One of the advantages of having been around for a while is that it allows me to hear the echoes of history in current events.

Back in 1975, I was a very junior member of Harold Wilson’s Labour government. And, like much of the party in those days, I was hotly opposed to membership of what was then the European Economic Community.

Labour must back Remain to survive, warns Tom Watson memo Read more

I thought it was indefensible that the Tories had so blatantly broken the pledge they had made to the British people not to take us into Europe without seeking the explicit consent of the British people.

Our prime minister and many of our most senior colleagues wanted us to stay in Europe, but Harold was – among many other fine qualities – a master pragmatist.

He disliked Tony Benn’s idea of holding a referendum as a way of resolving the question about our relationship with Europe. But he came to see its advantages, especially as a way of preventing deeper divisions in our party. Although our government campaigned to stay in Europe, Harold gave members of his frontbench permission to campaign against this position provided we did not attack each other. In the end, the UK voted to stay by 67 to 33% and the issue was settled for a generation.

Fast forward a few decades, and Labour is much less divided on Europe than it was in those days. Fully three-quarters of our members and voters want a “people’s vote” on Brexit. An almost identical proportion would jump at the chance of staying in the EU if we’re given the chance. Of course, there are still those who are in favour of leaving, but this demand for a confirmatory referendum with the option to remain is still the overwhelming choice of Labour supporters in the so-called heartlands – the north, the Midlands – as well as among our target seats and reachable swing voters.

The reason is that Labour people like me have witnessed Europe’s transformation from what we once regarded as a selfish little club of capitalist countries into a union of 28 states that is doing more to tackle the towering social, economic and environmental challenges of today and tomorrow than any other organisation in the world.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Margaret Beckett suggests that Corbyn might wish to follow Wilson’s example. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Now, as the Tories prepare to pick a new prime minister who seems hell-bent on a brutal jobs-destroying Brexit, this is surely the time for Labour to be launching an all-out, full-throated, campaign against this democratic outrage being inflicted on the British people.

Labour’s efforts to bring a divided nation together may well have been well-intentioned but they left our voters confused or dismayed as we haemorrhaged votes in recent elections – with four times as many going parties overtly campaigning for a “people’s vote” than to Nigel Farage.

Jeremy Corbyn is now said to be studying the history of the 1970s as he grapples with this problem. Labour can and should back a referendum on any Brexit outcome. And, if we get such a vote, I think it is inevitable that Labour will once more support staying in the EU because the idea that we can secure a deal that will satisfy – rather than impoverish – our voters, has long since been exposed as a fantasy.

Those who still insist they want to leave could, if they wish, campaign alongside Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage in such a referendum. Jeremy himself could take a back seat in the campaign, as Harold did in 1975. What matters now is that Labour moves with speed to close the gap that has opened up between party’s position on the one hand – and its members, voters and values on the other.

If we do this in the next few weeks we can still change the course of history. If we don’t, we risk becoming history ourselves.