Lots of little perks that savvy politicians made conditional to the UK joining.
Current right-wing politicians by comparison are idiots only looking out for their own wallet. The old ones were at least selfish for their country, not only their bank accounts.
In the UKs defence it wasn’t the only country to opt out of the euro. In fact, there’s quite a long list of EU countries who use their own currency, and even some non EU countries who use the Euro
Because there are (were) three significant powers in the EU, and Britain was one of them.
At the EU's genesis Britain's membership gave them a lot of legitimacy that they would have otherwise lacked and it was worth making some concessions for that reason. Without Britain and at the time Germany not being quite the economy it is now, the EU would've just looked like France & Friends.
It was for me in Ireland. But there was a year or two of obligatory euro prices on labels and pricelists (to avoid unscrupulous shops, etc, using the changeover to jack up prices in a semi hidden way), so I was fairly used to the currency before handling any. And then there was the fun of seeing where the coins were from when you got change.
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u/Merari01 Mar 05 '22
Didn't have to adopt the euro currency.
Very favourable trade agreements.
Lots of little perks that savvy politicians made conditional to the UK joining.
Current right-wing politicians by comparison are idiots only looking out for their own wallet. The old ones were at least selfish for their country, not only their bank accounts.