FREEDOM!!!!

Despite my liberal tendencies I do have to dispute the 'evil and crazy' label pinned on the first use of nukes. At the time it was felt the only other way to end the war would be an invasion of Japan, with estimated casualties into the millions (modern estimates are actually higher than the historical estimates based on incomplete intelligence). Whether or not it was true that this was the only way to end the war or if the estimates were correct, it was seen as the less bloodthirsty alternative.

More debatable is whether the bombs should have been dropped on an island instead as a demonstration, or whether the second one was necessary. It has to be remembered that the US only had two bombs at the time, weren't completely sure they would work, so couldn't waste them or risk the chance of running out if the bluff was called. Japan was told it would face total destruction if it did not surrender. The decision was made ahead of time that if there was no surrender three days after the first bomb the next would be dropped in order to give the impression more bombs were on the way. The fact that the ultimatum was not in fact met after the first bomb makes it seem likely that a lesser demonstration may not have worked.

The Japanese war cabinet refused to surrender even after the second bomb was dropped; it was only a coalition of japanese doves in the court, worried about the emperor's life if Tokyo was bombed, that convinced the emperor to issue a proclamation that effectively overruled the war cabinet. There is every indication that if the phrase 'unconditional surrender' had been modified by language that would have allowed the Japanese to retain the position of emperor, they would have been more likely to surrender. In the end the position of emperor was retained, so it was clearly an error (perhaps even a political ploy for home support) to have not made it explicit earlier.

It is true that other diplomatic avenues were not explored at the time. The Russians were entering Siberia and the war was not going so well for Japan at the time. A panel requested by Truman after the war indeed thought it likely that Japan would eventually have surrendered without the bomb or invasion. But nobody knows if such efforts would have been successful, and after years of war few had patience for diplomacy. The regrettable thing is that several people at the time had the impression that granting the Japanese retention of the throne would have made the difference, but such a simple thing was overlooked by those who did not have as deep an understanding of the Japanese psyche.

Sorry Halfwise using nukes on civilians is evil.
In my view it had far more to do with the collapsing releations between the US and Russia than it did Japan. It was a demonstration and a warning- a stupid one as all it did was cause an arms race which has left us in the ridiculous positon of having enough firepower to blow ourselves up countless times over and leave behind a cinder for a planet and a weapon to dangerous and unpredictable to actually use but which costs a fortune to create and maintain.

I have never been convinced by the- it was the only way to end the war in Japan argument- that I am afraid has always seemed to me like US propoganda to justify to its own people an atrocity on a scale that remains unprecedented to this day. Its hard to admit you are the bad guys and have committed the worst atrocity in human history- the long terms effect of which are still ruining lives, causing mutations and generally still being evil.

Or to put it another way if Iran drops a nuke on New York to try to end war with the US- who have aggresively targeted Musilms and invaded Muslim countries- would it be seen as anything other than an evil act? Is there a conceivable moment even when it would be considered justified to target civilians with a nuke? I'd say no.

War is always evil. At the time they were not aware of nuclear fallout, so it was seen as a faster way with fewer deaths. Grisly calculus, but there it is. The great shame is that the importance of the status of the emperor was not taken into account, and the war could have been ended with almost no more lives lost. I can't understand why there was such a rush to use the bomb...and with more time a better understanding of the proper bargaining chips to use with the Japanese would likely have arisen.

Given the knowledge and beliefs of those who made the final decision (ultimately Truman) it was the lesser of two evils. The greater evil as you said was unleashing such power into the world at large, but the Manhattan project was in response to intelligence that German was at work on a bomb itself. There was no other way the allies could react to such intelligence but to win that particular race. I'm afraid nuclear bombs would have entered the world at some point anyway, it's just a question of time.

I completely agree Halfwise they would have been invented anyway- but we have had them since invention and the only people to use them is the US, and you lot dropped them on civilian cities. An atrocity of an unprecedented scale and an act of true evil.
I also think Americas growing fear of Communism cannot be underestimated and their desire to warn Russia off with a show of ultimate power was more important to the decision than ending the war in Japan- about which there were alternatives.
So for me the decision to drop the two nukes was a political one- the notion it was some terrible choice and the lesser of two evils is pure American propaganda.

