Quote Originally Posted by albion68 View Post
. Spot on greavsey,back in the day the French and Germans fought tooth and nail to keep us out, no friends of ours de Gaulle if that’s how you spell it ,in private detested us brits.watchout for scaremongering at its best in the next couple of weeks .P.S how many big organisations and manufacturing business are owned by foreigners.
Quite correct Albion68. Britain applied twice to join the EEC but De Gaulle was instrumental in blocking it as he knew Britain who had very efficient agriculture wouldn't accept the Common Agriculture and Fisheries policies which favoured other states subsidising inefficient French farmers. Once it was in place and could not be overturned, Heath joined at the first opportunity.

Papers released under the 30-year rule show that, at the end of June 1961, the Cabinet accepted their urging that, for “presentational” reasons, this goal of a federal europe should not be revealed to the public or Parliament. They should be misled into believing that British entry was into a “Common Market”, concerned just with trade and jobs.

In 1970, when Heath was Prime Minister, the public was repeatedly told that British entry would involve “no essential loss of sovereignty”; however a secret Foreign Office paper, released 30 years later, shows that the government decided to conceal that this was untrue.

Much is out there in the public domain to support many instances like this where the truth was concealed and the electorate of Europe were fed lies or had the real intentions of the EU withheld.