‘Differences of view represent

A CLEAR majority of Conservative parliamentarians campaigned for the UK to remain in the European Union this week, but a great many Tory voters, perhaps even a majority, voted the other way and helped to deliver the stunning victory for Brexit.

Yet, not so very long ago, the Conservative Party was overwhelmingly pro-European. When the EU’s predecessor, the Coal and Steel Community, was established, it was a Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, who wanted no part of it. Winston Churchill encouraged the process although, as Prime Minister, he stopped short of participating. Anthony Eden edged towards Europe, Harold Macmillan tried unsuccessfully to take us in and it was Edward Heath who succeeded in securing membership of what had become the European Economic Community (EEC).

Conservative MPs at the time were overwhelmingly supportive. In the Seventies, the UK felt stale and tired; the EEC appeared to offer a spur to the nation, to modernise economically and to become more competitive.

It was a natural thing for a Conservative to support that. Europe represented vigour and rigour. Perhaps Heath’s successor, Margaret Thatcher, did not fully share his passion for Europe, but as leader of the opposition and then, for at least half her term as Prime Minister, she too was avowedly pro-European. In 1980, she told the Commons, perfectly adumbrating the arguments of the recent Remain campaign: “If we walk out of Europe, our trade, of which more than 40 per cent is with other members of the Community, will suffer; our economy will be damaged; and our international effectiveness will be diminished.”

Gradually, as the concept of a “social Europe” was being hatched by the likes of Jacques Delors, Margaret Thatcher changed her tone on Europe, most dramatically in her famous Bruges speech in September 1988. Ever since then, the party has been wracked and tormented by the question of Europe. It played a major part in Mrs Thatcher’s downfall, it epitomised John Major’s travails and now it has destroyed the career of David Cameron, our most successful leader for a generation.

The 1975 referendum on Europe was the first ever national referendum in the UK. There are many parallels with our recent experience but also telling differences. A prime minister, Harold Wilson, with a slender parliamentary majority sought to let steam out of his divided party by renegotiating the terms of our membership of the EEC. Ministers were allowed to campaign on either side. The Prime Minister himself was not a leading figure in the campaign. He could safely leave that to an impressive roster of other “big hitters” – the likes of Ted Heath, Willie Whitelaw, Roy Jenkins and Jo Grimond. Most of those leading campaigners for Europe could call upon impressive experience and many of them had fought courageously for their country in the Second World War. They had seen the brutality and futility of war for themselves and understood all too well the inspiration for European unity – to replace centuries of bloodshed with an era of cooperation, peace and prosperity. Only a small (but vocal) minority of Conservatives, led by Enoch Powell,