In my opinion, any conversation that includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki ought to include Dresden.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

David H wrote:In my opinion, any conversation that includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki ought to include Dresden.

Dresden was much smaller in scale, but still horrific, and still largely an American action. But much less to justify it.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
I also think Americas growing fear of Communism cannot be underestimated and their desire to warn Russia off with a show of ultimate power was more important to the decision than ending the war in Japan- about which there were alternatives.
So for me the decision to drop the two nukes was a political one- the notion it was some terrible choice and the lesser of two evils is pure American propaganda.

I don't see evidence anywhere that the Russians were motivation for dropping the bombs. If anything under the circumstances they were a reason to hold off and see what would happen as Japan got more backed into a corner. Can you offer ANY evidence to back up your political assertion?

I think the reason no bomb has been dropped in the long decades since is partly the horror from the first bombs being dropped on civilians. That doesn't excuse it or make it any less evil, but I do think there's a significantly greater chance that the worse bombs that came later would have been used on civilians if the first ones hadn't produced such a shock to the world psyche.

Yes, dropping them was evil, but I don't think the decision making was of the same level as liquidation of the Jews. If instead Japan was invaded at the cost of a million lives, would you have been more or less critical? It was a tactical wartime decision, with absolutely no evidence of any political motivation. As I said before, the critical political motivation was refusing to mention retention of the emperor's status in the surrender demands.

Dresden is one of those who started it first questions.
According to the Brits it was the Germans who started bombing civilain targets delibretly first, occording to Germany it was the Brits, and the Blitz was no less an evil of war than Dresden.
But at least you can rebuild after something like that, the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still ongoing today, its still not ended.

And look at the lengths the US is willing to go to stop other nations even having a nuclear capability- quite hypocriitical considering how much of it the US has and with the US being the only country in history to actually be stupid/cruel enough to use them.
If any country should be barred from nuclear weapons its America, the only ones guilty of having used them.

Halfwise- I reccommend 'why America dropped the bomb- by Roanld Takaki- in which he explores bith Truemans racist attitudes towards Japanese, who had been delibretly dehumaised following the events of Pearl Harbour. And he also speaks of 'the “overriding concern” of managing the Soviet threat after the war. Takaki portrays government leaders as highly concerned with using their new weapon to frighten Stalin, keep the Soviet Union out of the Pacific theater, and demonstrate American power.'

And some quotes from several other sources ranging form wiki to historical analysis-

"Tensions were starting to build up in Europe between Soviet Union and its western allies. Since USSR had an overwhelming numerical superiority there, a show of force was needed to convince Stalin to "behave".

President Harry S. Truman dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima for one reason: not to end the war with Japan, but to intimidate Stalin, keep him out of the Pacific war, deny him a share of the peace that we
were going to impose on Japan. History shows there was probably not one single general officer in that war who approved of it, and they all went public very quickly to denounce their Commander-in-Chief.

During the war "annihilationist and exterminationalist rhetoric" was tolerated at all levels of US society; according to the UK embassy in Washington the Americans regarded the Japanese as "a nameless mass of vermin".

As the United States dropped its atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, 1.6 million Soviet troops launched a surprise attack on the Japanese forces occupying eastern Asia. "The Soviet entry into the war played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation", said
Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, whose recently published Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan is based on recently declassified Soviet archives as well as US and Japanese documents.

Theres loads more on the subject, its not that hard to hunt down with a google search.

Some more quotes:

Soviet Marshal Georgii Zhukov-


I do not recall the exact date, but after the close of one of the formal meetings Truman informed Stalin that the United States now possessed a bomb of exceptional power, without, however, naming it the atomic bomb. As was later written abroad, at that moment Churchill fixed his gaze on Stalin's face, closely observing his reaction. However, Stalin did not betray his feelings and pretended that he saw nothing special in what Truman had imparted to him. Both Churchill and many other Anglo-American authors subsequently assumed that Stalin had really failed to fathom the significance of what he had heard. In actual fact, on returning to his quarters after this meeting Stalin, in my presence, told Molotov about his conversation with Truman. The latter reacted amost immediately. "Let them. We'll have to talk it over with Kurchatov and get him to speed things up."I realized that they were talking about research on the atomic bomb.
It was clear already then that the US Government intended to use the atomic weapon for the purpose of achieving its Imperialist goals from a position of strength in "the cold war." This was amply corroborated on August 6 and 8. Without any military need whatsoever, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the peaceful and densely-populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

John Cooper(historian)- Truman hoped to end the war as soon as possible without paying Stalin too high a price for the Soviet Union's intervention.
The United States most certainly considered Russia a factor in the early development of the atomic bomb: “There was never from about two weeks from the time I [Groves] took charge of this Project any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy….”

