For another "not just the UK" example france has managed to persuade the EU not to buy british weapons out of the extra defence fund unless the UK give France some of it's fishing rights. Can you imagine being Poland and not getting the best anti-tank weaponry, or the best missiles because you want the french to have more fishing rights?

Completely barking mad.

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-rejects-eu-plan-tie-defen...

> Completely barking mad

Well, we'll see that and raise you the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

The EU could get rid of this idiocy overnight, except - well - France.

(I have nothing against the French, I've visited France dozens of times and have many friends there.)

"Once a month the European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg at a cost of £150m a year as lorries transport paperwork."[0]

"Top EU official brands Strasbourg shuttle 'insane'"[1]

"EU parliament’s €114m-a-year move to Strasbourg ‘a waste of money’, but will it ever be scrapped?"[2]

[0] https://news.sky.com/story/meps-on-the-move-madness-of-stras...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/05/eu.politics

[2] https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/20/eu-parliament-s-114m-a-y...

Pretty sure you could engineer France leaving the EU by just tweaking fishing quotas, farming subsidy, naming on sparkling wine or removing (as you mention) strasbourg. They will start a riot and then when you don't give in, they'll be gone.

I'm not saying it's what happened to the UK, but we asked for what we needed, got turned down and then left.

> They will start a riot and then when you don't give in, they'll be gone

If you haven't already done so, read up on TARGET2[0], things could get somewhat spicy if a Eurozone country were to leave the EU.

[0] https://data.ecb.europa.eu/publications/ecbeurosystem-policy...

What did the UK ask of the EU before Brexit?

All I remember was Cameron asking to expel jobless immigrants, which confused the EU as Britain was already allowed to do that.

I think it was a ban on European migrants from sending benefits and particularly child benefit (some money you get from the state if you have kids) back to thier home country or something like that.

I remember Poland stopped us from getting it (supposedly).

The french didn't want us to exempt from financial regulation that was primarily targeted at the euro even though we use the pound.

Various nonsense, that people at the time felt strongly about (keeping the pound, not giving benefits and a council house to people as soon as they arrived, or some such exaggeration)

I don't get why the EU can't be just a big common market with free competition, open borders. Why do we even need lots of institutions, bureaucracy, directives on top of directives and quotas for farming and fishing?

The UK is no longer in the EU.