[Lio]

The UK started efforts to join the EEC just 4 years after the Treaty of Rome.

Its entry was personally blocked 3 times by Charles De Gaulle before finally being allowed to join in 1973.

When the UK finally left in 2020 it had been a member for 47 years.

I wouldn't describe that as coming late and leaving promptly.

As for never buying the EU project, a 1975 referendum on EEC membership was won by a comfortable 34.4% majority.

Where as the 2016 vote leave campaigns won with just a 3.7% majority, having broken the rules on spending.

I would say that many of us in the UK buy the EU project and are unhappy about the leave result still.

To this day the reports on foreign interference have not been compiled or fully published by the current Conservative government.

[gostsamo]

I was present on a talk about the EU given by an UK official back in 2014. At that time the person didn't even knew how many members the EU had (Croatia was just admitted) and they were pretty open that they are not really interested to know. When I've been to the UK, two years earlier, a bus driver that I talked to was afraid that eastern europeans will come and take his job. I perfectly well know the UK relationship with the EU, but trust me when I tell you that giving some numbers does not reflect reality. Maybe because the UK considered itself a winner in WWII and wasn't ruined from it like France and Germany, or maybe because of Soros and black Wednesday, or for whatever reason,but Brittan was never a cornerstone of the EU the way France and Germany are, which is the thing the GP was trying to imply and I definitely disagree.