actually the uk used its veto 9 times when it was available, part of the issue was that it could only be used over certain matters and in particular not over the budget or the common agricultural policy which was a particular gripe of successive governments as the french effectively ran the cap as its own private bank for its farmers.
also when the uk joined the eu it had to adopt eu rules regarding trade with the commenwealth and deals with carribean countries and new zealand in particular were badly affected as they had to fall in line with french interests in the carribean and european lamb producers. so where we had previously dealt with the commonwealth on very favourable terms they had to change.