OK, I asked you politely not to do that, and you just went and did it again. Stop conflating Britain and the US, FFS! I mean, OK, Boris isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he’s a Tory bastard, but you have to admit he’s listening to advisors and doing his best for us at the moment. More than Trump is for his people, at any rate.
Now about Brexit. Yes, it will probably make us poorer, those of us who voted for it knew that at the time. We weren’t voting to be rich, we were voting to be free.
The original idea of the Common Market was to ensure French hegemony in mainland Europe. A United States of Europe with France as the dominant power, aimed at keeping Germany down. This is why De Gaulle in particular was adamant that the UK should not be part of it, and vetoed every application. The US, on the other hand, was more afraid of Russia, because they were Communists (untrue, the structure of the Russian state at that time was just as fascist as Nazi Germany had been). So the US boosted West Germany as being the front line in what was then thought to be the inevitable WW3. So by the 70s, Germany was once again a match for France. The French then panicked and this time decided to call in the British before surrendering. We thought we were joining a Free Trade zone that would get us cheaper cigarettes and wine, and make it easier to go to Spain on holiday. In actual fact, only the last happened -prices went up, rather than down, to protect French farmers and German manufacturers. Meanwhile Britain, a maritime nation with a history of global trade, was suddenly restricted as to who it could trade with. Restricted by the domestic polices and agendas of other nations. Bad enough, but they then started to interfere with our laws and politics, dragging us closer and closer to the ideal of a United Europe, and thus closer and closer to the inevitable conflict between France and Germany as to who is to control the United Europe. So when we got the chance, we got out! Rather be poor and free than rich and dragged into another European war.
It’s funny with people like you, Umair. It would never occur to you to tell the Japanese that they should be part of China, would it? That it is their foolish pride that makes them turn their backs on union with China? I’ll bet you sympathise with native Hawaiians who resent the US absorbing their country as well, don’t you? But then you turn round and say Britain should be part of a unified Europe! Inconsistent, much?
Britain is not part of Europe, either geographically (there’s kind of a sea between us) or culturally. We don’t belong with them or to them. We’ve never got on with them. We love our raw, foggy island and we just want to live on it, free and on our own terms.
