By chance rather than design, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will Monday freeze plans to hold a referendum on the draft EU constitution almost 30 years to the day after Britain gave Europe the thumbs up in its first and only European referendum.

On June 5, 1975, two-thirds of British voters gave a resounding "yes" to remaining in the then-called European Economic Community (ECC) following a gruelling campaign that started with the No camp as the expected winners.

Two years after joining the nine-member ECC, the Labour government under former prime minister Harold Wilson asked Britons: "Do you think the UK should stay in the European Community (Common Market)," according to a BBC article written at the time, which has since been published on the BBC's website.

Supported by Margaret Thatcher, the newly-elected leader of the main opposition Conservatives, Wilson headed a well financed Yes campaign that won the backing of the national press as well as the wider public.

"It puts the uncertainty behind us. It commits Britain to Europe; it commits us to playing an active, constructive and enthusiastic role in it," then home secretary (interior minister) Roy Jenkins was quoted as saying on the BBC the day after the votes were counted.

Demonstrating the political climate, the BBC showed a photograph of a youthful Thatcher, who went on to become prime minister from 1979 to 1990, sporting a jumper made up from the flags of all nine ECC countries and the front page of a newspaper that claimed "Europe is fun".

Straw, however, will confront a very different public mood when he makes his speech on Europe to parliament later Monday. He is due to announce that Britain will put its promise to hold a referendum on the proposed European Union constitution on hold until the fate of the treaty is clarified.

The move follows a double rejection of the landmark treaty by voters in France and the Netherlands last week.

Straw's timing for his announcement was pure chance, a foreign office spokeswoman said. "It's a complete coincidence," she told AFP.

Ex-industry minister Tony Benn, who rebelled against Labour in 1975 by backing the No camp, recalled that it had been a near impossible battle with the media fully behind Europe, but noted how times have changed.

"In the sense that Margaret Thatcher has now come round to my view, (media mogul) Rupert Murdoch has now come round to my view, it wasn't unsuccessful, was it," he was quoted as saying on the BBC's website.