On June 6th 2016, Nigel Adams put out a statement about the forthcoming referendum in which he said that "the British people were told [the Common Market] was all about trade with our European neighbours" (HERE). He was six years old in 1972 when we went into the EEC.
When the 1975 EU referendum was held in June, he was eight. This is what the government told us in a pamphlet: The aims of the "Common Market" (page 5) were said to be:
To bring together the peoples of Europe.
To raise living standards and improve working conditions.
To promote growth and boost world trade.
To help the poorest regions of Europe and the rest of the world.
To help maintain peace and freedom.
It was not "all about trade". Trade was just one of the five aims set out and not even the most important one. We were also told (page 11), "we cannot go it alone in the modern world, Britain has for years been a member of international groupings like the United Nations, NATO and the International Monetary Fund. Membership of such groupings imposes both rights and duties, but has not deprived us of our national identity, or changed our way of life". This is as true now as it was then.
Also this, "No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British Government and British Parliament. The top decision-making body in the Market is the Council of Ministers, which is composed of senior Ministers representing each of the nine member governments. It is the Council of Ministers, and not the market's officials, who take the important decisions. These decisions can be taken only if all the members of the Council agree. The Minister representing Britain can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax if he considers it to be against British interests. Ministers from the other Governments have the same right to veto".
There is more qualified majority voting now it is true, but this is not in important areas like tax and foreign affairs and is intended to make decision making faster. The enlarged EU was accused of being too slow to reach consensus.
So, this canard that we didn't know what we were voting for needs to be corrected. The government did not plot to pull the wool over our eyes by secretly sending a pamphlet to each household and have the newspapers like the Daily Mail tell us "political unity is no dark secret" in its leader on the eve of the 1975 referendum. We knew what it was when we voted. Mr Adams didn't vote and didn't know.
