I'm British and I fully intend to vote to remain in the EU. I also completely concur that being isolationist would be stupid and damaging. But to imply that th

I'm British and I fully intend to vote to remain in the EU. I also completely concur that being isolationist would be stupid and damaging. But to imply that the only way to engage with the world is via the EU is just not true. Almost everything you point out about the UK be it language, education, economy, immigration were true before we joined the EU (and were true before the EU) and will be true were we to leave. I've no idea what you think the EU does for us militarily. NATO, sure, but that's because of the US. There's absolutely no reason to believe that we'd suddenly turn into a shrinking violet without the EU helping us see the big, wide world. For some of the economically smaller nations sure, the EU is fantastic. But the UK has the 4th or 5th largest economy in the world and it's not as if all the growth potential is in Europe (arguably the opposite). Now, my personal view is that, economically, it's likely that we'd be better off in the short to medium term remaining in the EU. There are too many variables to have a meaningful long term view. Politically the EU is a mess but is likely to be a mess whether we stay or go. We're clearly not aligned politically with the bulk of the EU members but we're not going to suddenly turn into a dictatorship or a hippy commune if we left. But to imply that the EU is the only answer for a country like the UK is as illogical as implying that the only answer is for us to leave. Oh, and the reason we all speak English on HN is because it's the primary language of the US. If they hadn't reached economic and technical dominance in the mid-20th century I would fully expect we'd be writing in German as that was the lingua franca for scientific and technical work. There's much that the world should thank us for (by which of course I mean cricket) but this isn't one of them.