[pervipete]

Trade, the UK had been on the verge of going bankrupt since WWII, their are millions of reasons for this, war debts, too much money trying not to accept that our days as a Great Independent Power are long behind us, hence far too much money wasted on an 'independent' nuclear deterrent, badly run and under invested businesses, successive government's that have either been unwilling or unable to make the hard choices that were needed.

The idea was to make trade easier, to create a block way of trading with other parts of the world, and internally as well, for this there was always going to be a certain loss of sovereignty, in fact one of the campaigns admitted it.

And in a world where small countries are all banding together in blocks, can we afford not to be part of it.