ESSAY: The prehistory of referendums in the United Kingdom

Referendums were a feature of our political discourse long before 1973-5, even if none actually took place

For Philip Larkin a certain kind of intercourse began in 1963 - between the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial and the Beatles’ first LP.

Similarly referendums can appear to have started, at least in the United Kingdom ten years later in 1973 - not long after the Oz obscenity trial and the Beatles’ last LP.

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For 1973 was the year of the border poll in Northern Ireland, which is usually considered to be the first referendum in the United Kingdom; and 1973 is also the year that the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the membership of which was then to be subjected to a referendum in 1975.

For many of us in 2023, fifty years later, the most notable referendum was the one in 2016 on whether the United Kingdom should depart the successor to the EEC, the European Union.

Others are preoccupied with other referendums. Some are seeking a further Scottish independence referendum, to reverse the result of the result of the 2014 vote. And there is also the real prospect of a further border poll in Northern Ireland which may, in turn, lead to Irish unification.

Our recent politics are dominated by one referendum in particular, and the future of the United Kingdom itself may depend on two referendums yet to come.

And this is in addition to the referendums which led to the current devolved settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all of which are now fundamental parts of our constitutional order.

But there was once a time before any of these referendums had been mooted or taken place or were even contemplated.

A time when 1973, and what then followed, was decades in the future.

And so this essay tells the story of the early history of referendum issue in the constitutional and political affairs of the United Kingdom.