This has been done to death previously. We prospered because of Maggies reform programme. I should know because I was fully immersed in it.
Bugger all prosperity has come from Europe. All of this has been demonstrated beyond doubt. The EU is a declining share of the world market. The future never was in Europe and never will be in Europe. Europe is an unreformable basket case which we need to get out of pronto. No if's no buts, just leave.
How does the saying go again? Red rags? Bulls? Something like that?.....
You know exactly what you're saying and pretending there was / is no grey-scale to all this makes for "lively" discussion but thereby fails to address the relational context in which Maggie's period of grace
p) was situated.
A great deal of her perceived success was precisely because the UK was in a European context and she was therefore able to to badger, cajole, embarrass and threaten both the EU (and her cabinet) into the concessions and deals that
did get something out of membership.
Insularity and independence are wonderful ideals but the hard and often unpleasant realities do tend to encroach on people's lives. Yes, some of what Maggie did was helpful to the economy and a large tranche of the population but you know full well that some of she did was crass, short-sighted and badly thought out and that the country still lives the whole legacy today.
Across the Channel, the upheaval of the '68 évènements changed French society almost overnight. It benefited millions of people but it also put the government into the position of permanent black-mail akin to the the heady days of '60s Britain. Social stability was purchased by effectively setting in stone relationships with industry, the civil service and the workforce turning them into the same kind of sacred cows that is the case with the NHS.
By concentrating on the more theatrical and easier to win battles, Maggie's failure to reform the NHS, education system, industrial in a coherent manner for the long-term prosperity of all has left Britain in the State that it is.
It's ridiculous to say that only by being alone as it was (a fallacy), is any kind of solution to our current woes. Firstly, as you know full well, the UK has not been alone, politically, militarily or economically for at least a century, including the odd war or three. Secondly, it's precisely because Britain has been part of a physical and ideal Europe since the end of the Dark Ages that the country is what it is today.
Casting off and setting sail for the Great Unknown is both exciting and courageous. However, personally, as a namby-pamby stick-in-the-mud, I'd prefer it if my grandchildren were able to live out their lives in relative comfort and tranquility rather than picking over the ruins of a proudly Post-Everything independent and insular UK.
I completely get it that some people don't see where some roads lead and it is absolutely their right to believe their beliefs and state their opinions. All I would say is that I'd quite like them to be able to do this in a country with a functioning health service / education system and tolerably healthy economy.
I don't want to live in an Iceland and I'm fairly certain that my descendants won't want to either.... Now, if you said, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy (Europe! shock! horror!) then you'd get some votes
