Getting the right people in power
IN 1973, only those aged over 21 could vote in a referendum on whether the UK should join the European Common Market.
Although Edward Heath was credited with negotiating entry that year, I recall jokes where the referendum went against joining.
Harold Wilson was Prime Minister at the time of the referendum in 1975, which was held to assess whether the UK should stay in the Common Market, which it had joined two years earlier.
He was allegedly asked what he would do if the vote went against the Common Market? We will keep having referendums until the people get it right, he said.
Those eligible to vote then are now aged 72 or more. They will recall that, due to farm subsidy systems, the market drew complaints that over-production caused ‘milk lakes’, ‘butter mountains’, etc.
Milk quotas were introduced. Some dairy farmers found they had surplus quota which could be sold more profitably than selling milk.
Some entrepreneurs found they could bring in cheap goods from China, unload to dockside, reload to a second ship, unload again, and the goods were no longer subject to import duty.
In recent, years signs have appeared by various large projects, saying ‘paid for by EU funds’. True, but it is also true that the UK was a major contributor to the EU. So we merely got some of our own money back. I suspect these anomalies were remembered by those who wished to leave the EU in 2016, while younger voters have no memories of these fiascos.
Now, election results indicate voters believe our economy is suffering since leaving the EU. Yet at the G7 Summit recently it was revealed the UK is now the fourth largest exporter in the world – plus our economy is recovering after Covid faster than any EU economy.
Can we have General Elections until the people get the right party back in power? Mike Baker St Austell, Cornwall