On Sun, 12 Jun 2016 09:44:20 +0100, Nightjar wrote:

Britain lost its textile industry while in the EU

Which has nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with cheap
labour costs in third world countries.

And this really does sum up the logic of much of the brexit campaign. "We
were big and important before we joined the EU, so it must be the EU's
fault".

Umm, no. The entire world has changed. Globalisation has happened. What
used to be really minor bit-players are now major world powers. That's
nothing to do with the EU.

Our membership of the EU has, arguably, helped to protect us from faring
even worse.

Britain lost its coal industry while in the EU

In the 1960s it was already cheaper to ship coal from Australia than to
dig out of the ground in the UK. Once the UK government decided that it
would stop subsidising coal, its days were numbered. Again, nothing to
do with the EU.

And this is the exact same reality as the "Thatcher killed mining!"
argument forgets.

Coal mining jobs in the UK over time :-
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/
UK_Coal_Mining_Jobs.png