I upvoted you, but I'm terribly sad about the outcome of the vote. The OP pointed out that one of the constituencies, that of farmers with a lot of ties to EU farm subsidies, voted LEAVE because "handouts don't inspire gratitude" or some-such. What can we do, then, if we don't understand what can be done to "bring a population along" while we figure out where they fit into the economic picture? I'm sad to the point of wanting to tear my teeth out. My mother was born in Darmstadt 6 weeks before Hitler invaded Poland. The notion of a post WWII Pax-Europeana has always seemed provisional to me at best.
If it weren't so ironic to say "fighting the last war" I'd say it. After all, isn't that what the EU is doing? Essentially, that is the program.
Nationalism was a disaster in 20th century Europe, but local interests will never disappear, and let's hope local culture never does either. Full unification would be boring and soul-less. The flip side of that coin is that when you have a variety of cultures maintaining their differences, it affects trade and all economic activity. The history of the use of the 'commerce clause' in the US is a good example. It was the "go to" law whenever the federal government wanted to control the states.
The EU has tried too hard and created the inevitable backlash. Can we have nation-states in loose affiliation without the goal of entwining them ever deeper? That may be the thing that some people are scared of the most.
