WHAT’S THE STORY?

Today is the 50th anniversary of a long-forgotten occasion which with hindsight and the use of a portmanteau word we can now call Brentrance.

On October 28, 1971, the House of Commons, at the end of six days of debate in which more than 240 MPs spoke, voted overwhelmingly to back a motion by the Tory government of Ted Heath that the UK should join the European Communities, the collective name for the European Economic Community – the Common Market – the European Steel and Coal Community and the European Atomic Energy Community.

It still did not guarantee membership, but at least this time the European Communities were on board. For Britain had tried to join the Communities twice before in 1961 and 1967 only for President Charles de Gaulle to say "non". The third application was originally submitted by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in 1969, but it was Ted Heath, who had served in the Royal Artillery and saw action in France on and after D-Day, who drove UK membership forward as a passionate believer in Europe remaining peaceful.

As PM he gave Communities’ membership top priority early in his premiership and it helped that de Gaulle was no longer president of France.

WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

On and off there had been ten years of negotiations between the Communities and the UK, and it was finally agreed in 1971 that Britain would join under a Treaty of Accession which took effect on January 1, 1973.

The Tory manifesto for the 1970 election stated: “If we can negotiate the right terms, we believe that it would be in the long-term interest of the British people for Britain to join the European Economic Community". Once in power, they were duty-bound to carry out that manifesto commitment.

Looking back, the extraordinary thing is how so many politicians really believed and wanted it, they included a young Margaret Thatcher, then the education secretary. The Government realised that while a few of the Tory members were against it, many Labour members were all for membership and crucially, the Leader of the Opposition, ex-PM Harold Wilson, was not prepared to whip his MPs into voting no.

The motion itself was simple. Put forward in the name of the foreign and commonwealth secretary, former prime minister Sir Alec Douglas Home, it read: “That this House approves Her Majesty's Government's decision of principle to join the European Communities on the basis of the arrangements which have been negotiated.”

WHAT WAS THE DEBATE LIKE?

It was passionate, well-informed, often quite moving and all were agreed that the long debate had been carried out in the best spirit of the Commons. Looking back now the quality of the speeches on both sides makes the current occupants look like political numpties. You can read it online on Hansard.

Worries were expressed about the Commonwealth, increased competition in trade, defence, freedom of movement, fisheries and all the things that are still being argued about 50 years on.

There was even humour. Speaking against the motion, future prime minister Jim Callaghan said: “We have for centuries looked towards the open sea and the world beyond, and we shall continue to do so.”

That prompted former Rear Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles, MP for Winchester, to rise in defence of Sailor Ted Heath’s position.

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“The Prime Minister knows more about the open sea than does the right hon. Gentleman,” he said. To which former naval officer Callaghan quipped: “I did not have the pleasure of sitting in the admiral's cabin. I slung a hammock on the mess deck.”

The last speech went to the Prime Minister and by common consent it was one of Ted Heath’s best. His words echo down the years: “What is important is the question of being in the best possible position to influence economic decisions which are determining our future…Over these next few years, in which new patterns will be formed and new decisions will be taken, they will affect the livelihood of everyone in this country and they will be taken in practice by those who have the greatest economic power. We may not like it, and we may wish it otherwise, but we have to recognise these facts as they exist.

“Tonight when this House endorses this motion many millions of people right across the world will rejoice that we have taken our rightful place in a truly united Europe.”

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The House divided: Ayes to the right 356, Noes to the left 244, and to all intents and purposes the United Kingdom was set on Brentrance.

At no point then did anyone contemplate two referendums on membership and no-one could ever have imagined that in 2016, Scotland would lose its membership of the EU against the will of the Scottish people. Let’s not have Brentrance 2, let’s just have Scentrance.