After the excitement caused by the outing of the Syrian lesbian blogger –she was in fact a man, in Scotland! – one might ask whether any website is really what it seems. This one, for example. Is there really a long-standing British argument for the political union of Europe? Didn’t it used to pretend to be a free trade area?
By of confirming our bona fides, here are two new items in the archives, from February 1968.
The first is a statement of aims published by the Campaign for Europe (read it here), including the following:
We also welcome the Government statements that have referred to the aim of political unity in Europe, but we stress the need to make clear that what is wanted is a union tight enough to enable the European countries to take effective political action in common. This can be done only by a supranational European Political Community, with a strong and independent Commission, weighted majority voting in the Council of Ministers, responsibility to a directly elected European Parliament, and powers in the fields of foreign policy and defence as well as economics.
These are described as
strengthening the Community in a supranational or a federal direction.
At the same time, a questionnaire was circulated to all 630 MPs, asking them for their support for these federalist ideas. It is reported on here. In answer to this question:
Do you believe in the need for a European Federation founded on democratic institutions?
as many as 70 answered yes. We would struggle to find nearly so many today. So much for the suggestion that the political implications of membership were kept hidden from the British people.