TODAY marks the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum and the news that shocked the great, the good and the just plain smug: the majority of the country wanted rid of the European Union. The past decade has brought continued attempts by desolate remainers to convince us all that Brexit voters were mad, bad and ignorant; that Brexit has ruined the economy; and that only a return to Europe can save us all from our folly. For some reason voters have been unconvinced.

TCW is revisiting some of the pieces we published over the Brexit years. Readers can decide whose arguments have carried the most weight. This article was first published on March 6, 2017.

BRTAIN’S entry to what was then called the EEC in 1973 caused nothing but disaster to this country. Within a year, the country was working a three-day week due to a national energy crisis. There were power cuts that precipitated a political crisis. A minority government could not cope. Inflation soared. So did working days lost to strikes. There was statutory wage control. The country’s largest car manufacturer, British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC), went under and had to be nationalised. The government went bust in 1976 and had to beg for a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which imposed new policies on this country for which no one had voted. Things got worse. The strikes continued, causing the fall of yet another government. Inflation peaked at 25 per cent. Our country was so weakened that parts of our sovereign territory were invaded by a hostile foreign power.

All because of our entry into the EEC.

Of course, all of the above is complete nonsense. There were numerous external and internal events that led to these negative outcomes. The Falklands were invaded in 1982 because of Foreign Office defeatism and the Civil Service’s wrong-headed acceptance of the inevitability of this country’s relative decline. The energy crisis started with an Arab oil embargo following the humiliation of Israel’s enemies in the Yom Kippur War. There was a perceived need by oil suppliers to punish the West for supporting Israel. Union militancy and a paleo-Corbynite Labour Party caused our industries to become uncompetitive as shop stewards usurped management and outlawed profit-making. Keynesian policies no longer worked, if they ever did, and only stoked inflation, leading to strikes on the back of pay claims, that led to more inflation and more militancy.

Read More – Brexit ten years on: A predictable scapegoat for the nation’s ills