It wasn't just virtual.
"The Anglo-American Loan Agreement was a post World War II loan made to the United Kingdom by the United States on 15 July 1946, and paid off in 2006. The loan was negotiated by John Maynard Keynes. The loan was for $3.75 billion (US$57 billion in 2015) at a low 2% interest rate; Canada loaned an additional US$1.19 billion"
The interesting thing to consider is that although the repayment terms were generous given the general context of the Marshall Plan, the US should probably have had to go an extra mile given the UK's contribution of its Tube Alloys program [0]. This nascent R&D project was moved over to the US, expanded and upgraded - and nowadays we call it the Manhattan Project.
Churchill argued for a European super-state. He was the architect of several of the early steps towards European integration, such as the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights, and he wanted a European army.
He's pretty much one of the fathers of the EU.
He also at one point proposed outright union between the UK and France.
The important thing to consider, with respect to his United States of Europe speech though, is that when Churchill spoke of this, the UK still had an empire - it was a super-state, though one in decline, and the Commonwealth still meant something more than a loose association. He was speaking from a position where the UK was already "spoken for" so to speak.
Yet over the years afterwards he was one of the driving forces of European integration, including for the UK, but of course he did not see how far it was going.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_...
Yes, there was a democratic deficit in the original EU structure. It was addressed in the 2009 treaty, and it keeps getting addressed with more and more decision-making powers slowly moving from Commission to Parliament. But it's too late, people think Bruxelles decides banana sizes and we can't have that.
Unsurprisingly, who was among the first journalists starting the whole "crazy bruxelles" meme? One Boris Johnson.
so the statement is accurate
It's a logical fallacy to say that "the country's laws were decided by politicians the people did not elect.", when indeed they are elected by the people.
The UK has zero members in the EPP because the conservatives decided to go it alone; they still have votes, they've just decided to form their own parliamentary bloc, the AECR.
It's like Northen Irish people voting Sinn Fein were complaining that they don't actually sit in Westminster.
the situation is identical
Congratulations, you will see the United Kingdom disappear in your lifetime.
Though one could of course, consider this part of the ongoing aftershocks from WW2 which Britain never fully recovered from (i.e. final nail in the coffin of the Empire, its virtual indebtedness to the US), which led to what are probably the most US-like, capitalist-minded policies of the entire EU. Policies which, although making London the financial powerhouse it is, have undoubtedly alienated its rural areas, and have led to the referendum result we are seeing now.