We need to move away from the notion that time should be a matter of political, commercial or social convenience. Instead we should concentrate on the fact that time should be related to geographical location. Otherwise we might as well make the entire world a single time zone and people could simply vary what they do at different times of the day dependent upon where they are. (People in the Australia might find themselves going to bed at 10am, for example). Except, of course, we expect it to be daylight around the time we get up and dark around the time we go to bed (shift workers excepted).
This means that time should vary by an hour every fifteen degrees of longitude (again, as far as practically possible) so the zone based around zero degrees longitude (7.5 degrees W to 7.5 degrees E) is the most appropriate for the UK and Ireland. (Lowestoft in the East is 1.75 degrees E, Galway towards the western extremity is 9 degrees W). It is also appropriate for Portugal which lies between about four and nine degrees W. Strangely it is also the most appropriate zone for almost all of Spain (9.5 degrees W to 3 degrees E) and France (Strasbourg on its eastern extremity is 7.7 degrees E).
The time zone centred on 15 degrees East (the “Central European Time” which it is suggested we adopt) is the most appropriate for places no further west than 7.5 degrees E (as far as practical). Since this excludes all of Spain and almost all of France there is, if anything, a strong argument for those countries to adopt “Western European” time as we have in the UK.