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Let's take this back to basics...why, in simple terms (so I can understand), do we need to be a part of the EU?
In some respects one sees this as a question that is being asked 'arse over tit', inasmuch as one might rather ask why, in simple (or even complex, i'm happy with complex) terms, do we need to not be?
Yes, i get it - 'You Lost, get over it' etc etc, but that's not much of an answer, now, is it?
Back to Basis...
From the ashes of a continent beaten and bowed by war, cowed before an emergent Superpower showering money like a ticker tape parade for a celebration that nobody quite had the stomach for, a Plan was born.
Take a moment to reflect with me, a retrospective prayer...
Our Father, which art apparently, at what most would've reckoned to be something of a critical time, not in Europe,
The Marshall Plan shall be in your name.
Marshall's Kingdom's come
(
Is this his will be done? - Ed)
To Europe, as it will be in Heaven
France and Germany were the main recipients of the US's largesse, the UK was not - in fact, despite being in the old 'special relationship' the UK was given no debt relief whatsoever and was squeezed, post-War, for debts owed that were finally payed off in... wait for it... 2006.
2006 - that's when we paid the last of our payments to the US for their aid in the war effort. Why? Our'crime' of electing a 'Socialist' Government in 1945
As de Gaulle was apt to point out, post-war Britain was never an European nation - along with its not especially 'special relationship' with the US, it also had an Empire - the 'pink bits', 'on which the sun never set', all of those sorts of things - it still Ruled the Waves.
In 1947 India - the Jewel in the Crown - gained its independence. Over the following 30 years the 'Empire' would suffer an exponential collapse - which in turn may have influenced the disastrous 'Domino Theory' that mired the US in its own quasi-colonial struggles at this time - leaving it as dead as the corpses upon which it had been built.
Without an Empire, and without the
bona fides of the New Empiricists that the US had now become, the UK was as broken and brow-beaten as the rest of Europe had been in '45. And crucially de Gaulle was now dead.
So we 'moored' to the Continent and became Europeans.
It is probably worth pointing out, to those that may not be aware of the fact, that there was subsequently a Referendum about whether we should have remained so 'moored' - not only did we choose to do so, but we did so by a rather more comfortable margin of 67/32 for good measure. It is probably also worth being just a little bit facetious at this point to say - you lost, get over it...
Of course things have changed since then - Euratom has meant that nuclear technology and energy surpluses can be easily transferred throughout the continent, the Working Time Directive means that everybody is entitled to paid annual leave, the Erasmus programme has seen thousands of students every year studying in Universities in EU states without extra charges, anti-monopoly action has seen a huge rise in affordable travel within the EU and consumer protection has given a huge boost to buyers and sellers both on-line and off, agencies like the soon to be lost EMA meant that the UK was at the centre of medicine research, science programmes in general, funded by grants from the ERC from which the UK receives a veritable 'lion's share' have led to the UK being a genuine world leader in scientific research (attracting pesky immigrants with Doctorates from all over the world), environmental protections and regulations have seen us turn from 'the dirty man' to having some of the cleanest beaches and rivers in the World.
But apparently the World is Not Enough.
So let me turn that back around - why, in simple terms (so I can understand), do we need to leave the EU?
