The People's Pledge was a political campaign to secure a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. It aimed to achieve this by asking voters to sign a pledge that they would use their vote to help secure a majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) in support of an in-out referendum on EU membership. The 1975 European Communities membership referendum was the last time such a vote had occurred in Britain.
The campaign did not take a view on whether the UK should stay in, or leave, the EU; simply that the expansion of the EU's powers and influence over government since the 1975 'common market' referendum merited people being consulted again on continued membership. According to the Labour Party MP Kelvin Hopkins: "While those who initiated the People's Pledge campaign are primarily Eurosceptic, it has support from those who take a different, pro-EU view, but who wish to see the issue properly resolved by a vote of the British people."
Directed at its launch by Mark Seddon, with cross-party support from MPs including the Labour party's head of policy Jon Cruddas MP and other politicians including then Mayor of London Boris Johnson,Boris Johnson signs the People's Pledge City AM 26 March 2012 it aimed in particular to focus pressure on MPs in marginal seats using the tactic of holding independently scrutinised constituency referendums. By early 2012, more than 128,000 voters and 87 MPs had signed up to the campaign. In September 2012, the People's Pledge was appointed as the secretariat to a new APPG for an EU referendum, with Conservative MP John Baron acting as the group's chair and Labour MP and former government minister Keith Vaz as vice chair., John Baron MP Press Release, 13 September 2012.
The campaign is credited with having had a key role in bringing about the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, held in June 2016. Prominent Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan wrote in his 2016 book What Next? that "The People's Pledge was the most effective popular campaign I have ever been involved with, and must be reckoned one of the most successful pressure groups in British history." James Forsyth, writing in The Spectator, said that the campaign's recruitment of Boris Johnson as a supporter had made an EU referendum almost certain: "Boris Johnson's decision while campaigning last month to sign up to the campaign for an in/out referendum on EU membership could be a key moment in the history of the Conservative party – the moment when the party's balance of power tipped decisively in favour of a referendum." Along with Forsyth, Paul Goodman of ConservativeHome and Leo McKinstry of the Daily Express have cited the success of the campaign as a main reason why a referendum became a possibility.Could George Osborne's leadership ambitions deliver a referendum, ConservativeHome, 11 May 2012.David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg: We demand our EU referendum, The Daily Express, 14 May 2012.
Background
In January 1973, on its third application, Britain was accepted into the European Economic Community. The 1975 European Communities membership referendum was held after that, following a change in government from the Conservatives under Edward Heath who had led the application process, to the minority Labour government of Harold Wilson, who had made a referendum an election promise. The referendum found 67% to be in favour, on a 65% turnout. Subsequent treaties leading to the development of the European Union were signed into law without recourse to a referendum.
According to the campaign, all three major British political parties withdrew promises of a referendum on the last major European treaty, which proposed the creation of a European Constitution, after it was re-drafted as the Treaty of Lisbon, and subsequently ratified by the UK on 19 June 2008 by the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. The subsequent 2010 general election unusually produced a hung parliament, leading to a Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition government bound by an agreement that there would be "no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament", and to cover for future terms, proposed the introduction of the European Union Bill 2010, which sought to "amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that any proposed future treaty that transferred areas of power, or competences, would be subject to a referendum on that treaty". The coalition did not however commit to holding a referendum on the status of the existing membership.
A YouGov poll conducted in September 2010 of 1,948 adults in the UK found that if there was a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, 47% would vote to leave, compared to 33% who would want to remain.
Launch The People's Pledge campaign was launched in Westminster on 15 March 2011. The campaign website had been launched two days earlier.
The campaign described its views citing five key reasons why a referendum was needed: that nobody under the age of 54 had ever been given the chance to vote on the issue (i.e., those aged 18 or over in 1975), that the EU now made the majority of laws of the United Kingdom, that the ministers and parliamentarians making those laws were not accountable to British voters, that the cost of the EU to the British taxpayer was rising, and that the European Commission was aiming for further powers of economic governance.
The campaign claimed that over 6,000 people had already signed the pledge before the official launch, and 30,000 people had signed by 17 March. Daniel Hannan in The Daily Telegraph claimed: "in the first 5 days more than 42,000 people had signed up via the campaign's website and 3,000 more volunteered to help leaflet".Join the campaign for an in/out referendum, The Telegraph, 21 March 2011.
The People's Pledge were at launch the only campaign listed in the BBC's "Timeline: Campaigns for a European Union referendum".Timeline: Campaigns for a European Union referendum, The BBC, 25 October 2011.
The launch was accompanied by front-page coverage in support of the campaign by the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Express, headlined 'New Hope to Get Out of EU'. The Daily Express had themselves shortly beforehand delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street calling for an EU referendum, under the Express 'Crusade' banner 'Get Britain Out of the EU'. Commenting in the article, Mark Seddon stated that what differentiated the People's Pledge campaign was that the initiative had come from the left. In response, the then leader of the Labour party Ed Miliband told the paper: "It seems to me that we made a decision on Europe in 1975. I think it was the right decision." Seddon further set out the campaign's objectives in an article for The Daily Telegraph titled "A referendum on Europe is long overdue".
