In June 2016, the United Kingdom will hold a national referendum against continued British membership of the twenty eight nation European Union. What do British LGBT inhabitants think of the current debate? The debate has been going on for over forty years, since the United Kingdom decided to retain its membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) as it then was, after another such introductory referendum in 1975. Ironically enough, the referendum was the work of Harold Wilsons' single-term UK Labour government. Back in 1975, there was near-universal consensus that EEC membership was desirable, although seven of Wilsons' Labour Cabinet Ministers campaigned against continued EEC membership. Oddly enough, from the Conservative Party, there was absolute silence. In 1983, Michael Foot's ill-fated Labour Opposition had withdrawal from the EEC as one of its party platforms, but after Thatcher's Falklands War-fuelled electoral landslide that year, it was quietly abandoned. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty converted the EEC into today's European Union, and created the Euro as a common European currency. Oddly enough, current UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn opposed closer European ties, saying that there was a likelihood that the European Central Bank would use the Euro for neo-liberal demand management purposes across the new European Union. However, as it later turned out, opposition to the European project was growing apace on the centre-right. In 1994, Sir James Goldsmith founded the Referendum Party, the first such Eurosceptic party within the United Kingdom. The party's leading policy was a second referendum on European Union membership. It didn't stand MPs against Eurosceptic Conservative MPs, or against pro-European MPs who supported such a referendum. However, after Goldsmith's death in 1997, the party closed down. As it turned out, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) had more success. Founded in 1991, UKIP complains that the European Union's authority and regulations are impinging on the sovereignty and independence of the United Kingdom, despite the fact that the United Kingdom engages in substantial trade with the other twenty seven EU constituent nations, as well as pandering to religious social conservatism. It has attracted some lesbian and gay Eurosceptics and libertarian ideologues, but these individuals tend to be on the fringes of the British LGBT community, despite its greater political pluralism due to David Cameron's modernisation of the Conservative Party. Ironically enough, UKIP's best electoral showing has been during European Union parliamentary elections, during to the proportional representation electoral system used in that context, compared to the national First Past the Post electoral system. There has also been some success in local body elections. However, UKIP's existence has also provided a headache for David Cameron and pro-European Conservatives. Indeed, the issue of continued EU membership was a subject of continual acrimony within the Conservative Party throughout the nineties and noughties, leading to sclerosis and internal strife over party European Union membership policies. When the Conservatives next won office in 2010, that was mostly unresolved and may have contributed to the minority government status of the first Cameron administration (2010-2015). UKIP made more European election gains, but failed to win more than one House of Commons seat after the next British general election in May 2015. What is the exact legal status of European Union withdrawal? It is quite possible for a constituent nation to withdraw from the European Union, under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. However, as yet no nation has done so. In 2012, Cameron rejected contemporary calls for a British referendum on the subject, but then changed his mind in 2013 and promised another referendum. However, he then embarked on a campaign to renegotiate the terms of British membership within the European Union, recently concluded in Brussels. As for LGBT opinion on the subject, there has currently been no targeted opinion polling of the British LGBT community on this public issue, nor have Diva, Gay Times or Attitude explored the issue in their pages, with similar obliviousness displayed in the online pages ofGay Star News and Pink news LGBTI news services. In practice, British LGBT communities have had mixed experiences of the European Court of Human Rights- it was useful in pressuring Scotland and Northern Ireland to decriminalise male homosexuality in the early eighties, as well as condemning the excesses of Poland's far right Law and Justice Party government and homophobic violence in Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia. However, despite similarly proving helpful over prodding Greece and Italy into passing civil union legislation late last year, pro-marriage lesbian campaigners from the United Kingdom found that there was a limit to the European Court of Human Rights proactive liberalism, as BDSM rights campaigners from the same country had found in the late nineties over the "Operation Spanner", heavy handed police repression of "heavy calibre" gay BDSM participants. With those limitations in mind, though, it has proven useful and there may be tacit support for the European Union within British LGBT communities as a result. UKIP's right-wing parliamentary candidates and activists haven't helped- the party opposes multiculturalism, marriage equality, recognition of climate change, high corporation taxes, school vouchers and charter schools... as well as identity cards and unlabelled genetically modified food. To placate those fears, Cameron has promised to pass a UK Bill of Rights to replace the European Charter of Human Rights inclusion within the United Kingdom if the Brexit campaign succeeds. At present, with margins of error considered, the British general public seems almost equally divided within opinion polls. However, Scotland is pro-European and any successful Brexit vote could precipitate a second, successful Scottish referendum on secession from the United Kingdom. Similar pressures are present in Spain when it comes to Catalonia's own aspirations for independence. Under such circumstances, Scotland and Catalonia would have to renegotiate any renewed membership as newly independent nations. The issue is set to be a divisive one within the Conservative Party, as Cameron has already found himself on the wrong side of several of his own Eurosceptic Cabinet members and London Mayor Boris Johnson, widely anticipated to be Cameron's successor after his departure from Conservative leadership at the end of his second term as British Prime Minister. However, given the deep unpopularity of Labour under its left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn, it may decide to chance it. What might happen if Labour plays the pragmatist card and dumps Corbyn in order to exploit this Tory schism is uncertain.The Financial Times and Economist back continued European Union membership, as does the pro-Europe group Conservatives for the Reform of Europe, while there is also a Labour Brexit group, Labour Leave. Shell, Vodafone, British Telecom (BT), the British Bankers Association, JP Morgan, Deutschebank, Ford, BMW, BAE Systems and Rio Tinto all favour the retention of European Union membership out of fears about what might happen to the City of London financial district in the event of departure. Ironically then, the Conservatives have found themselves on the wrong side of much British business and corporate opinion over its Eurosceptic ascendancy. Recommended: Tim Bale:The British Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron: Cambridge: Polity Press: 2011. International Lesbian and Gay Association:http://www.ilga-europe.org LGBT rights in Europe:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ LGBT_rights_in_Europe Adrian Williamson: The Case for Brexit: Lessons from the 1960s and 1970s:http://www.historyandpolicy. org/policy-papers/papers/the- case-for-brexit-lessons-from- the-1960s-and-1970s Craig Young - 25th February 2016