Референдум о членстве Великобритании в Европейском сообществе (1975)

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The United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, also known variously as the Referendum on the European Community (Common Market), the Common Market referendum and EEC membership referendum, took place under the provisions of the Referendum Act 1975 on 5 June 1975 in the United Kingdom to gauge support for the country's continued membership of the three European Communities (EC) principally the European Economic Community (EEC, the 'Common Market'), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). — which it had joined as a member state two and a half years earlier on 1 January 1973 under the Conservative government of Edward Heath. The Labour Party's manifesto for the October 1974 general election had promised that the people would decide through the ballot box whether to remain in the EC. The electorate expressed significant support for continued EC membership, with 67% voting “Yes” in favour of the status quo on a national turnout of 64% compared with just 32% who voted “No” and because the preferred option was the also the status quo it meant that the UK Government was not required to take any further action upon receipt of the final result. In a 1975 pamphlet Prime Minister Harold Wilson said: "I ask you to use your vote. For it is your vote that will now decide. The Government will accept your verdict." The pamphlet also said: "Now the time has come for you to decide. The Government will accept your decision — whichever way it goes." This was the first national referendum ever to be held throughout the United Kingdom which until this point because of the principle of parliamentary sovereignty the notion of a referendum had been generally deemed as “unconstitutional” and due to the same principle the referendum result could not be legally binding on either the Government or Parliament, and would remain the only UK wide referendum until the 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote system was held thirty six years later. It was also the only national referendum to be held on the UK's relationship with Europe until the 2016 referendum on continued EU membership. The February 1974 general election had yielded a Labour minority government, which went on to win a very small overall majority in the October 1974 general election. Labour pledged in its February 1974 manifesto to renegotiate the terms of British accession to the EC, and then to consult the public on whether Britain should remain in the EC on the new terms, if they were acceptable to the government. The Labour Party had historically feared the consequences of EC membership, such as the large differentials between the high price of food under the Common Agricultural Policy and the low prices prevalent in Commonwealth markets, as well as the loss of both economic sovereignty and the freedom of governments to engage in socialist industrial policies, and party leaders stated their opinion that the Conservatives had negotiated unfavourable terms for Britain. The EC heads of government agreed to a deal in Dublin on 11 March 1975; Wilson declared: "I believe that our renegotiation objectives have been substantially though not completely achieved", and said that the government would recommend a vote in favour of continued membership. On 9 April, the House of Commons voted by 396 to 170 to continue within the Common Market on the new terms. Along with these developments, the government drafted a Referendum Bill, to be moved in case of a successful renegotiation. The referendum debate and campaign was an unusual time in British politics and was the third national vote to be held in seventeen months. During the campaign, the Labour Cabinet was split and its members campaigned on each side of the question, an unprecedented breach of Cabinet collective responsibility. Most votes in the House of Commons in preparation for the referendum were only carried after opposition support, and the Government faced several defeats on technical issues such as the handling and format of the referendum counts. The referendum did temporarily achieve Harold Wilson's ambition to bring the divided Labour Party together on the European issue; however, eight years later, Labour's 1983 general election manifesto pledged withdrawal from the Communities. It also significantly strengthened the position of the pro marketeer (later pro Europe) politicians in the UK Parliament for the next thirty years, but the issue remained a contentious one and in the decades that followed, successive UK governments integrated further into the European project by ratifying subsequent European treaties (in particular Maastricht and Lisbon) and agreements but without direct consent from the British people although the UK Government did decide against adopting the Euro after the Pound was forced to withdraw from its precursor the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 what became known as Black Wednesday. Despite this, increasingly eurosceptic politicians believed that the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty was being eroded, and called for a second referendum on Britain's membership of what by now had become the European Union (EU), which resulted in a narrow majority in favour of the UK leaving the EU.

When the European Coal and Steel Community was instituted in 1952, the United Kingdom decided not to become a member. The UK was still absent when the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, creating the European Economic Community (the "Common Market"). However, in the late 1950s the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan dramatically changed its attitude, and appointed Edward Heath to submit an application and to lead negotiations for Britain to enter the Common Market. The application was made at a meeting of the European Communities (EC) in January 1963, but the French president Charles de Gaulle rebuffed and vetoed Britain's request. Despite the veto, Britain restarted talks with the EC countries in 1967; and in April 1970, shortly before the 1970 general election campaign, Heath — who by this time was the Conservative Party leader — said that further European integration would not happen "except with the full hearted consent of the Parliaments and peoples of the new member countries".

