EU of 1975 was a different beast than EU of 2025. Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it, now it's bureaucratic monstrosity ruling over its members without the people having representation.
I would say in all areas of governance, post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, despite throwing off the yoke of EU. And UK has one of the more professional civil service bodies out there.
I do.
>EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc
Those are all very obscure "rules" And we had such rules even without the EU.
> And in practice states have a lot of sway.
How do states not do what Ursula v.d. Leyen says? What is their say in the matter? Or more importantly, what's their citizens' say in the matter? Since citizens did not elect her to be their representative.
>post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased,
That's because their government is incompetent, not because they left the EU.
Not at all. Maybe you are thinking of EFTA, not EU. Or you are just revisionist.
EU was never just about free trade. Back when it was founded as ECSC it was about maintaining peace and putting community interest over national interest.
Quite soon after the UK joined, environmental regulations took hold that forced it to stop being the "Dirty man of Europe". Brexit opponents rightly feared that this would return after leaving the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-w...