I live in Europe and travel all the time between 3 European countries. In all three of them immigration is a big issue. Also dictatorship of the European Parlement is a big issue.
If the UK is smart they leave Europe. The 2 wealthiest countries in Europe are Norway and Switzerland. They both are NOT member of the European Union. So the argument that membership will bring prosperty and more economical growth is bullshit. If not Norway and Switzerland would be economical graveyards.
The European Union was mainly created to dump old politicians that did not get elected anymore and give them a very fat salary and other benefits.
Here's why you are completely and utterly wrong, in fact you have it backwards.
Switzerland and Norway didn't join EU because they were already far wealthier than other countries in Europe. Not being in the EU did not change this one bit.
Here's Norway's GDP vs Sweden's GDP to illustrate. Sweden joined in 1995, the countries are very similar, tell me how did joining EU penalize them:
(Elite Trader can't embed data from Trading Economics)
http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/emb...false&url2=/sweden/gdp-per-capita&h=300&w=600
Austria v. Switzerland:
http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/cha...0101&d2=20161231&url2=/austria/gdp-per-capita