Believe this or not......the UK was the "sick man of Europe" before we joined......and our economy has grown once we joined and again shortly after the single market of goods in 1992....
"That is the EU effect that has transformed not just one car-parts manufacturer in Teesside but the UK economy as a whole"
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/202a60c0-cfd8-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377.html#axzz4AdfDFyRF
The growth effect
Britain joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973 as the
sick man of Europe. By the late 1960s, France, West Germany and Italy — the three founder members closest in size to the UK — produced more per person than it did and the gap grew larger every year. Between 1958, when the EEC was set up, and Britain’s entry in 1973, gross domestic product per head rose 95 per cent in these three countries compared with only 50 per cent in Britain.
After becoming an EEC member, Britain slowly began to catch up. Gross domestic product per person has grown faster than Italy, Germany and France in the 42 years since. By 2013, Britain became more prosperous than the average of the three other large European economies for the first time since 1965.
Professor Nauro Campos of Brunel University has estimated how Britain would have fared if it had not joined the common market. He and his colleagues found the best approximation to Britain’s pre-1973 economic performance to be a combination of New Zealand and Argentina, which like the UK fell behind the US and continental Europe.
During the next 40 years the UK economy outperformed those two countries by 23 per cent. According to the findings, Britain’s performance also surpassed the vast majority of 1,000 other combinations of countries whose record had previously resembled its own.
Such studies highlight two main periods when prosperity increased: in the 1970s, soon after the UK joined, and after the EU opened its single market in goods in 1992, a sea change in integration.
Speaking in his factory, Nifco UK’s Mr Matthews says that during his 28 years in the car parts business, Britain’s membership has made it dramatically easier to sell products across borders while pushing companies to become more productive. That is the EU effect that has transformed not just one car-parts manufacturer in Teesside but the UK economy as a whole.
It is a modern-day fact of economic life that Mr Matthews thinks the country should not turn its back on. He wonders why Britain would even contemplate leaving the EU. “You have enough challenges in business,” he says. “Why would you put yourself in a more difficult position?” One of the intriguing questions that will be answered on June 23 is whether such arguments — overwhelmingly backed by economists — will win the day.