Long life | 16 June 2016

It was 41 years ago that The Spectator first urged its readers to vote Brexit in a referendum, but the circumstances were different then. In 1975 the Establishment was generally enthusiastic for Europe. Most of the Tory party, including its new leader, Margaret Thatcher, was keen to keep Britain in the Common Market it had only recently joined. The dissenters were few among the Tories and were mostly on the left wing of the Labour party and the trade unions, which saw Europe as inimical to socialism. Almost a third of Harold Wilson’s cabinet members were Eurosceptics, and he set the precedent (later followed by David Cameron) of suspending cabinet collective responsibility to let his ministers campaign against each other on this occasion.

In 1975 Fleet Street, too, was enthusiastic for Europe. Apart from the communist Morning Star, The Spectator was in fact the only national publication to propose Brexit, and it did so with vigour and commitment.