This is a reissue of important data
Conventional wisdom says that the UK received an economic boost from joining the EEC, wrongly called the Common Market at the time. It also alleges there was a further boost from the EEC transforming itself into the EU and completing its so called single market in 1992.
I believe in checking the data. If you look at the graphs and charts of our economic output there is no sudden favourable burst in 1973-5 when we first joined, and no sudden surge in 1993-5 when the EU announced single market completion. Nor is there any sign throughout this period of any upward tilt in our economic performance, however slight. If you gave people the charts and asked them when a significant favourable event occurred they would not have chosen 1973 or 1993.
Worse still is that in practice both our time in the Common market and in the single market impeded our growth and helped destroy important parts of our industrial base. These were the years of big decline in everything from fishing to steel and from market gardening to shipbuilding.
The 20 years from 1953 to 1972 prior to our entry into the EEC saw the UK grow by 95%. That was a growth rate of 3.4% a year. I have left out 1945-1952 as years obviously boosted by recovery from a war and affected by demobilisation.
The next twenty years in the Common market, 1973-92, saw our growth slump to just 42%, under half the previous 20 year period. That was an annual rate of 1.76%
If we then look at the 28 years 1993 to 2020 when we were in the single market and customs union, total growth was 59%. That was an annual growth rate of just 1.66%.
So we grew much slower in the EEC/EU than out, and slower still once the restrictive and bureaucratic single market was completed. These numbers flatter the later EU period as they are not per capita. They are not adjusted for Labour’s relaxation of control on economic migrants after 1997. Our per capita performance has been very poor recently.
February 17, 2026
Good morning.
The EEC / EU is not about economics but about politics. Everything is designed around the belief that a single European entity, called the EU, would be far better as a single national government than many differing ones.
After the WWII France and Germany agreed to never go to war again. To this end they created the ECSC, for runner of today’s EU.
Because the EEC was so mis-sold to the British public it took us decades to realise what it really was – A supranational government.
I do not care about the economic arguments for the EU. We are not discussing the reality of what it really is.
February 17, 2026
There is no economic justification for EEC/EU membership and there never was. Those who support it do it for political reasons, not economic ones.
It’s an attempt to build a United States of Europe, governed by a self-selecting and “on message” Elite with just a pretence of democracy: the institutional structure is similar to the USSR.
The Remainers / Rejoiners like Two-Tier try to use an economic argument because they don’t to use the political one because it would mean admitting that the intention is to completely destroy this country’s independence and that of the other nations of Europe.
Well done to Nigel Farage and Reform for forcing Two-Tier to drop his anti-democratic attempt to cancel Local Elections. I’m sure the Labour and “Conservative” Councils, who seized the opportunity to deny their Council Tax payers the right to vote on who is spending their money, are very happy that they will be held to account in May.