( A seven-minute read)

Perhaps the biggest issue in the June 23 referendum was the question of whether 43 years in the EU have helped or hurt the UK economy. Of course, the referendum completely ignored that when Britain joined the EEC as it was known then as the sick man of Europe.

One can not know exactly how much the EU directly benefited Britain, but a 10 percent rise in prosperity is a reasonable estimate.

I would like some political ( descendants of the two world wars)  to tell me or explain to me why now in a world that is in turmoil Britain wants to turn itself into a hermit kingdom squandering its wealth and ingenuity for an idealised notion that you are still a mighty power that the nations of the world want to trade with on your terms.

Governments and Countries can’t be run like businesses.

Societies are built on a commitment to social and economic justice, not by the free market, but by equality of opportunity.

From the outside, the whole Brexit process has highlighted your indifference to seeing that there are going to to be enormous repercussions due to a fog of denial and self-delusion.

Today one in 20 UK residents was born in another EU country.

 

Some Eurosceptics say Britain stands a better chance of growth if it looks beyond the sluggish economies of the EU. But this is a claim about the future, predicated on trading relationships that do not yet exist, rather than an analysis of the past.

UK trade with EU partners grew faster after 1973 than it did with the remaining countries in the European Free Trade Association, the grouping to which Britain previously belonged.

For almost half a century, Britain has benefited from greater openness to world markets, which has fostered economic dynamism. Economists have demonstrated that the main cause of that change was membership of the EU, which brought with it gains from trade, foreign direct investment, competition, and innovation.

This is what Britain is turning it back on.

The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU. Over the period 2007 – 2013 the UK received €8.8 billion

Many Eurosceptics raged against the UK’s annual £18bn transfer to the EU.

Nigel Farage has claimed that being in the bloc costs Britain £55m a day — more than £20bn a year.

But the UK’s net transfer to the EU falls far short of such claims.

A rebate secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 reduced the bill and London sent £13bn to Brussels in 2015. Against that, the UK received £4.5bn from the EU in regional aid and agricultural subsidies, and the private sector received a further £1.4bn direct from the EU budget.

That takes the net cost of membership to about £7bn, less than half a percent of national income — about £260 a year for each British household.

Another often-quoted figure — the reported £33bn cost of regulation — comes from an impact assessment by Open Europe, a think-tank, of 100 EU rules.

But it is based on only one side of the balance sheet.

The benefits of the regulations are “much higher” than the costs and “clearly not all of [the costs] would disappear after Brexit”.

Most economists have little doubt that Britain’s membership of the EU has translated into more trade.

For crying out loud it’s not Isolation that Britain needs but a large dose of common sense and cooperation.

Get a grip.

It is time for young of the nation to unbottling their responsibilities to England by demanding a re-run of the Referendum without the pursuit of personal pleasure.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.