[montag813]

For centuries, this modest little island in the North Sea has punched well above its weight on the international stage

Because of its intellectual and economic superiority. This came from its CULTURE. Once it began importing the inferior, more savage, less freedom-minded cultures of the Islamic world, Britain weakened. The E.U. did not make England stronger. It's insane immigration policies made her much weaker.

[Winniesboy]

Islamic immigration to the UK has had little if anything to do with EU immigration policy. The only immigrants which the UK is forced to accept under EU treaties are those who are already EU citizens, exercising their right to live and work in any EU country. And few of those have been Muslims - in recent years the greatest number have come from the predominantly Christian countries of Eastern Europe. The UK was accepting Muslim immigrants before it joined the EU, and has continued to do so on various grounds to which the EU is irrelevant. When there has been pressure from the EU to accept others (such as in Merkel's plan to distribute Syrian refugees by quota throughout the EU), Britain has refused to play ball.