What did the uk do before they joined the EU?

[Hellenbackagen]

I'm wondering why people are so keen to stay within the EU?

How does it deliver value for money?

What are the benefits?

What did the uk do and how did it trade before it joined the EU?

Why are people so scared of leaving?

I'd be really grateful if anyone can explain or anyone who remembers why we joined can explain the difference before and after,

Thanks.

I do see the worst and the down sides of being in the E U.

Then shouldn't your first question have been "I see these bad things and downsides, are they caused by the EU"?

Surely if you haven't paid any attention to Brexit to the point where you haven't heard of any benefits that the EU might have brought to the UK - not even things that have been reported and discussed endlessly over the last two years like the Good Friday agreement - then you can't know whether the EU caused the bad things either?

I am surprised that someone who says she is so unaware and uninformed about Brexit should also be so very sure about the downsides.

Bluntness "I think thr point people are making is how can you not understand, because the vote was indeed one day but this has been going on for over three years since the campaigns started"

but it is very very easy to be a person for whom none of the campaign issues really matter. Also OP has clearly had a terrible time around the ref, and afterwards it was done - people thought - so what was the point in paying attention.

often this large scale politics doesn't have any effect on the average person so no wonder if they don't want to pay attention.

often you just think "ho hum, I'll have to manage" while other people are talking about their DC right to travel and the cost of holidays. Well, there was a lot of it on MN. Jeez, I don't care about the cost of holidays or who can go to what uni.

I'm on a few prescription meds otherwise I'd have tuned out altogether!

Before the EU ....

3 channels on the black and white telly broadcasting from 4pm to 11pm
macaroni was an exotic food
China was not industrialised
nor was South America
Telephones were still with finger dials and operators and wires
Gas meters took 10p coins
hitch hiking was normal as so few people had cars

life has changed

post erroneous shite because they can't be arsed doing any research on it

That's basically all my posts

Rosa, sure, and I wasn't one of those peoole who felt that way,

And rufus lol 🤣

We had a colour TV Talkin. And definitely daytime telly. Most families had a car. It wasn’t entirely the dark ages.

But yes, we are in the new technological age now and the world is smaller.

Tinkly
We had a colour TV Talkin. And definitely daytime telly
No you did not.
Daytime TV and morning TV did not start until the late 70s - my next door neighbour set up one of the first programmes
and only the rich had colour tellies

There is also the aspect that the UK was joining the EEC and it was on the receiving end of things that are beneficial to the UK.
Inward investment, level trade playing field and so on. Although it is possible to argue some loss of sovereignty over a restricted range of matters you need to remember that the UK was also 'restricting' the sovereignty of others as it is pooled. Arguing with the European Parliament is only an issue if the 'law' is widely different from how you would have liked it. As the UK was at the top table and influencing (democratically) much of the legislation the number of contentious issues is small. ANY joining of people, even a couple, is small loss of independence (sovereignty), but usually the sum is greater than the parts.
Leaving will reduce the total and as the UK cannot survive as an isolated island it will have to be 'mates' with Russia, China, USA or another large grouping. As a 'minor partner' thousands of miles from anyone else it begins to look a bit nonsensical.

I think that anyone who had a stillbirth on the day of the referendum might well not have ascribed much importance to the results.

Also, these things will take a long time to learn to live with so it is perfectly possible that it has only been relatively recently that OP has felt able to contemplate asking these questions.

A bit more kindness from some quarters would not go amiss.

OP's questions aren't unreasonable, but for her the timing of the referendum could hardly have been worse. Cut her some slack, whether you are a remained (I am) or not. When you lose a baby then surely nothing else would matter at all, for a long time.

It might have helped if she had put it in her OP, but it is clearly a very sensitive issue and she chose not to.

No I was the last person in my class to have a colour TV (South Wales mining village). I was very embarrassed by this fact. I was 7.

Lunchtime and afternoon TV was very much a thing, lying on the sofa poorly. Crown Court for example, started in 1972. As did Pebble Mill at one.

Google tells me that by 1975 sales of colour TVs were outstripping black and white. But we rented ours.

I'm the first person to think people should be informed but OP has clearly been grieving and I think it behoves all of us to cut her a massive amount of slack. People disengage for all sorts of reasons and when they try to re-engage try not to heap scorn on them. It's really fucking unkind and unhelpful.
OP if you're still here - - I'm very sorry for the awful time you've obviously been through.

Op so sorry to hear about your baby. And apoligise for the rude comments from remainers.
The Eu was meant to be a trade association. As a European friend now tells me, whats wrong in being part of the United States of Europe. Says it all really. But hey ho bye bye Britain your days are numbered.
Trade association fine
Free movement fine
But European state no thank you.

fair enough tinkly
and yes, rented telly was very common

Telephones were still with finger dials and operators and wires

Moreover you could only rent them from the GPO (who were also the only people that could provide a phone service) ... that's if you could wait 6 months to a year, and they had enough lines. Otherwise you had to share.

Anybody else think this thread is crackers?

Sort of, don't criticise Brexit because the OP very sadly lost a baby?

Odd.

I do actually remember before the EU. No there were not 3 day weeks and power cut as someone up thread suggested. Or unburied bodies and rubbish pilled high in the streets. That was much later in the 70s when we had joined!
One of the main things I remember as far as trade was concerned was the amount of food stuffs we got from commonwealth countries like lamb and butter from New Zealand. We had to stop giving priority to the commonwealth and stop trading with them as we had done. This really screwed them up, especially the likes of NZ.

It would be very interesting to look at how NZ came through that and how they had to completely change their approach to agricultural production.

We didn't leave and haven't left 'our lovely English speaking Commonwealth pals'.

We just have quicker, easier, more beneficial trading and travel relationships with the 'foreigners' across the Channel for reasons of geography and the power of nations working and trading together.

Talkin - being rich had little to do with having a colour telly. Colour only came in in 1969 and my parents got a colour tv in the early 70s. Mum was a nurse and dad worked in a factory. We hadn't had a telly at all until 1962.

One of the main things I remember as far as trade was concerned was the amount of food stuffs we got from commonwealth countries like lamb and butter from New Zealand.

So being in the EU cut down on food miles. A win for polar bears ?

There were lots of party political type broadcasts about the refendum. I was a very geeky child (and as previously mentioned probably watched too much TV.

One of the big slogans was, “Out of Europe, into the rest of the world”, with, I seem to recall, a graphic showing little arrows going from Britain to Australia and New Zealand and the like.

So only the white Commonwealth then? I see no mention of Zambia, Ghana, Fiji, Niberia.........

We always did import food from our nearest neighbours - the perishable stuff like lettuces, and tomatoes.

I well remember the days before the EU/EEC with British business going bankrupt and losing out to the Far East, with a combination of lack of investment, lack of training and generally poor management.

Colour TV began with the Wimbledon Championships in 1967, broadcast on BBC2, the UHF 625 lines channel started for this purpose.

BBC1 and ITV slowly rolled out on UHF from that date, BBC1 largely in colour, ITV less so, with only some adverts in colour into the early 1970s.

VHF 405 lines black & white only tv, the system which began in 1936, was finally switched off in 1977.

Nigeria even

But food miles weren’t even a twinkle in an environmentalists eye in 1973. Getting food from all over the world was seen as a marvellous, luxurious thing.