Evo pulled the previous thread because it was off topic and argument. If she meant badtempered, ill informed, opinionated, and not factual then it was faithful to the debate that has taken place in the UK! But it is not possible to debate this question without injecting opinion.
Are perhaps what we say on this thread should take some account of the fact that the majority here at this site is not British or European. They may even be a bit bemused.
British exceptionalism
With this in mind I might offer some potted history of why this debate is taking place, of why Britain has this peculiar position and attitude in Europe. Why the British standout as exceptional, laggards, foot-draggers and sulkers, in the process of European integration. Then to explain one thing I needed to explain or justify by another, and the thing got too long but here you are:
One fundamental is WW2 from which most countries came out having suffered physical destruction, dislocation and traumas of populations, institutional discredit and radical change, and the humiliation of foreign occupation.. This led the elites of the key continental West European nations to a vision with sufficient popular understanding support or acquiescence, to not repeat mistakes and not be imprisoned by the past, forming the core European Community, a new but permanent and practical institution of European collaboration as a habit. This then exerted attractive power to more peripheral nations suffering from Dictatorship, instability or in any case backwardness, as a way out of all that. Detente and the end of the Cold War the way was open to neutrals the such as Austria and Sweden, Finland to join. And then with the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. So the EU unlike previous empires expanded by attractive power not conquest or subversion. It's now exerts this strong attractive power to the next neighbours Ukraine and Turkey in particular, but also others.
Britain on the other hand did not at first feel this attractive power, nor that it had any need for a European Community. Of which it was it first scarcely aware. Its institutions were stable and not discredited, the war though a tragedy had been weathered well and with pride. (We even imagined for a long time we had won it!). Other was world-leading, technologies that seemed of the best, I say seemed - there should have been worrying signs. In many ways consumption and the standard of living was higher than in much of Europe still into the 60s. In international relations the Commonwealth seeMed more important to many than Europe.
However although Britain shared the western world's post war miracle boom, and started from a higher level than the war-torn countries, the actual rate of increase of GNP et cetera was less and we were being overtaken. Institutions rather than discredited by wartime collaboration with the invaders were simply outdated And industrial management, labour relations or infrastructure for example seemed stuck in a bygone era, education was a problematic and controversial area , balance of payments was chronically in deficit, there were various financial crisis and the stop-go economy. Serious problems could go reactively unnoticed by the average person – a rising tide floats all boats and if somebody else's is being floated faster than yours though starting lower you don't particularly notice. In particular throughout the period there was full employment which cushions.
But the structural problems were very much noted by the commentariat, the books and newspapers that the educated person would read. By the late 50s the phrase 'the British disease' was coined and heard. The front of the self-styled thoughtful, radical, progressive thinkers convererged on one consensus: that membership of the European Community, aka Common Market was the only solution. This thinking was accepted by the whole political leadership spectrum, conservatives, most of Labour, and especially liberals, Liberals and Social Democrats. Sometime in the 60s for the Conservative party Common Market entry became practically its only policy: on which everything else depended. Received humiliating rebuff from de Gaulle. Then for the commentariat the problems of Britain for some years were caused by the British disease plus de Gaulle.
but once he was out of the way It happened. Disappointingly not much else did, not much seemed to change and a lot of things still went downhill. I am reading comments these days that Common Market membership is not what turned Britain around, but rather the Thatcher free market reforms. And even that rather than the common market rescuing Britain it was the Thatcherite Britain that rescued Europe, certainly changing something in its initially heavy statist and corporative baggage. It was noticed that the subscription fee was still very stiff, did not always pay for the most rational of ends (you may have heard of butter mountains and wine lakes).
So a very broad brush paints a picture of a different experience by Britain and most other countries. For these others feel they were saved by, or saved themselves by the European Union, Britain not. It is often said that the relation seen by the Brits is "transactional” - what do we give and what do we get? - while for the continentals it is more spiritual, emotional, existential, that sort of word. It is true that this is wearing off for many of the Continentals this these days as earlier times are forgotten, and they look more to what they give and get out of iton; the other and for youth a European dimension is more part of their ordinary experience.
One aspect of the stand offish detached, sceptical transactional British attitude Is that you cannot blame the public all that much when their leaders are no different. They are dead scared of leading, for this is of getting ahead of the public - which has risks. I can think of a hardly any exception among leading politicians, none who describe the EU in positive terms. As most recent example of a long list, in a debate with the public a couple of days ago, Cameron’s most frequent verb was "fight". Apparently we are in the EU to fight it, or at least to fight better there for our own British interests in a zero sum game than we can from outside. Though his audience could well have said, if only! If only he had put up some sort of a fight in the negotiations with European partners. But that was impossible for reasons I explain shortly.
.The fee is still stiff, (at least it's spent more rationally these days, for example the second biggest expense of the EU is on sclence) but Cameron and Osborne justify membership not for any good it does to Europe as a whole, but as a price worth paying in the transaction which keeps a market open for our goods and services.
I should explain too, that although the British are not Europe's most enthusiastic fans, you should not get the impression which you might easily do from reports of the campaign that they are hostile either. As for most of the rest of Europe, traditional National emnities and hatreds are a thing of the past fortunately, Well, maybe excepting football matches. There was no present public issue or crisis that caused this referendum. Caused by a promise that Cameron made for internal party reasons (too insignificant to recount) before an election he didn't expect to win, and so to have to redeem the promise. All soundings have always shown Europe always well down the list of British people's political concerns. So maybe the efflorescences you are seeing are the flourishing of dormant spores disturbed by an unnecessary plough. Ah yes, unnecessary. There had been a charade of the referendum being about something, and so Cameron went through the motions of negotiating a reform of the EU. If only because his political imperative is to have the unwanted the referendum out of the way in the first year of the new government, otherwise it would have overshadowed and blighted the rest of his years of premiership. Under these conditions it could not challenge anything important.
Just one thing connected with Europe excites the public - immigration, which was always going to take over the debate. The economy features too, I am surprised that the themes are that many. Well maybe they are slightly connected, in that the booming British present economy (whether soundly based or not is irrelevant now) only adds to the attraction of Britain as an immigration target. It used to be difficult to cross national borders and find work or right to residence. Now the EU has created a right of free movement within the Union. During a transitional period notoriously Britons were told that something like 10,000 might arrive from East Europe. Instead of phasing in the free movement as it had the right to Britain (Blair) simply lifted restrictions before it was obliged to and about half a million Poles arrived in a year or two. Britain, or at least England, is already the most densely populated country of Europe. Cameron spectacularly failed to live up to promises he made to limit immigration which now from outside and inside the EU is running at a total of more than 300,000 a year , Putting pressure on housing, job market, school places and health services. The strongest and frequently repeated argument of the Brexiters is is that immigration cannot be controlled as long as we are inside the EU with this unchallengeable principle of free movement. The constant refrain is "take back control of our frontiers”.
To this the Remain side has frankly never produced any answer. Cameron’s answer has been the same as the one that allowed him to scrape through the last election, talk about the only other issue, the economy stupid. Nor I have not heard Tories clarify whether they think suddenly that the immigrants are a positive factor propelling the economy. Or whether it is price paid justified by the staying in the Single Market which is the real benefit Since in reality very few people can evaluate or grasp of the economic arguments, the Remain side is reduced to Authority – statements by heads of banks and industry and academia etc. even President Obama (which rebounded) are paraded.
This is contrasting a tangible fear and damage on the one hand with a rather abstract calculation no one can understand on the other. Because of that and what I hear generally I weeks ago resigned myself to Brexiit being inevitable and have rather been thinking about what happens next. But that would be another long post
