Tony Benn on the 1975 referendum

This letter from Tony Benn to his constituents was written in 1975 and published in The Spectator.  In 1975 you will each have the responsibility of deciding by vote whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Common Market: or whether we should withdraw completely, and remain an independent self-governing nation. That decision, once taken will almost certainly be irreversible. In both the 1974 general elections I fully supported our manifesto commitment on the handling of the Common Market question. The present Government is now engaged in renegotiating the terms of entry along the lines set out in those Manifestos and is solemnly pledged, whatever the Outcome of those negotiations, to see to it that the final decision will be taken by the British people. But we must recognise that the European Community has now set itself the objectives of developing a common foreign policy, a form of common nationality expressed through a common passport, a directly elected assembly and an economic and monetary union which, taken together, would in effect make the United Kingdom into one province of a Western European state.