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Originally Posted by Bri
Even if the UK were outside the EU, trade is likely to continue as normal. It's more about regulation concerning the labor and financial markets. The UK would stand to lose a lot of weight in the UN, WTO etc. when they can no longer represent and influence the common market.
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The choice between the UK and EU is a tricky one. Ireland already chooses to be part of the Common Travel Area with Britain rather then join the Schengen agreement, and Ireland only joined the EU at the same the UK did. My feeling would be that if Ireland had the choice to either share the same set of standards with the UK, or with Europe, the obvious choice would be the UK. However it's all quite tricky...
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My guess is that the Irish republic would stand a good chance to build their own 'special relationship' with the US as the only remaining native English speakers in the EU, and probably benefit from more foreign investment.
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To be fair we already do that (your tourists create our jobs!), with many US companies headquartered in Ireland, and fairly few in the UK. I doubt that would increase or decrease if Ireland stayed in the EU and the UK didn't.
Of course, that "special relationship" doesn't seem to have done much good over the last 4 years. Most of the jobs are too high level to go to our legions of unemployed...