Furthermore Chairman of the OSRD (Atomic Energy Executive Committee) wrote that the “major consideration must be that of national security and postwar strategic significance” (Sherwin, 80). From the earliest stages of the atomic bomb's development politicians were considering its postwar significance.

Roosevelt had not kept Truman informed of his foreign policy; therefore, when Truman became president he lacked his own foreign policy, and consequently adopted the foreign policy of his advisors. In describing how Truman’s policy was shaped Kissinger said, "Soviet policies were explained to Truman in inherent bad faith model. [It is] clearly self-perpetuating for the model itself denies the existence of data that could disconfirm it” (Sherwin, 153). From the earliest outset Truman's advisors painted the Soviet Union in the worst possible light.
Additionally, it was the belief of Stimson, Truman and Byrnes that only after the power of the atomic bomb was shown would the Soviet Union become accepting of America’s point of view and territorial objectives (Sherwin, 194). Truman’s advisors convinced him that if the atomic bomb was used the Soviet Union, an enemy, might be kept at bay. "

I am rather curious now Halfwise as to what you were taught in school on the matter- as I learned all this stuff in Higher History when I was in my teens. I am somewhat shocked and perturbed that US history seems to have whitewashed the political Soviet dimension from the history books.

Funny how slight changes in search wording can produce very different results. If you put "decision to bomb....." you get Truman's casualty numbers claim, if you put "was bombing justified..." you get more of the backstory.

For me what has convinced me that you may be closer to the historical truth Petty, is the finding that Japan had actually tried many times to surrender through various channels. They also considered the conventional bombing of Tokyo to be more significant than Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I retract my previous arguments as based largely on propaganda - though I don't think the propaganda is entirely untrue. If there was an invasion the numbers would likely hold up, but Truman was clearly ignoring the many attempts at diplomatic surrender offered to him. The propaganda is that the Bomb was the quickest path to that surrender.

In response to what is taught in history, I would say American history at the time was whitewashed about half as much as Soviet history was, which puts about 40% of it as bunk. I think it's better now than it was 30 years ago during the cold war.

Learning about the political side of it I remember seemed very important to me at the time- it explained why I was living under the threat of instant annihialtion every day (what with a US nuclear base in my village and being no1 on the Soviet nuclear war target list).
Talking about this has put me in mind of something which happened when I was about 11. We had a rare event for round here- an earthquake- only about 2-3 on the richter scale. It was a pleasant summers day and I rushed out into the garden, my neighbour across the road had likewise rushed out of their house and I said "That was an earthquake" to which she replied "Dont be bloody stupid." I remember, as you do as a kid when an adult says something like that to you, feeling very small and stupid, but with adult reflection I can see that what caused her uncharacteristicly harsh response was fear.
The earthquake had set off every alarm on the naval base including on the ship and nuclear sub dock. And on a loch surrounded by hills that noise carries for miles, and was clear as a bell. The whole place had gone on red alert and I quickly realised as more people came out their houses that what they thought was happening was the begining of the end- the three minute warning- this was it nuclear armageddon and we were first in line for it.
A terrifying moment when you're 11. I remember looking around from my garden at the houses, the people, the hills surrounding, the lambs and sheep in the fields and seeing it all blackened and turned to ash.
Of course it was just a rare earthquake and not the end of the world- but for a bit there it felt like it was.

I miss having the Americans here but I dont miss the sense of constant threat and impending doom that came with them.

Your earthquake story brings back a memory for me.

