ALL of this hubbub about “fake news” is nothing new to anyone with a basic knowledge of history.

For fake news is just lies and propaganda and history is littered with such things. Most of the time history really is written by the victors, and sometimes it is not, and a lot of the time people simply twist historical facts to suit their own ends or justify their own theories. Sometimes even good historians just leave important things out, either for sake of brevity or because facts can get in the way of a good story.

There was a good example of that on BBC the other night. Lucy Worsley quite rightly showed how the 1688 Glorious or “Bloodless” Revolution of King William III and Queen Mary was not anything particularly glorious and was certainly soaked in blood. Yet in concentrating on the Jacobite uprising in Ireland and dismissing what happened in Scotland, Worsley missed out on a hugely important story. She did not even mention the Battles of Killiecrankie or Dunkeld in 1689 or Cromdale in 1690.

The first was an overwhelming defeat for the pro-William forces, and had John Graham, Viscount Dundee, not been killed in the moment of victory, he would surely have led the Jacobite army south and swept all before him. Instead the leaderless Jacobites marched to Dunkeld and were defeated by the Cameronians despite outnumbering this band of religiously-inspired Williamite warriors.

Had the Jacobites triumphed at Dunkeld, the way to Perth and Edinburgh lay open, and a Jacobite victory in Scotland might well have seen English Jacobites rise against William. As it happened, the Scottish Jacobites were soundly beaten at Cromdale on May 1 1690 before the Boyne and Aughrim in 1691 ended James’s attempt to regain the throne. Incidentally, the man who turned the battle in William’s favour at Augrhim was General Hugh Mackay, the loser at Killiecrankie. Read his own memoirs for a genuine factual account of his campaigns.

The Massacre of Glencoe in 1692 was ordered by William, and even that heinous crime was written out of history in order to preserve the bloodlessness of the Revolution. Leave out the details and you get a botched history.

So what is the connection between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Maastricht Treaty which was signed 25 years ago today? Simple – they have both suffered from the “treatment” of propagandists.

As Worsley showed, the Revolution only became “Glorious” and “Bloodless” because that suited the views of the English Protestant ascendancy who backed William and Mary to the hilt. They had control of the printing presses, the writers and Parliament.

Maastricht to this day suffers from the perception that it was somehow a treaty imposed upon a resentful British people who were given no say in its signing. Brexiteers and anti-EU groups and individuals will tell you that resentment against the treaty that created the European Union and the euro was what really led to the rise of Euroscepticism and Ukip.

The Treaty on European Union, to give the Maastricht Treaty its formal name, had been negotiated between the 12 member states for a number of years, with the UK being the chief objector, but not the only one, to some of its intentions.

The idea of creating a “pillar structure” in a new European Union had been around for years. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and many Tories were against it – in 1988 she declared she had not rolled back the frontier of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed by Brussels – but a significant majority of her Cabinet were in favour, mainly because they feared Britain would be left behind.

The main “pillar” would see the merger of the European Community with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Committee. The other “pillars” would be for a common foreign and security policy and a justice and home affairs pillar.

The most contentious part of the Treaty for the UK was the compulsion for member states to enter the third stage of the existing European Monetary Union and adopt the euro as a single currency across the entire Union. Prior to that, countries had to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a sort of euro halfway house, and it was that subject, more than any other, that brought down Margaret Thatcher’s premiership in 1990.

After Thatcher’s famous “no, no, no” in the Commons over calls for the greater integration of Europe, there was no gainsaying just how split the Conservatives were over the European issue. Labour was also split, albeit less so, and the Lib Dems and the SNP were just too short of MPs to make a difference. Chancellor Nigel Lawson resigned over the ERM issue, but when John Major came to the fore saying Britain should join up, Thatcher had no option but to take Britain into the ERM as his resignation would have left her position untenable.

Still her divisive stance on Europe rankled with her party and led to Sir Geoffrey Howe’s resignation from the Cabinet on November 1, 1990. His stunning resignation speech savaged the Prime Minister, leading Michael Heseltine to force a vote on Thatcher’s leadership. She had to resign, with John Major becoming Prime Minister.

