日志
Britain was the sick man of Europe; not any more
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-last-time-we-had-a-vote-on-europe-britain-was-the-sick-man-not-any-more-rpbvhkj25
If anyone doubted the importance of business in the EU debate, they will have been disabused by last week’s letter to The Timesbacking the “in” campaign, signed by 35 FTSE 100 chairmen and chief executives. Similar letters will come from the “out” campaign, although, in all probability, signed by more SME owners than by big business leaders.
It is all in stark contrast to 1975, when Britain last voted on whether to stay in what was then called the European Economic Community (EEC), to judge from the campaign literature.
In 1975 business saw the EEC as an escape from Harold Wilson’s interventionist Labour
PETER CADE/CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES
Although Lord Rose of Monewden, the former M&S chairman, is a figurehead of Britain Stronger in Europe, the only non-politicians featured in the “Britain in Europe” leaflet were Vic Feather, the former TUC general secretary, and Baron Plumb, the National Farmers’ Union president. The “out” campaign leaflet similarly named no prominent business personalities.
But what of the role of business in the 1975 campaign? Robert Saunders, history lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, has noted that household names such as IBM, ICI, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Barclays, Rio Tinto, Imperial Tobacco, WH Smith and British Steel — several of whose bosses signed last week’s letter — campaigned for British membership, “canvassing not just their workforce but their shareholders, customers, employees’ families and those on company pensions”.
Dr Saunders adds: “They were joined on the front line by paint makers, leather workers, shoemakers and the knitting industry, as well as by consumer organisations, trade associations and the National Union of Farmers. This was a levée en masse by Britain’s commercial sector, of a kind never before seen.” He points out that the likes of Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s even printed pro-EEC articles in their customer magazines.
Yet business entered the debate warily. Roland Gribben, business correspondent for The Daily Telegraph at the time, argues that the main concern in 1975 was the Industry Act planned by Harold Wilson, the prime minister.
He recalls: “Britain was the ‘sick man of Europe’, while business was battling with an interventionist Labour administration. The CBI was pro-EEC, of course, but it felt as if it was in a dither about how to play the referendum, it didn’t want to appear too heavy-handed. It certainly acted as a clearing house for companies in helping them with their leaflets and back-up material. But its referendum fund, which raised £50,000, was capped at £100 per company [£1,640 in today’s money]. The big boys were frightened of the anti-EEC trade union bloc, while smaller companies were more vigorous.
“And all this was against the background of a looming crisis in [the carmaker] British Leyland. I wouldn’t say the role of business was decisive in the campaign. If it was, it was because industry was more worried about what Labour would do and saw the EEC as an escape window from what Wilson was throwing at them.”
Meanwhile, although Eagle Star, Lloyd’s of London and Royal Insurance contributed “lavishly” to the campaign, in the words of Dr Saunders, Gribben argues that, unlike today, the Square Mile — deregulated by Margaret Thatcher a decade later — remained largely detached: “The City stood above all of this. It didn’t get itself involved in the nitty-gritty of political life and so kept quite a low profile.”
If business did punch above its weight in 1975, it was attributable to the deferential attitude of workers, certainly in the private sector.
Dr Saunders has noted that employers “set up displays in the workplace, distributed literature to the workforce or published material in the weekly pay packet”, with the chairman of GKN, the engineer, warning employees and their families that leaving the EEC “would torpedo the company”.
Gribben agrees. He has dug out one of his stories, published on May 7, 1975, quoting a worker asking his boss: “When are you going to tell us how to vote?”
Also contrasting with today were the campaign issues. While the big topics of 2016 — jobs, trade and investment — were discussed, the overwhelming economic one was food prices, which were soaring because of the crippling surge in oil prices after the 1973 Arab–Israeli War.
Only one paragraph in the “in” leaflet described how “staying in protects our jobs”, although one line within it is familiar today: “It is very doubtful [if in the event of exit] we could then negotiate a free trade agreement with the community. Even if we could, it would have damaging limitations and we would have to accept many community rules without having the say we now have in their making.” More of the leaflet, though, dealt with inflation and food prices.
The “out” leaflet was similarly dominated by food prices, although it also warned of “interference in the control of British industry, particularly iron and steel” and the “precious asset” of North Sea oil.
The official government leaflet of the time, similarly also focused more on food prices than on wider business matters.
Britain was a different country then. Industries such as coal, steel and shipbuilding were still huge but in decline, inflation was rampant and business was more fearful of the unions and an interventionist Labour government. The EEC, by contrast, represented a free-market panacea. It is a sign of how much the UK economy has strengthened during the past 41 years that some people can even argue that it would now be stronger outside the EU.
It is a case that few business leaders could have made at all convincingly in 1975.
Ian King is business presenter for Sky News. Ian King Live is broadcast at 6.30pm from Monday to Thursday