In May of 1980 I'd been studying for final exams without much sleep for days. To get caught up on sleep I decided to sleep in until the sun was up on Sunday the 18th. I woke up and looked at the clock and was confused to see that, although it was as black as any midnight, the clock claimed it was 11:30 AM! I was really confused, wondering if I could possibly have slept for almost 24 hours, but that didn't make sense. So I walked to the window and looked out.

The sky was black and solid, like inverted mountain ranges, like a black moon was hanging 200 feet over our heads, illuminated from below by the streetlights, ready to crush us against the earth like bugs under a shoe. I really can't describe it. We were about 50 miles east of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation where much of the research and testing for the US nuclear arsenal had been done, so because of all our cold war training my first thought was, "F***!, they've blown us up! The world is about to see what "Mutually Assured Destruction" looks like. F***!

(Fortunately it was just that Mount Saint Helens had exploded without warning. We were under the debris plume and about to be buried by ash... )

And speaking of bombs and Mutually Assured Destruction, have you all seen "The Fog of War", the interview with Robert McNamara, the inventor of the seat belt and "Mutually Assured Destruction"? If not you need to. I know of nothing that explains the Cold War better. It's chilling stuff, especially his inside take on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here are a couple random quotes:

LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

___________

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

____________

What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning.
______

Were those who issued the approval to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity? Let's look at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these chemicals are acceptable for use in war and these chemicals are not. We don't have clear definitions of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an illegal action. I'm not really sure I authorized Agent Orange. I don't remember it, but it certainly occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary.

I kinda figgered you for the type of dude who would be on hand for the Mt St Helens eruption. The only thing wrong with the picture is you didn't hitchhike in.

I like McNamara's concept of not doing anything unilaterally. Have to put some caveats in there, but it's a good principle.

McNamara's numbers on conventional bombing of Japan shows why the dropping of the atomic bombs was not evil by measure of use of force - perhaps the intentions were ignoble but it wasn't a quantum leap in the death count. (ease of use is the main difference). The Japanese themselves claim it's not what got them to surrender. A modern bomb is a different story.

I imagined Dave on the back of a grey horse hightailing it outta there.

The weird thing is back in the cold war days you used to hear the question: 'if you only had 3 minutes left to live what would you do?' being asked all the time.
And people always gave exciting answers- having seen the truth the more mundane answer is people stand about in a daze not knowing what to do for 3 minutes!

Trust you Dave to end up under an exploding volcano- what do you do for an encore surf the lava?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
what do you do for an encore surf the lava?

What? Is PJ going to be "adapting" my life now?

Mrs Figg wrote:I imagined Dave on the back of a grey horse hightailing it outta there.

I wouldn't have made a horse do anything in that ash, Mrs Figg, though every horse would have been grey.

The mountain erupted again the next weekend, May 25, when i was supposed to graduate.

My family had come over from the west side of the state to see me graduate, but in the middle of the ceremony the president of the college interrupted to say that everybody from the other side of the mountains should leave instantly or be prepared to stay for a week. The ash was closing all the mountain passes through the Cascades at that moment, but the highway down the Columbia River Gorge was expected to be open for a few hours more. I threw off my robes, grabbed a few things and jumped into the car with my dad, mom, brother and sister. We made it down the river, but as we got closer to Portland Oregon we were driving through heavier and deeper ash. It made everything look colorless and covered everything.



The road could only be recognized by the contour of the land. We drove at about 10 miles per hour because of the reduced visibility. The car stirred up so much dust that we couldn't see out the side windows. Only by 2 people people watching forward could you see where you were going. Imagine driving in a heavy snow storm of the finest grey baking flower, with all the filters choking and dust working in through all the cracks, shirts pulled up over your nose and mouth to help breathe.

Interstate 5 was closed north of Portland, but my Dad "accidentally" turned off on a surface road that happened to go around the police roadblock, and when we pulled back on again there was no way they could catch us. The dust cloud we kicked up at 10 mph was so thick that we couldn't see any flashing lights behind us, and they couldn't see well enough to stay on the road when they got within a 100 yards of us..... Eventually it became clear that nobody was following us anymore. For the next 70 miles we were completely alone on a 6 lane highway driving through a moonscape with not a single sight of a living creature. It felt like our family were the last humans on earth!

I suspect I may have led a rather dull life incomparison David- still buckie doesnt travel well, not inside me anyway , so its probably just as well.

