Which was entirely fair considering that extremely significant, costly parts of the EU structure and policies are essentially special conditions to other countries. The Common Agricultural Policy was/is basically a free fund of N billion EUR/year to France.

It all goes back to the fact that the entire EU has grown out of what was ultimately a deal between France and Germany, which has always left the UK out as the other one of Europe's big 3 countries. In fact France even blocked the UK from joining at all in the first place.