THE burning question on everybody’s lips for some months now has been all too often regarding the EU referendum and whether you are ‘In’, or whether you are ‘Out’.

For many of us, it will be the first time we have ever had to make a decision of such gravity, with a vote that will, no doubt, shape the future of our country.  

However Sotonians of a certain age will remember back to June 1975 when the talk of Southampton sounded much the same as the country was again trying to weigh up the pros and cons between the benefits of being part of a single common market against an opportunity for the country to make a fresh start by going it alone.

Britain had joined the European Common Market two years earlier, back in January 1973, when the then Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath had opted to join the EEC when the Treaty of Rome was signed.

When the Labour Party came to power the following year, Labour's general election manifesto of October 1974 committed Labour to allow people the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the Common Market on renegotiated terms, or leave it entirely.

In the run-up to the referendum the prime minister announced that the government had decided to recommend a "yes" vote. But it emerged that the cabinet had split, with seven of its 23 members seeking withdrawal.

Opinion was equally divided across Hampshire, resulting in many local MPs venturing out of their offices to impart their wisdom on their constituents. Southampton Test MP Brian Gould and Frank Judd, Defence Minister, took to the streets in Southampton’s Above Bar on 2nd June 1975, just days before the big vote, to encourage shoppers that a “No” vote in favour of leaving the EEC should be returned when the polls opened to stop Britain becoming a “depressed region on the periphery of Europe.”

In contrast Michael Mates, the MP for Petersfield was backing the “Keep Britain in Europe” campaign and reassured voters by dispelling the myths created by the “No” campaigners that if we stayed in the Common Market we would not be allowed to make our own laws and that the country would be ruled by a vast army of officials from Brussels.

When the polls opened at 7am on 6th June 1975 there were queues outside some of the polling stations as early morning workers waited to cast their vote before heading off to work. This morning rush was followed by rather uneasy lull as many of the city’s 77 polling stations reported a “fairly quiet” morning, and blamed the slight drizzle for keeping voters away until local housewives and pensioners eventually started to trickle into the stations by lunchtime.

However the evening editions of the Daily Echo later in the day reported a massive turn out at the polls in the South with the early indicators suggesting a majority in favour of Britain staying in the EEC.

When the polls closed and the votes had been counted the message from the South was loud and clear – a resounding “Yes” to keep Britain a member of the European Union. According to the Daily Echo reports of the time Hampshire Voted by a landslide 484,302 to 197,761 votes in favour of remaining as part of the EEC.