Some Independence news- theres a row been going on for a while over what will happen to Scotland in the EU if we go independent- the SNP have always maintained that we would not have to reapply to join - Unionists have been saying yes we would and that means we'd have to accept the euro as well- which of course is pretty toxic right now.
To further complicate things the SNP have been giving the impression, without quite ever saying it, that they had sought legal advice on the position and it supported their contention. In reality they had sought no advice at all- the legal advice they had referred to was the general legal scrutiny all official government documents go through before publication, including the documents making the claim that we would not need to reapply.
All this came out when a freeedom of information request by hostile journalists was blocked by the government- the journalists took it to court and the SNP fought revealing what advice they had or not, before it came out they hadnt actually sought any specific legal advice on this at all.
That sounds shader than it is- as the Ministerial Code, which applies all across the UK says a government cannot reveal the legal advice it receives, or even admit if it has any (this is to protect those giving the advice so they will be free to give it candidily and not politically). So the SNP couldnt answer the question without breaking the code.

Now a UK government document has surfaced which completely supports the SNP position, depsite the Unionists claiming the opposite all this time. In a written submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee looking at Scots independence Graham Avery, an Honorary Director General of the EC, said -
""For practical and political reasons the idea of Scotland leaving the EU, and subsequently applying to join it, is not feasible. From the practical point of view, it would require complicated temporary arrangements for a new relationship between the EU (including the rest of the UK) and Scotland (outside the
EU) including the possibility of controls at the frontier with England. Neither the EU (including the rest of the UK) nor Scotland would have an interest in creating such an anomaly. From the political point of view, Scotland has been in the EU for 40 years; and its people have acquired rights as European citizens.
If they wish to remain in the EU, they could hardly be askedm to leave and then reapply for membership in the same way as the people of a non-member country such as Turkey.
The point can be illustrated by considering another example: if a break-up of Belgium were agreed between Wallonia and Flanders, it is inconceivable that other EU members would require 11 million people to leave the EU and then reapply for membership."

Add to this that the EU says it will look at the legal situation and offer advice 'if there is a request to do so from a member state".
Scotland however is not a member state- the UK is and the UK government say -
"The UK government does not obtain its legal advice from the European Commission. We are clear that we are not pre-negotiating the terms of separation from the UK ahead of the referendum. It is the Scottish
government's policy on independence which is causing this uncertainty and they should be prepared to deal with the many questions it raises."

So they accuse the SNP of not asking for advice they cant ask for anyway, then say its causing uncertainy becuase we dont have an official EU answer, whilst at the same time they refuse to ask for it themselves when they are the only ones who are allowed to!


All of this of course needs a bit of rooting about and following politics to get to- what the Toruies are hoping is that the claim 'Salmond lied about EU advice' and generaly implying we will need to adopt the Euro will be all most voters hear, despite the fact they know its not actually true on either count.

I was very disappointed in this- an editorial from the 30 of oct in the Washington Post- a paper I always thought was well known for quality journalism-

'DOES IT make sense for Scotland to become an independent nation, ending 300 years of union with England and Wales? And would it make any difference to Americans?The answer to the second question is an unfortunate yes: An independent Scotland would significantly weaken the foremost military and diplomatic ally of the United States, while creating another European mini-state unable to contribute meaningfully to global security. Scottish leader Alex Salmond, who on Oct. 15 sealed an agreement with British Prime Minister David Cameron to hold a referendum on Scottish independence by the end of 2014, says his would-be country would withdraw from NATO, expel British nuclear submarines from its waters and keep an army of 8,000-10,000 soldiers. Though the population of Scotland, at 5.2 million, is less than 10 percent of that of the United Kingdom, some speculate that what remained of Britain could lose its seat on the U.N. Security Council.'

Ok some problems here- first it contains factually incorrect information- most importantly the line- 'his would-be country would withdraw from NATO'- which is completely untrue- only the week before this editorial at the SNP party conference they voted to remain a member of NATO if independence was gained, just without the nukes here (28 other members of NATO also dont have nukes).
Also the line 'unable to contribute meaningfully to global security'- presumably becuase we wont have nukes- as there a myriad of examples of European member states contirbuting forces to peace keeping from Kosovo to Afghanistan.