The way was now open for Major to negotiate Britain signing Maastricht. To pacify Eurosceptics and big business, Major negotiated an “opt out” for Britain on the social policy aspects of the Treaty, known as the Social Charter, which governed rights for workers. It is probably fair to say that most people in Britain did not have a clue what was really going on behind the scenes, so the opt out was no huge deal.

With the benefit of hindsight we see that the movers and shakers within Europe were indeed out to create a “supranational” union. Some of the opening words state its purpose: “This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union.”

Eurosceptic hate figure Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission said in 1988: “Within ten years, 80 per cent of our economic legislation, perhaps even fiscal and social as well’ would come from the EU.”

Hans Tietmeyer, head of Germany’s Bundesbank said in 1991: “It is an illusion to think that states can hold on to their autonomy… a European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs.”

Had the Eurosceptics been organised and had they been able to explain that European Union meant exactly that, they might have been able to force a referendum, but thanks mainly to the opt out and the fact that Britain had joined the ERM, the UK signed up to the Maastricht Treaty in the Dutch town 25 years ago today.

THE crisis over the ERM and “Black Wednesday” was still to come, and Eurosceptics such as Iain Duncan Smith and Liam Fox – yes, the Leave campaigner who is now trying to get trade deals around the world – registered their opposition, but Parliament voted to accept the Treaty.

There was no referendum though plenty suggested it. John Major simply decreed it was a matter of Parliament being sovereign – should Theresa May not have remembered that after the Brexit vote on June 23?

When Labour tried to get the Social Charter introduced in 1993, John Major faced a vote of confidence and gave a ringing defence of his approach to Maastricht in the House of Commons, laying out a defence of the European project in which Britain had played and, he hoped, would continue to play a guiding role.

He said: “We took the decision to join the Community – the right decision, I believe – over 20 years ago…in that period, we have had many successes in the Community. The British rebate was a great negotiating success. The single market was one of the greatest changes in the EC since its conception. The reform of the common agricultural policy, the enlargement of the EC – each and every one, in its own way, is a big issue that has affected every aspect of the EC. All of them were British successes.”

He was right – it was the UK which devised the Single Market, the UK which demanded and got the reform of the agricultural policy, and it was the UK which encouraged the enlargement of the European Union, as it became.

Maastricht only scraped through for ratification after the Danish people narrowly rejected it in a referendum. Yet because it held the Presidency in 1992, one country above all managed to get Denmark four crucial opt outs which became the first Edinburgh Agreement in 1992 – that country was the UK. Somehow all of that has been forgotten and Maastricht has come to be a Brexiteer byword for all the EU’s faults – and there are plenty of them.

What drove the political will of so many Tories to work against Maastricht all those years ago? Not fear of Ukip, who were still a fringe outfit whose predecessor, the Anti-Federalist League, had been founded in the wake of Maastricht.

Read these words: “I understand it is being suggested in some quarters that I would have agreed to the Maastricht Treaty. May I make it clear that I would NOT have done so.”

They were written by Margaret Thatcher, and her disciples duly lined up to ensure her philosophy lived on.

Today in Maastricht there will be a Youth Opinion Festival, which is organised for and by young people between the ages of 18 and 25. They call themselves Generation Maastricht. The daytime festival includes debates, meet and greets with EU administrators, workshops, live music, theatre, and sports, all of which aim to spark a discussion on key topics regarding the future of Europe.

Some 5,000 young people from across Europe are expected to attend the festival in Maastricht’s Sphinx quarter. In addition to engaging debates and in-depth conversations, the festival will also include plenty of live music.

There will also be an International Week organized by Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, the International Peace Conference organized by the United World College, and Model European Parliament activities, which are open to secondary school pupils in Europe.

The organisers say “thousands of young internationals converging in one place is precisely how Maastricht envisaged its future 25 years ago.”

What a pity so few young Britons will be there. They might learn that when you know about Maastricht, it’s not a bad word.