Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
The impression I gather is that the UK would happily have stayed in the EEC, but not the EU -- that the UK has been progressively less happy with the whole thing since the Maastricht treaty. In other words, that European economic arrangements made sense to them, but not the EU exerting control over internal policy on social or defense issues.

I could be wrong.
It all boils down to economic slowdown. Everyone then figures out that "it's them foreigners taking our monies and our jerbs".

In this case, it ended with both sides losing. EU will miss UK, UK will miss EU much more. Their will be a significant short term dip in the UK, and partial recovery soon after. The real loss will be in the opportunities lost.

Now, the interesting part is that if UK wants to avoid real damage to its economy, it will have to stay in the economic area in some way, which translates, for the most part, to "them foreigners are still taking our monies and our jerbs", but now UK will have precious little way
of influencing anything, it's gonna be regulation without representation for them.

In mid to long term, it may prove to be the catalyst for Scotland's secession, thus diminishing influence and respect of UK even more.


This was really a "cake or death" choice, and one must wonder how stupid you have to be to get that one wrong.

Addendum: There is a chance that UK might be able to achieve some kind of deal with EU about "freedom of movement" part which would mean a slightly better outcome for UK, but that was a red line for the EU during the negotiations with the UK and it is highly unlikely that they're gonna accept to that now when UK has already left.