"Whether Scotland would benefit from separation is a closer call; but for now, polls show that most Scots don’t think so. Mr. Salmond’s cheerful assurances that Scotland could quickly join the European Union while retaining the British pound as its currency remain to be tested; London would have a veto over both."

Again see the above post for why the comments on joining the EU and the euro are inaccurate. And if London were to veto anything like this it would be as well just giving us independence as such an action would go down very, very badly indeed.

"British Prime Minister David Cameron, who strongly opposes the split, may have managed to undermine the movement when he refused to allow a second referendum question on greater Scottish autonomy within Britain —the option that most of the population seems to favor."

This is simply nieve thinking and a lack of political knowledge- Cameron made a tactical error in not allowing a second question would have split the SNP vote. And since when did going against the most popular choice of the people when offering them choices to vote on ever go down well?

"To be sure, a more local government can be more efficient, more democratic and more attuned to citizens’ interests. But the more fragmented Europe becomes, the less it will be able to use its collective strength on the global stage, both in military and diplomatic terms."

This is the opposite of the actual trend in Europe which is for ever closer political and social ties and hemogeny. Europe acting internationally with one voice would be considerably more formidable than the previous situation of disparate states all saying different things.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of Americans weighing in to criticize the idea of Scottish independence and I'm not sure why they seem to think it's any of our business. Nor do I understand why they paint Cameron refusing the second question as a victory. It should be obvious that that would have split the vote in Scotland considering that devo-max is quite popular. I guess they assume that devo-max proponents are more likely to side with Union than Independence if forced to choose, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

No, nor to most commentators here- they even use a very offensive term to describe us as a 'would-be country'- we ARE a country. Scotland is part of a political Union of countries with England and Northern Ireland.
This doesnt seem so much an editorial as it does a rehash of a Tory govenrment memo on scare tactics- the claim about the oil is another ridiculous one- no one is claiming we wouldnt have 90% of the oil fields, you only have to look at a map to see they are in Scottish water and the new fileds planned are even further north than exisiting ones.

If the Washington Post think its such a good idea to be ruled from London why dont they start campaining to give up 4th July and seek reacceptance to the UK?
Odd they will celebrate their own independence from Britain but are against us having the same thing.

I wonder if part of the bias is that because the US is such a huge country as well as a massive national ego. I often get the sense that part of the reason so many Americans believe we're the greatest country in the world is because we're one of the biggest. Part of me suspects that many Americans think Scottish independence would make both Scotland and the UK worse off because they'd be smaller (and therefore weaker and less important in certain worldviews).

That's just speculation, though.

Of course therer is the question of do we want to be important- important countries have a lot of expense and hardship to bear- wars all the time as well.
I rather fancy being a small uinimportant country not bothering, or being botehred by anyone else for awhile.
We can go back to what we used to do- drinking buckie, having mad ideas at 3am in the morning and inventing and discovering really cool stuff for the whole world to benefit from, you know like; anaesthitics, antisepsis, artificial diamonds, agruicultural reaping machine, bakelite, the Bank of England (I know, the irony), latent heat, brownian motion, buicks US cars, colloid chemistry, chemical bonds, cure for scurrvy, encycopedia britannica, fax machines, first cloned mammal, flailing machines, golf, halloween, the histroiccal novel (Walter Scott), hypodermic syringes, iron bridges, kelvin temperature scale, percussion power (in guns), logarithms, maxwell's equations in electromagnetism, marmalade, macintosh raincoats, tarmac roads, penicillin, postcards, paraffin, hollow-pipe drainage, refrigerators, quinine (malaria treatment), the steam engine, the steam hammer, stereotype (in type setting for print), sulphiric acid, the telephone, thermos flasks, telegraphs, television, tubular steel, breech-loading rifle, the Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, Long John Silver, Jekyll and Hyde, Auld Lang Syne, paleobiology, polarisation of light, US Navy (yup that too- founded by Scot John Paul Jones), Navy of Chile (Thomas, Lord Cochrane), The WEealth of Nations- the first book on global economics, oh and of course whisky. (And I may have missed a few hundred out for the sake of brevity).