| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:If your Labour and feeling lucky | |
| Posted by: | T P Howell | |
| Date/Time: | 02/05/17 12:29:00 |
Nobody I met in Versailles mentioned Ted Heath. We have moved on in the last few decades. The quote you attribute to him has never been validated - even to the point as to whom he allegedly said it in a "private conversation". The quote seems to appear on a few anti EU websites only in the last couple of years. What's your source? I was too young to vote in 1975, and now I have children who are old enough to vote. I do however remember the three day week, the UK in a deep recession in the early 1970s (albeit in part due to oil prices more than doubling in a year in 1973/4), UK industry in decline, and a post colonial sense of denial as to the UK's position in the world. Nobody can honestly claim to know with total certainty how the UK would have performed had it remained outside the EEC - but it is reasonable to assume that the same trends would have continued. See the article by Chris Giles in the FT 31 March 2017: "Britain joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973 as the sick man of Europe. By the late 1960s, France, West Germany and Italy — the three founder members closest in size to the UK — produced more per person than it did and the gap grew larger every year. Between 1958, when the EEC was set up, and Britain’s entry in 1973, gross domestic product per head rose 95 per cent in these three countries compared with only 50 per cent in Britain. After becoming an EEC member, Britain slowly began to catch up. Gross domestic product per person has grown faster than Italy, Germany and France in the more than 40 years since. By 2013, Britain became more prosperous than the average of the three other large European economies for the first time since 1965". We also did comparatively better against the USA. I can also tell you from personal experience that it is far, far easier for the UK to trade across the EU, and also with the rest of the world thanks to EU trade treaties, then it was say 30 years ago when the barriers (direct, and indirect - such as the need to take separate legal opinions and tax advice in every country). Do you honestly believe that the UK has not benefited from being part of the largest trading block in the world, or would have done better outside of it? If so, you'll have to come up with something better than an unattributed and unlikely quote from a period that was closer in time to the Second World War than today |