Newsnight: Europe - the debate, 9 April 1997

"The big unargued issue of the election"? Newsnight devotes the entire programme on Wednesday 9 April 1997 to a debate on the UK's role in Europe.
The studio panel includes Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, and Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Europe Charles Kennedy. Other contributors: Edwina Currie, Elmar Brok, Austin Mitchell, Mike Gapes, Sir Clive Thompson, Sir George Gardiner, Margaret Ewing, Teresa Gorman, Lord Wolfson of Sunningdale, Paul Fry, and Sheryll Murray.
Mark Mardell reports from Pudsey where new Conservative candidate Peter Bone is ruling out ever supporting British membership of the Euro, which is not following the party line. Other candidates are doing the same thing.
NB: 12 sections from 52:36 have been blanked at the insistence of UEFA because obviously people watch videos of 20 year old political debates in order to skip to the football highlights.
Note: Peter Bone lost Pudsey to Labour, but has been MP for Wellingborough since 2005. Sheryll Murray, invited to speak on behalf of the Cornish fishing industry, has been Conservative MP for South East Cornwall since 2010.

[@alphabetaxenonzzzcat]

Brexit - before it was Brexit. Good old Theresa Gorman. She was a colourful character. In grey John Major’s Tory party.

[@Bungle-UK]

Maybe if our ‘leaders’ had listened at this point, and not gone ahead with further integration, we wouldn’t have ended up leaving 20 years later.