Perhaps, don't?
If you can't take the people of a democracy with you on a project, perhaps it's best not to try and build such a thing anyway, and then end up with a hack?
On the rest - I would come to a similar state but from a different direction full autonomy for small democratic units, who voluntarily delegate some authority rather than get granted powers from "above"
But the EU now already exists and the UK has been so insistent on having a special status that Europeans have gotten used to the idea of the UK not "really" being in it despite being just another European country like the rest of us.
It's okay.
You can leave.
We no longer need you for the EU to be able to exist.
We tried to accommodate you and make it work but we've understood that the feelings aren't mutual.
We'll still keep in touch with your extended family, though, and maybe over the next two years we can find a way that you can still come over to party sometimes, or y'know, just hang out if you feel like it.
No hard feelings.
Don't be a stranger.
The UK's attempt to join the (forerunner to the) EU was vetoed multiple times, by France. Your first sentence about how the EU "always wanted to have the UK on board" is factually and historically false. It never needed the UK to exist and it doesn't need it now.
As for "no hard feelings", tell that to your politicians, not us. Because they seem to think most so-called Europeans want the opposite.
Bon Chance!
48% of Brits, 62% of Scots don't feel that way.
And literally no one in the UK voted for what the government is currently doing or how shittily it is treating it's EU partner governments or EU guests living in the UK.
We'll be back, hopefully less arrogant the next time.
I think that's a fair description of how these things tend to work. Your only mistake is the assumption that because it's very silly nobody would actually use it, let alone that it wouldn't be incredibly widespread.
But as for the list, the EU came into being after WW2 so the USSR was out, Austria was politically irrelevant and Spain was a fascist dictatorship. Plus Turkey is on the other side of the Black Sea and the Greek really don't like them.
The people have consistently voted for parties that wanted at least this level of integration. The problem has been that people disagree about how far to go, not that there has not been support for tighter integration.
Often to get from one local maxima to a higher local maxima you end up with options in between that are worse in various ways. Doesn't mean there aren't people who prefer to get there even if they're unable to get enough support to go further.
> On the rest - I would come to a similar state but from a different direction full autonomy for small democratic units, who voluntarily delegate some authority rather than get granted powers from "above"
That's how we got the EU.
I agree, the people have voted for parties that had these policies. The problem is, people vote for the same two (occasionally three or four) parties regardless, and then expect them to change. Somewhat silly!
Considering it was never intended to be a state, I think your argument belies the source of the complaints..
Churchill's efforts were a major factor in the establishment of the Council of Europe (not EU), and the European Court of Human Rights (CoE; not EU) and what became the EEC/EU.
So while many people involved also did not want to go all the way, historically the origin of the EU includes a lot of people who went into it with the explicit goal of eventually turning it into a state.
A core principle ever since the Treaty of Rome in 1957 has been to create "an ever closer union". You can't do that without eventually ending up with a state.
As for Britain's involvement in establishing the Council of Europe, I've heard Brits joke that Britain created the EU to keep the continent busy, not to be a part of it.
Edit: Replied to the wrong comment. :(
E.g. Switzerland's recent attempts to curtail freedom of movement.
The result was basically a giant hack on top of the existing systems by leveraging the authority that the member state governments have to act as agents of their state in carrying out their duties under treaties.
More and more power has been handed to the EU Parliament with various treaty changes etc., but there is a limit there in that ultimately without enshrining the power of the EU Parliament in the member states constitutions, it is impossible to cede the kind of power vested in the member state governments to the EU Parliament.
So the irony is that a lot of the centralisation of power in EU organs is a result of opposition to further integration. Pretty much nobody likes the current structure of the EU. The problem is people dislike it different reasons: Some because they want the power handed back to the individual states. Some because they want a federalised EU or similar.
The irony there is that Brexit might end up a catalyst for tighter integration, because the UK has been one of the biggest brakes on that process.
> I look at Switzerland and Iceland with envy - the people can achieve change there. The USA, EU, even UK? Not so much.
I don't agree with this. There are policy areas we can't easily change unilaterally, sure. But at the same time, when a change is agreed there is far more power behind it. Some policies only make sense to make at large scale, some makes to push down as far as possible. Ideally I'd like to see the end of modern day nation states through devolution of as much power as possible. But some decisions will still need to be taken at a higher level.
As it stands, in the UK there is still plently of power at the local level, and while I am very upset at Brexit, the UK at least has one thing going for it in an ongoing long lasting process of gradually devolving more and more power to local councils and regions.