For the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit on June 23, 2016, last Friday marked a truly historic moment. After three-and-a-half years of political wrangling and uncertainty, democracy was delivered as Britain finally left the EU. Thousands of revellers celebrated around the country and at 11pm, the hour Britain officially left the bloc, Downing Street hosted a special light display.

As Britain now prepares to reassert itself as a “global free trade country”, unearthed reports shed some light on one of the first men who said “no” to Europe: Hugh Gaitskell.

When the six founding members of the EEC – France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, Britain refused to join.

However, by the early Sixties, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan realised he had made a mistake and sought belated entry in 1961.

Leader of the Opposition Hugh Gaitskell deplored the idea of Britain entering the Community and during the Labour Party Conference in October 1962, he issued a stark warning.

Mr Gaitskell said: “We must be clear about this: it does mean, if this is the idea [a federal Europe], the end of Britain as an independent European state.

“I make no apology for repeating it.

“It means the end of a thousand years of history.

“You may say ‘let it end’ but, my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought.

“And it does mean the end of the Commonwealth.

“How can one really seriously suppose that if the mother country, the centre of the Commonwealth, is a province of Europe (which is what federation means) it could continue to exist as the mother country of a series of independent nations? It is sheer nonsense.”

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The Labour veteran went on to explain what “federation really means”.

He said: “It means that powers are taken from national governments and handed over to federal governments and to federal parliaments. It means – I repeat it – that if we go into this we are no more than a state (as it were) in the United States of Europe, such as Texas and California. They are remarkably friendly examples, you do not find every state as rich or having such good weather as those two! “

One year later, thanks to French President Charles De Gaulle’s intervention, Mr Macmillan’s membership bid failed.

It was only after Georges Pompidou replaced De Gaulle that Prime Minister Edward Heath successfully negotiated entry and Britain into the EEC on January 1, 1973.

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Before joining the European club, Britain enjoyed a close trading relationship with Commonwealth countries, as natural allies and partners.

However, as Mr Gaitskell predicted, when it joined, Britain cut most of its trade links with the Commonwealth nations and replaced them with trade deals with the EEC.

According to a 2016 BBC report, the EEC, through the Common Agricultural Policy, forced Britain to buy food from other member states and banned the import of cheap butter from New Zealand.

Although the debate continued about whether the EEC was entirely to blame for that, the price of butter quadrupled by 1978.

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