Writing for the political magazine The Spectator, Peter Hoskin stated that, while there had been many previous campaigns for such a referendum, the timing of the People's Pledge campaign was slightly more resonant. Hoskin cited the recent positions of the two parties that went on to form the governing coalition in 2010 and polling suggesting 54% of people would prefer to have a referendum on the issue of the EU, instead of the 2011 referendum on the Alternative Vote brought about as part of the coalition agreement and scheduled for 5 May 2011. This would be the first national referendum since the 1975 EU membership referendum. On the campaign's potential, he stated, "at the very least, it might persuade some candidates to face up to, and meet, the tide of public opinion on Europe", claiming that public support for leaving the EU had been steadily rising and even a large number of non-Eurosceptics have wanted such a referendum for some time.
Caroline Crampton writing for Total Politics magazine said "the campaign has pulled off a major coup by persuading touchy-feely Tory Zac Goldsmith to lend his support. Goldsmith, a star of the new intake, gives the campaign a way of rebutting the idea that this is a thinly veiled attempt to put pressure on the government to pull out of the EU. He lends credibility to their claim that this is just about democratic consultation".With Zac on the case, resistance is futile, Total Politics, 15 March 2011.
Also writing in The Spectator, Charles Moore said "the real power of this campaign will be seen in the selection of candidates. If constituencies can muster a few thousand Pledgers, anyone wishing to be an MP next time round will be wise to favour a referendum whether he or she wants in or out".The Spectator's Notes , The Spectator 19 March 2011.
On 9 May 2011 the campaign was featured on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week program hosted by Andrew Marr. In a discussion with Denis MacShane, Ruth Lea noted that the People's Pledge had a real chance of succeeding where others had failed before due to the political atmospherics at that time and that it was "genuinely cross party and led from the left".The People's Pledge and the call for an EU referendum, BBC Radio 4: Start the Week program, 9 May 2011.
Organisation Mark Seddon, a former editor of Tribune magazine and previously a member of the Labour National Executive Committee, was the campaign's director at launch, working alongside its co-founders Christopher Bruni-Lowe,EU People's Pledge: good start, now for the broad church, Total Politics, 15 March 2011.Putting voters back in charges , Total Politics, November 2011. Stuart Coster and Marc Glendening. The campaign's activities were overseen by a number of MPs and other figures named as part of an 'Advisory Council'. On 20 December 2011, the campaign announced that Ian McKenzie, a former New Labour adviser and aide to the former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and former leader of the House of Commons Anne Taylor had been appointed its director of communications. Patrick Wintour political editor of the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome remarked that the appointment of McKenzie was a "clever choice".People's pledge, the eu referendum campaign, has appointed ex-Prescott aide Ian McKenzie as comms director. Clever choice. Patrick Wintour Twitter status, 20 December 2011.
Advisory Council John Mills (Chair), secretary, Labour Euro Safeguards Campaign and chairman, JML Natascha Engel, Labour MP (2005–) Austin Mitchell, Labour MP (1977–) Roger Godsiff, Labour MP (1992–) Ronnie Campbell,Ronnie Campbell joins our campaign and asks Cameron That difficult question People' Pledge, 11 May 2011. Labour MP (1987–) Kelvin Hopkins,People's Pledge to let the voters decide, Tribune, 18 April 2011. Labour MP (1997–) John Cryer,Labour MP warns of bailing out Eurozone, Liberal Conspiracy, 8 April 2011. Labour MP (1997–) Kate Hoey,The public needs to have its say, The Morning Star, 1 November 2011. Labour MP (1989–) Graham Stringer, Labour MP (1997–) David Drew, Labour MP (1997–2010) Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP (2010–) Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP (2005–) Nigel Dodds, Democratic Unionist Party, Deputy Leader, MP (2001–) Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP (1999–) Marta Andreasen, UKIP MEP (2009) Jenny Jones, Green AM (2000–) Jim Sillars, deputy leader Scottish National Party (1990–92), MP (1970–92) Bryan Gould, former Labour MP (1983–1994) Ruth Lea, economist John King, author and publisher Virginia Ironside, author and journalist Brian Denny, Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution Dele Ogun, lawyer Michael Watts, former finance director of the Labour Party Robert Hiscox of Hiscox Charles Moore, Journalist; former editor of the Daily Telegraph & Spectator Cllr Steve Radford, President, Liberal Party (2005–)
Other supporters also listed include: Fay Weldon, author and playwright John Stevens, former Conservative MEP Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT Iain Dale, blogger and political commentator Caroline Lucas Green MP (2010–)