Labour has travelled a long way from the first European referendum

Corbyn is claiming to emulate Harold Wilson in staying neutral over Brexit. But the reality of four decades ago was very different

My friend Tom McGuinness, who will be known to many as the lead guitarist in Manfred Mann (now the Manfreds), recently spotted a most moving Churchill quote on a D-Day memorial in Normandy. "Men will be proud to say 'I am a European'. We hope to see a day when men of every country will think as much of being a European as of being from their native country."

Having at one stage early in the second world war proposed a union between Britain and France, the great man cooled on the idea. Later he called for a United States of Europe, but he was not in favour of our joining. Nor was Clement Attlee, Labour prime minister from 1945 to 1951. As for Attlee's successor as Labour leader, Hugh Gaitskell, he was passionately against it, arguing that it would be an insult to "a thousand years of history".

The referendum was called to resolve issues within the Tory party: instead it brought us the biggest crisis since Suez