Economies of Scale

As a person who voted to leave the EU, I thought that I should get some of my thoughts  about why I voted this way into print.

Great Britain has always benefited from being an island nation. If we had been connected to the mainland in 1940 we would have been overrun and the world would be a different place.

But we now belong to an organisation that is mainly the countries of the mainland, and it is so large that it has lost the benefit of economies of scale in so many ways. It is not homogeneous enough in so may ways to work well. Do we need an EU armed force? But only a few countries would want to contribute to a navy.  It could be argued that we have a major possible opponent in Russia, but as in past wars, the armies of each country could work together if needed. Could a large armed force be easily controlled? Each country knows its own terrain best.

One of the major drawbacks  to the EU is the finances. They have not been able to do an annual reconciliation for many years, so when we in Britain ask for the bill for leaving, The EU is unable to calculate it.    Can GB calculate  what we think it should be? Yes, because we have a chancellor who looks after the financial departments of government and could, with a bit of push and shove, get the figures out of HMRC and others. Britain is slimming down many government departments, and making them more efficient. We now need to simplify our tax system.

The EU machinery is very top heavy because of the need to have representatives of each country in every department. I cannot imagine an EU with a single tax system for every person. This would be impossible to manage. That is why it has to be devolved. but to be properly devolved each country's tax system should be the same.

Is GB the right size for a good economy of scale? Suppose that GB were to break down. Could Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland each build up their infrastructure to cope successfully? That's more people working for the government. And border controls?

If things were to break down even further to the concept of city states, such as Manchester and London being completely independent states then I think the whole concept of government will have broken down. Each would have it's own tax regime, administration, military and policing and external Foreign relations. Medical science would come to a halt, unless there was a medical science body that would help cross fertilisation of ideas, But where would it be based? None of these city-states would be big enough to negotiate business contracts with companies that are larger than they are. You start to wonder what proportion of the people of the British Isles would be involved in Government.

So I see Great Britain  being the appropriate size to be independent of the EU and able to manage it's own business.