It amazes me that we end up having to build joint aircraft these days which will always be a compromise on what the U.K. wants as it has to meet the other countries requirements as well, when the likes of Sweden can produce in house some cracking aircraft that meet their countries requirements.
We don't have to... as I've written in another recent thread, it is a
choice which suits industry (by making cancellation much harder) and suits the Whitehall establishment (some of whom see international collaboration as an end in itself, and others gladly share R&D costs for short term budgetary reasons). Michael Heseltine was reported to have said in relation to Eurofighter something along the lines of 'I don't care what you build, so long as it's a collaboration'. Military capability comes a distant third place and even when it does secure an occasional 'win' as with JSF, the industry/Whitehall machine fights back over time, as seen in the ongoing debate over whether we will get our intended 138 F-35s or plough money into an internationalised Tempest instead. The phrase 'military-industrial complex' does not accurately describe the dynamic in the UK, IMHO; it overstates the military's influence.