WI: UK never joins the EU/EEC - would they be debating the opposite about membership?

If the UK never joined the EU/EEC in 1973 due to seeing a better economic fortune with the Commonwealth and US, or voted no in 1975, would they debating whether to join the EU today? Or would the issue be settled?
 
If the UK never joined the EU/EEC in 1973 due to seeing a better economic fortune with the Commonwealth and US, or voted no in 1975, would they debating whether to join the EU today? Or would the issue be settled?

Well, depends on whether these Commonwealth and US ties approach works out or not...
Possibly they may end up like Norway, debating whether they should or not...I think it would be "No" mostly, but there may be some people, particularly political elites, who may want to get involved...
Especially if the UK develops some degree of interaction with the common/single market...
 
The EFTA might remain a bigger community too. If the EFTA is a power to be reckoned with in 1990/1 maybe Poland and the Baltic States join that instead of the EU?
 
The EFTA might remain a bigger community too. If the EFTA is a power to be reckoned with in 1990/1 maybe Poland and the Baltic States join that instead of the EU?

Nah, the EFTA wasn't a power to be reckoned with even in 1961, a couple of years after being created. Because of how it worked it satisfied no one, since the UK couldn't export all its manufactures to the Nordic countries while the Nordics had to export foodstuff which the Brits didnt want included in the EFTA (so it wasn't there) because Britain imported them from the Commonwealth. Austria was in because they couldnt join the EEC due to the State Treaty obligations, Portugal because it was a dictatorship and Switzerland because it was Switzerland.
 
Especially if the UK develops some degree of interaction with the common/single market...

Given that all the other large economies in Europe are part of that single market or are increasingly cooperating with it, there's no chance IMHO that the UK wouldn't show a much higher degree of economic interaction with the continent than with the other countries.

More likely than not the UK staying out of the EU would result in a situation similar to Switzerland: almost fully integrated into the common market, profiting from it and economically largely depending on it, but with reduced rights.
 
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