I'm not 100% on this, but I've heard it said that the UK was often a 'shield' for the more frugal EU countries (mainly the Nordic countries), as they often vote

I'm not 100% on this, but I've heard it said that the UK was often a 'shield' for the more frugal EU countries (mainly the Nordic countries), as they often voted with us. As we were the bigger country, we were usually seen as the 'bad guys' though. UK was in a lot of ways not a great fit for the EU sometimes but sometimes I do think it was good to have a larger player in the UK take a different position. I'm a big fan of the EU but they do seem to make mistakes, and completely ignore certain problems (like immigration).