I was living here back in 1973 when the UK entered the Common Market. It was a free trade agreement at the time but what a horror it has become since. Yesterday the House of Commons voted to hold a referendum on the UK continuing in the European Union, a very different kind of animal in which decisions of the most local kind are made by a bureaucracy of European technocrats in which no one locally often has much of a say. According to a story in The Telegraph there a number of reasons this has come to a head at this particular time. The “he” below is David Cameron:

For now, he has achieved something distinctly unusual in the modern Tory party – unity on Europe. Partly, this has been brought about by a fear of Ukip and the real prospect that Nigel Farage’s party will top the poll in next year’s elections to the European Parliament. But it is also a recognition that this matter cannot be left unresolved – not least when the ramifications of the euro crisis (which loomed again this week in Portugal) will fundamentally alter the shape of the EU.

Ah yes, UKIP, the UK Independence Party. If they had our form of preferential balloting over here, it would be a formidable force even now.

From Catallaxy 6 July 2013.