if Britain would leave the EU

The Left should be leading the charge to smash the EU and other continental structures that impede popular sovereignty. The EU is an anti-democratic monstrosity.

In fact one of the main reasons why the UK Conservative Party did so badly in that era was their preoccupation with infighting over the single currency.

At present the main force dominating debate on Europe in Britain is the UK Independence party. A hard-right group whose main cause is withdrawal from the EU.

Kick them out now.

Celts, of course, free to choose.

As much as I opposed the nearly 800 billion spent on TARP and the bailout for AIG in the United States, the point is the United States provided a unified and somewhat rapid answer to the major problem facing the US economy. On the other hand, the ECB and the European Union struggled to find a solution that all member states were happy with. Deals had to be cut between member states, and positions kept changing.

With the British, they were the only big player who had the luxury of control of their own currency under the British Pound, and they didn't have to worry about a member state borrowing recklessly against the common currency, unlike other mainland powers such as Germany or France in relation to Greece. It must've been somewhat disconcerting watching all their neighbors across the channel constantly bickering over whether there will be a bailout, and when a bailout was agreed to, there would be arguments over how big it should be and in what form and stipulations it would have.

you're almost certainly correct - the EU, both as specific institutions and as an idea - has taken a fearful battering over the problems with the Euro currency: the whiff of incompetance, denial and 'goal-post shifting' (there have been nearly 20 'make or break', 'last chance' summits held to deal with it over the past 4 years, and each one kicks the problem down the road while claiming to have solved the crisis - a delusion which lasts about 2 days...) has meant that 'the EU' has cemented its reputation for dithering incompetence.

its also been illustrative that the vaunted 'structures' of the EU that were supposed to manage and 'referee' the competing and divergent interests of all the member states have been completely bypassed by the reality of power politics - Germany and the northern European states hold the purse strings, and what they have said, regardless of what the structures should have done, or not done, has gone, while the southern European states have been placed fully at the bottom of the food chain.

the Euro-scepticism is no surprise - Europe has not covered itself in glory, the Euro has been shown to have potentially catastrophic weaknesses, Europe has reverted to old-style power politics, and what has saved the UK has been its ability to restict its liabilities and print money to pay for them. in such circumstances, you'd be a fool for not not breathing a sigh of relief and saying 'thank Christ for that...'.