet despite all the opposition – and it was serious – what also strikes one now is the strength of support. Every single national newspaper, including the Daily Mail, the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs and Rupert Murdoch’s Sun, was enthusiastic (the Express papers had been opposed, but came round). Most of the business community was fervently pro-EEC. Despite widespread doubts over whether Britain would ever actually join, and despite the opposition of the Labour Party to membership on the terms proposed, the key Commons vote had been won comfortably, 356 to 244. Sixty-nine Labour rebels voted for entry; only 39 Tory rebels voted to stay out. And within two years, 67 per cent of the British people endorsed the UK’s membership in a referendum. The Labour leadership reversed its position – and one Margaret Thatcher, leader of the opposition, also took a prominent role in the Yes campaign.