回复：Good analysis!

A comaprision of GDP (in terms of official exchange) is meanless, because such evaluation does respect the real economic state of these nations. There is a good point that Germany has strong manufacture sector in the world, suggesting that Germany is the foundation of EU. However, UK is much weaker in good production except for few areas, thus it is not an essential for the relationship of a world-class nation. If there is no a strong link with US, there is no doubt that UK has no place in this world.