The 1970 general election saw all the major political parties commit to either membership or to negotiate with the European Communities. The Conservative manifesto for the election on the issue was committed to negotiating membership but not at any price. The Conservatives won a total of 330 seats (out of a total of 630) on 46.6% of the national vote share, gaining 77 seats, which gave them an unexpected overall majority of about 30 seats. Edward Heath became Prime Minister, and personally led many of the negotiations which began following the election; he struck up a friendship with the new French president Georges Pompidou, who oversaw the lifting of the veto and thus paved the way for UK membership.

The government produced a white paper on the proposed referendum on 26 February 1975: it recommended core public funding for both the 'Yes' and 'No' sides, voting rights for members of the armed forces and members of the House of Lords, and finally a proposed single central count of the votes for the whole country. This white paper was approved by the House of Commons. A Referendum Bill was introduced to the Commons on 26 March; at its second reading on 10 April, MPs voted 312–248 in favour. Prior to the Bill's passing, there was no procedure or legislation within the United Kingdom for holding any such plebiscite. The vote, the only nationwide plebiscite to be held in the UK during the 20th century, was of constitutional significance. Referendums had been widely opposed in the past, on the grounds that they violated the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. The first major referendum (i. e. one covering more than one local government area) to be held in any part of the UK had been the sovereignty referendum in Northern Ireland in 1973. How the votes were to be counted caused much division as the Bill went through Parliament. The government was of the opinion that, given that the poll was substantially different from a general election, and that as a national referendum the United Kingdom was a single constituency, an unprecedented single national count of all votes for the entire country would be held at Earls Court in London over several days, with one declaration of the final result by the National Counting Officer (later in the legislation the title was changed to Chief Counting Officer). This proposal did not attract the wider support of the Labour Party or the other opposition parties; the Liberal Party favoured individual counts in each of the parliamentary constituencies, and tabled an amendment to this effect, but was defeated by 263 to 131 votes in the House of Commons. However, another amendment, tabled in the Commons by Labour MP Roderick MacFarquhar, sought to have separate counts for each administrative region (the post 1974 county council areas): this won cross party support, and was carried by 272 to 155 votes.

The referendum was called in April 1975 after the renegotiation was formally concluded. Since Prime Minister Harold Wilson's cabinet was split between supporters and opponents of the Common Market, and since members of each side held their views strongly, he made the decision, unprecedented outside coalition government, to suspend the constitutional convention of Cabinet collective responsibility. Cabinet members would be allowed to publicly campaign against each other. In total, seven of the twenty three members of the cabinet opposed EC membership. Wilson's solution was that ministers speaking in the House of Commons should reflect government policy (i. e. support for EC membership), but would be allowed to speak freely elsewhere, thus avoiding a mass dismissal of Cabinet ministers. In spite of this, one minister, Eric Heffer, was obliged to resign after speaking against EC membership in the House of Commons. The main campaign period started as soon as the Referendum Act 1975 came into effect on 8 May 1975 with the vote taking place on 5 June it meant there would be just 27 campaigning days which was a very short period when compared with general elections which were held at the time (especially when compared with the ten week campaign period for the 2016 EU referendum).

The 'Yes' campaign was officially supported by Wilson and the majority of his cabinet, including the holders of the three other Great Offices of State: Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; James Callaghan, the Foreign Secretary; and Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary. It was also supported by the majority of the Conservative Party, including its newly elected leader Margaret Thatcher — 249 of 275 party members in Parliament supported staying in the EC in a free vote in April 1975 — the Liberal Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party.

The influential Conservative Edward du Cann said that "the Labour party is hopelessly and irrevocably split and muddled over this issue". The 'No' campaign included the left wing of the Labour Party, including the cabinet ministers Michael Foot, Tony Benn, Peter Shore, and Barbara Castle who during the campaign famously said "They lured us into the market with the mirage of the market miracle". Some Labour 'No' supporters, including Eric Varley and Douglas Jay, were on the right wing of the party, but most were from the left. The 'No' campaign also included a large number of Labour backbenchers; upon the division on a pro EC White Paper about the renegotiation, 148 Labour MPs opposed their own government's measure, whereas only 138 supported it and 32 abstained. Other parties supporting the 'No' campaign included the Democratic Unionist Party, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, and parties outside Parliament including the National Front and the Communist Party of Great Britain.