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: The No forces were represented by the likes of Tony Benn and the Tory hard Right. In the end, only the Western Isles and Shetland voted against. Both on the political spectrum and geographically, it seemed that only people on the margins were against the EEC. So exactly 40 years on, with a substantial majority of the British people – and even members of the Cabinet – now apparently backing withdrawal, how did Britain’s relationship with Brussels go sour? Part of the difficulty had, of course, been sown decades before 1973, when Britain, still seeing itself as much a world as a European power, chose to stand apart from the Common Market, and its forebear, the European Coal and Steel Community. So now we were entering a club whose rules were set long before we joined, without our involvement, and not necessarily in our favour. The terms of British membership were particularly poor. At the beginning, Britain – though one of the less prosperous members – was the second-biggest net contributor to the EEC, behind only the far richer Germans, pouring large sums into subsidising French farmers, butter mountains and wine lakes through the Common Agricultural Policy. Not until 1984, 11 years after joining, did Margaret Thatcher secure a permanent two-thirds rebate. “ They say it’s their money, and I say it’s mine,” she remarked at the Brussels summit in March of that year.