The UK joined in '73. After the terms were finalised there was a referendum in '75 where the public agreed to stay in.
"Never given any kind of referendum" is far fetched.
"Never given any kind of referendum" is far fetched.
When it’s half the country each way, you’re going to get a lot of people with very different ideas on what they voted for even at the best of times; with two different competing leave campaigns and shockingly inept government communications on the topic, it’s even worse.
[0] I’ve tried to engage with someone who blamed “the EU” for Russia annexing the Ukraine.
You mean someone blamed the EU for what Russia did under Catherine the Great (or whenever it was they originally annexed the Ukraine), or you mean someone blamed the EU for Russia annexing Crimea in 2014?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community
So no, the UK joined the EU in 2009.
Also note:
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE; commonly referred to as the European Constitution or as the Constitutional Treaty) was an unratified international treaty intended to create a consolidated constitution for the European Union (EU). It would have replaced the existing European Union treaties with a single text, given legal force to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and expanded Qualified Majority Voting into policy areas which had previously been decided by unanimity among member states.
The Treaty was signed on 29 October 2004 by representatives of the then 25 member states of the European Union. It was later ratified by 18 member states, which included referendums endorsing it in Spain and Luxembourg. However, the rejection of the document by French and Dutch voters in May and June 2005 brought the ratification process to an end.
Following a period of reflection, the Treaty of Lisbon was created to replace the Constitutional Treaty. This contained many of the changes that were originally placed in the Constitutional Treaty but, instead of repealing and replacing the existing treaties, simply amended them and abandoned the idea of a single codified constitution. Signed on 13 December 2007, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009.
So it was initially reject, some cosmtetic changes were made and it was shoe-horned through. Hardly what I would call democratic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu...
The "European Union" as an entity came into existence at the time of the Maastricht Treaty (aka Treaty on European Union), and the UK was a signatory to that treaty. That was in 1992.
Could you explain why you think 2009 is the relevant date?
While we did have a referendum to join the EEC, I maintain that the EEC served a very different purpose (being a trade based agreement) to the EU.
The Treaty of Maastricht was passed by parliament, though was never put to the public vote.
The subsequent treaty of Lisbon and consolidation of the EU had no public vote either.
Brexit was a public vote.
It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the other two had been put to the vote