Ironically, you seem to have misunderstood me, because:
> fundamentally leaving the currency/monetary union and leaving the economic/political union are completely different things, so obviously they would have different outcomes
Is something I’m aware of and I wasn’t contradicting.
I was saying potential negative consequences specifically of Brexit were near-simultaneously used by the same person both were not going to happen at all and yet simultaneously that they were a reason the EU would give the UK a good deal.
In one case, the pause between these two claims being made by the same person was literally only just long enough for me to say “no” without actually justifying why I was disagreeing with him. So please, don’t just say I’m misunderstanding.
And that makes me think that in a parallel world where the UK has been in the Euro but still voted to leave the EU, the government may well have dismissed any and all concerns about the economic consequences, left, and then blamed all the harm that did happen on “remoaners” and “saboteurs” and “the jealous EU”, just like they did for the much milder difficulties they faced in the real world.
> it is politically impossible, especially when the EU's position is that "the Euro and the EU are linked: leaving one means leaving the other"
First, “Politically impossible” doesn’t seem to be in the vocabulary of current UK politicians right now.
Second, I get the impression many of the louder Leave campaigners hated both the currency and the EU, so I don’t actually see how your claims are evidence makes it more politically channeling in the UK than Brexit was all by itself. Economically more challenging, sure (though you’ve still not convinced me it would have been impossible). Politically more challenging? I don’t see it.
re: the pertinent points:
brexit was politically easy[1] as the core of the conservative party has wanted it for 20 years, as have the electorate
and economically it was a non-event
leaving the euro would be neither (as previously described)
[1]: other than during the period May screwed up by losing her majority with the fixed terms parliament act that prevented her calling another election (but the subsequent election fixed that, and now that act has been rescinded, so this will never be repeated)
to be blunt: this is your misunderstanding
fundamentally leaving the currency/monetary union and leaving the economic/political union are completely different things, so obviously they would have different outcomes
Greece was considering the former, the UK carried out the latter
the latter (brexit) is at worst is predicted to do some minor damage to growth over a long period of time, which your average person won't even notice
ignoring the practical problems of re-introducing a currency (eg. prevent people hoarding physical euros), even the suggestion that leaving the euro is going to happen would immediately trigger a massive exodus of capital, and at the point it happens you have a massive devaluation that immediately wipes out the savings accounts of everyone in the country as the speculators pile in
and then inflation goes crazy (making today look harmless)
as the Greeks discovered: it is politically impossible, especially when the EU's position is that "the Euro and the EU are linked: leaving one means leaving the other", which would have triggered the situation above in a UK with that adopted the euro