Losers

[Khandro]

Do you think we are surrounded by them? By losers I mean people who can't understand why they are not in charge of everything, seeing themselves as victims, despite the fact that they never initiate or propose anything, but delight in attacking other's proposals, finding that they get easy support from fellow losers.

[New Judge]

"...it seemed rather too important to stay out of at a time when the UK on its own was struggling."

Yes and now it seems rather too important to stay in, Jim, because the EU is now struggling (among many other reasons, I hasten to add). You shouldn't be surprised that few people in 1975 believed it would morph into a political union, Jim. They were specifically told that it would not and people then, even older people, were more gullible. Some of them actually believed what politicians told them. It was a different world.

[jim360]

"They were specifically told that it would not and people then, even older people, were more gullible."

I completely and absolutely believe you in saying this.

:/

[Spicerack]

No internet, jim.
People even believed the BBC.

[jim360]

Well, quite. How far we have come, and how much progress we have made.

Nice to end on a note of optimism, eh?

[Old_Geezer]

At the time nearly no one mentioned any federation. The two opposing groups that campaigned had to be trusted to point out errors in the other lot, the ability for each individual citizen to go find out from sources was limited and never going to occur. No one wants to take a degree in a subject before siding with one side in a referendum. A few that said it was more than a trading block was generally not believed. They were a small voice in the face of everything, and it was considered early "project fear" type propaganda. I don't see it as being gullible, it was the old problem of having limited knowledge and having to decide if one believed or disbelieved what one was told. It's exactly the same today, and probably always will be. One can only take a view based on what one knows or believes. We voted on remaining in a trading block that we had already been pushed into by the PM at the time who had done so without asking us, the public. Union was simply not part of the question asked nor answered.

[Khandro]

I remember many people voted for a future in the EC because they thought (or it was fed to them) that they would have cheap wine and cigarettes - which of course, they didn't get.
Along with my students I was more into the local Banks' Bitter at the time.