Nah, it's not.
First, Brexit is a political platform. Like every other political platform, it actually has zero to do with the issue, which is just scaremongering - "we must DO THING, otherwise BAD THING happens". The Scottish independence campaign was the same thing.
Being in the EU has some practical and some non practical downsides, which those on the platform lament: practical, there's immigration, and we pay more for EU projects; non-practical, we might have a ban on prawn flavoured chips, because every government throws out some retarded law every now and then - they all do.
Immigration is done now; we already don't have jobs, more immigration now means just that the immigrants have a harder time getting *their* jobs. British jobs (those jobs that are gained through nepotism and connections) are not at risk; it's just the immigrant jobs which are at risk now, meaning if you work at Tesco, you will get even less money.
Leaving the EU creates potential for chaos, which is exactly what certain people want. There WILL be massive costs increases, just like there were when the Euro rolled out in 2000, not because of any influencing factor, but because any situation which creates change and confusion is a good chance for speculators - raise prices when everyone else does; and they do it when complex events occur.
i.e. if there was a meteor strike - prices would raise. "Q: why is this sandwich so expensive now? A: the meteor strike." ah ok.
obviously the meteor strike has nothing to do with the change in prices, it's just an excuse. but since every speculator does it, it's impossible to fight the price bump. It's also confusing to see everyone bump prices, and the move looks legit for a while.
During the last leg of the Yes campaign, about half the business leaders in the UK made it VERY CLEAR that if Yes was to pass, prices would go up. BECAUSE.
Britain is also .. honestly, not that great of a nation. They have huge overheads because of these "new" touchy-feely laws, they spend a ton of money on things no reasonable government would, and they no longer have an empire, which is what made britain great in the first place.
As a producer, it cannot compare to Germany, or even Poland. Or, to be correct .. they are on the way down. Their monetary worth is devaluing.
The pound losing a large portion of its worth was obvious from the first day; keeping the pound instead of adopting the euro is irrelevant - from a purely mathematical pov, they are two mintings of the same coin; both are freely exchangable with the other, and the pound no longer has a portion of its worth based on the political stability of the UK, as other EU countries are just as, if not more, stable.
Once a country melds itself to another, so much as we have done, coinage is irrelevant - the two systems will homogenize, if nothing, simply for the fact that as long as one money has more value, it will tend to move towards where it is worth more.
And really, the cold war is over; foreign investors are no longer worried that, idk, the president of Lithuania might want everyone to wear their underwear outside, thus making their money crash. Or force them to learn Swedish, to the same effect.
witty Bananas reference http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066808/reference
I doubt that Britain would have remained a major economical power even if they stayed out of the EU. But anyway, right now they are undeniably no more powerful, and important, than most EU countries; Poland for example, their GDP keeps increasing. Their economy is going up, they are politically stable. Investors believe there's money to be made (it's true) and therefore place more importance on investments located there rather than in the UK.
one last thing..
immigration, border control .. these things are simply impossible in the UK. You really need to live here to understand how
these people are, it's easily comparable to the URRS. The "humanistic" laws they have here prevent them from doing anything which could possibly harm a fly, yet they somehow want to magically go back to a time where the value of the pound was backed by colonialist trade regimes, exploitation, masses of workers without protection, minimal spending, the draft, and a huge imposing (and badly paid) army in a time of war.
It's not going to happen. They can't kick out of the country people who have arrived illegally and have been caught repeatedly scam the system (also illegal) because "it would hurt their feelings", they surely cannot go back to
rum, sodomy and the lash.
if anything, they should stfu and let Angela Merkel tell them what to do, she seems to have far more sense than we do.
do i get any bonus for this post?